All the Lost Girls by Bilinda P. Sheehan

Author:Bilinda P. Sheehan [Sheehan, Bilinda P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BS Press
Published: 2019-06-23T22:00:00+00:00

30

“Jesus, that was harsh,” Ronan said, scrubbing his hands back through his hair, causing it to stand to attention.

I said nothing as I climbed silently into the passenger seat. I waited for him to start the car. He didn’t say anything else as he started the engine and we drove out onto the road.

The countryside whipped past and I kept my gaze trained on the horizon, my fingers curling and uncurling into fists as we took a turn a little too fast for my comfort.

I was no stranger to grief. Spend long enough in the job and you get to witness first hand the raw unchecked emotions that came to those loved ones left behind. Knowing all of this never made any of it easier and watching Mrs McCarthy fly off the handle today at her only remaining daughter had been a lesson in keeping my tongue in check. No one, not even Alice would have thanked me for intervening on her behalf.

I’d seen families torn apart by loss, forced to watch the disintegration of relationships in real time as the case progressed. The only difference with the McCarthy’s was that the disintegration had already occurred long before I’d ever made it to their living room. From what little I knew of Alice, she’d moved away as soon as she was old enough to strike out on her own. It had been she who had dogged the Gardaí over her sister’s disappearance. Her parents had taken a backseat, letting her chase and cajole, plead and threaten, with the powers that be, all so her sister could be categorised among the ranks of the missing. It couldn’t have been easy for her. When you looked into her eyes, you could almost see the toll her sister’s loss had taken on her. Pain and guilt, a nasty combination for anyone to bear but she hid it well. She was probably the type to bury it deep inside, keeping it from the watchful view of those around her.

Perhaps, if I’d had to live with a mother like that, I would have done the same.

Not that I could blame Ita McCarthy either.

Her daughter was gone. It was a grief I couldn’t even begin to fathom.

The English language was a miraculous thing. In its infinite wisdom, it gave us words for the loss of our loved ones.

Losing parents left you an orphan, a lonely word that conjured images of gaunt, hollow eyed children desperately bereft of love.

Losing a partner made you a widow, or widower, depending on your role in the partnership. A crushing loss that saw your soul cleaved in two, one half forever lost and forced to wander. It wasn’t something I could imagine.

But the loss of a child… That type of loss was too great to imagine. So huge that not even the English language, which had given us so much, could do justice by giving a name to that kind of agony.

Death was long supposed a natural occurrence. It would come to us all in time.

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