Part 3 (1/2)

'We agreed that you would store them for him. Why did you send them to the hospital?'

Though I didn't recognise the marbles, I do recognise some of the other boxes' contents as items we packed away from Dad's apartment before putting it on the market. I still feel guilty that we had to do this, but we needed to raise as much money as possible for his rehabilitation. We tried to keep all the precious memories safe, like his lucky football s.h.i.+rt, his photographs and mementos, which I have in our shed in the back garden, the only place I could store them. I didn't have room for the rest, so Mum took them.

'Sabrina, I was going to store his boxes, but then Mickey Flanagan offered to take them and so I sent him everything.'

'Mickey Flanagan, the solicitor, had Dad's private things?' I say, annoyed.

'He's not exactly a random stranger. He's a kind of friend. He was Fergus's solicitor for years. Handled our divorce too. You know, he pushed for Fergus to get sole custody of you. You were fifteen what the h.e.l.l would Fergus have done with you at fifteen? Not to mention the fact you didn't even want to live with me at fifteen. You could barely live with yourself. Anyway, Mickey was handling the insurance and hospital bills, and he said he'd store Fergus's things, he had plenty of s.p.a.ce.'

A bubble of anger rises in me. 'If I'd known his solicitor was taking his personal things, I would have had them, Mum.'

'I know. But you said you had no s.p.a.ce for anything more.'

Which I didn't and I don't. I barely have s.p.a.ce for my shoes. Aidan jokes that he has to step outside of the house in order to change his mind.

'So why did Mickey send the boxes to the hospital this morning?'

'Because Mickey had to get rid of them and I told him that was the best place for them. I didn't want to clutter you with them. It's a sad story really: Mickey's son lost his house and he and his wife and kids have to move in with Mickey and his wife. They're bringing all their furniture, which has to be stored in Mickey's garage, and he said he couldn't keep Fergus's things any more. Which is understandable. So I told him to send them to the hospital. They're Fergus's things. He can decide what to do with them. He's perfectly capable of that, you know. I thought he might enjoy it,' she adds gently, as I'm sure she can sense my frustration. 'Imagine the time it will pa.s.s for him, going down memory lane.'

I realise I'm holding my breath. I exhale.

'Did you discuss this walk down memory lane with his doctors first?'

'Oh,' she says suddenly, realising. 'No. I didn't, I ... oh dear. Is he okay, love?'

I sense her sincere concern. 'Yes, I got to them before he did.'

'I'm sorry, I never thought of that. Sabrina, I didn't tell you because you would have insisted on taking everything and cluttering your house with things you don't need and taking too much on like you always do when it's not necessary. You've enough on your plate.'

Which is also true.

I can't blame her for wanting to rid herself of Dad's baggage, he's not her problem any more and ceased being so seventeen years ago. And I believe that she was doing it for my own good, not wanting to weigh me down.

'So did you know he had a marble collection?' I ask.

'Oh, that man!' Her resentment for the other Fergus returns. The past Fergus. The old Fergus. 'Found among other pointless collections, I'm sure. Honestly, that man was a h.o.a.rder remember how full the skip was when we sold the apartment? He used to bring those sachets of mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise home every day from whenever he ate out. I had to tell him to stop. I think he was addicted. You know they say that people who h.o.a.rd have emotional issues. That they're holding on to all of those things because they're afraid of letting go.'

It goes on and I allow 90 per cent of it to wash over me, including the habit of referring to Dad in the past tense as though he's dead. To her, the man she knew is dead. She quite likes the man she visits in the hospital every fortnight.

'We had an argument about a marble once,' she says, bitterly.

I think they had a fight about just about everything at least once in their lives.

'How did that come about?'

'I can't remember,' she says too quickly.

'But you never knew he had a marble collection?'

'How would I know?'

'Because you were married to him. And because I didn't pack them up, so you must have.'

'Oh please, I can't be called to account for anything he has done since we separated, nor during our marriage for that matter,' she spouts.

I'm baffled.

'Some of the items are missing,' I say, looking at them all laid out on the floor. The more I think about it, and hearing that they were in the possession of his solicitor, the more suspicious I am becoming. 'I'm not suggesting Mickey Flanagan stole them,' I say. 'I mean, Dad could have lost them.'

'What's missing?' she asks, with genuine concern. The man she divorced was an imbecile, but the nice man in rehabilitation must not be wronged.

'Part of his marble collection.'

'He's lost his marbles?' She laughs. I don't. She finally catches her breath. 'Well, I don't think your dad had ever anything to do with marbles, dear. Perhaps it's a mistake, perhaps they're not your father's, or Mickey delivered the wrong boxes. Do you want me to call him?'

'No,' I say, confused. I look on the floor and see pages and pages covered in Dad's handwriting, cataloguing these marbles, and yet Mum seems to genuinely know nothing.

'The marbles are definitely his and the missing items were valuable.'

'By his own estimation, I'm guessing.'

'I don't know who valued them, but there are certificates to show they're authentic. The certs for the missing marbles aren't here. The inventory says one item was worth up to twelve thousand dollars.'

'What?' she gasps. 'Twelve thousand for marbles!'

'One box of marbles.' I smile.

'Well no wonder he almost went bankrupt. They weren't mentioned as a.s.sets in the divorce.'

'He mightn't have had them then,' I say quietly.

Mum talks like I haven't spoken at all, the conspiracy theories building in her head, but there's one question she's failed to ask. I didn't pack them and she didn't know about them, but somehow they found their way to the rest of Dad's belongings.

I take Mickey's office details from her and end the call.

The marble collection covers the entire floor. They are beautiful, twinkling from the carpet like a midnight sky.

The house is quiet but my head is now buzzing. I pick up the first batch of marbles on the list. The box of bloodies that I showed to Dad, listed as 'Allies'.

I start to polish them. Kind of like an apology for not ever knowing about them before.

I have a knack for remembering things that people forget and I now know something important about Dad that he kept to himself, which he has forgotten. Things we want to forget, things we can't forget, things we forgot we'd forgotten until we remember them. There is a new category. We all have things we never want to forget. We all need a person to remember them just in case.

I was supposed to be keeping my eye on Bobby. That's exactly what Ma said when she left the house, in her usual threatening tone. 'You keep your eye on him, you hear? Don't. Take. Your. Eye. Off. Him.' Every word a prod in the chest with her dry cracked finger.

I promised. I meant it. When she's looking at you like that you really mean whatever you're saying.

But then I got distracted.

For some reason Ma trusted me with keeping my eye on him. It might have been something to do with the little chat we had about Victoria when the others were at school and we got to play the marble game together. I think she's been different to me since then. Maybe not, maybe it's all in my head, maybe it's just that it's different to me. I'd never seen her play like that before; a bit with the babies, but not down on the floor like she was with me, skirt hooshed up, her knees on the carpet. I think Hamish has noticed it too. Hamish notices everything and maybe that makes me a bit more cool to him too Ma trusting me with things and not slapping the head off me as much as she usually would. Or maybe she's like this with me because she's grieving. I learned about grieving from a priest. I might have done that after Da died but I can't remember. I think it's just for adults.