The First Time I Said Goodbye Read Online Free Page B

she of course meant her actual home: a small redbrick house on a terraced street which looked like it would have fitted, in its entirety, into our back yard at home. It was the same redbrick house my own mother had grown up in along with her family, eight of them in total, squeezed in like sardines.
    We, the four of us, pushed our way into an impossibly small room where at least eight other people stood, shoulder to shoulder, some of them looking vaguely like my mother. A door to an impossibly small kitchen was open, which at least provided a fresh supply of oxygen to the room. It wasn’t warm outside but the room had a cloying feel as my mother was gathered into a tearful group hug by her long-lost relatives. Occasionally one of the group would look at me and back to my mother and ask if I was “little Annabel” and my mother would nod and I would feel about five years old. I stood, awkwardly once more, hoping they wouldn’t grab me into their scrum. Feeling a little overwhelmed and more than a little overheated I made for the impossibly small kitchen where aluminium foil-covered platters of food sat on every available surface and the biggest kettle I had ever seen bubbled on the stove.
    I pushed my way through the open back door into a small concrete yard dotted with plastic planters overgrown with flowers. Seating myself on a plastic garden chair, I put my head in my hands, and tried to take deep breaths to stem the slightly dizzy, overly exhausted feeling that was threatening to overpower me. How my mom was still on her feet, I just didn’t know. I imagine she was fuelled with adrenalin and raw emotion at seeing her long-lost relatives again, and while I was happy for her – and I really was – they were strangers to me. This felt alien and claustrophobic and if one more person said “Poor Bob!” I would scream out loud.
    I breathed slowly in and out, trying to find my centre in this claustrophobic concrete space at the back of a terraced house.
    “They’re not that bad,” a deep voice said.
    I looked up. A man – bald, late thirties, wearing low-slung jeans, a polo shirt and Converse – eyed me quizzically. I suddenly felt embarrassed. It was pretty obvious this man was one of my relatives: he might even be the name-stealer himself. And here was I, flustered and nauseous five minutes after meeting his family.
    “I didn’t . . . I’m not . . .” I felt my face blaze.
    “I’m only teasing you,” he said, breaking into a broad smile. “Why on earth do you think I’ve escaped out here too? I was just shocked to find someone else in my usual spot – and adopting my usual head-in-hands pose as well.”
    I felt myself relax and made to stand up.
    “No, keep sitting. I’m thinking you’ve been travelling a while. You are probably wrecked and didn’t expect the welcoming party.”
    I nodded my head weakly. “I don’t want to appear ungracious . . .”
    He sat down on the back-door step, his gangly legs stretching out in front of him. “I’m Sam,” he said, reaching his hand out to shake mine. “You must be Annabel.”
    If I had been less tired I would have made a snarky remark about his powers of deduction but, given that exhaustion was seeping from every pore of my body, I decided not to. It would have sounded all wrong and made me out to be a bitch – and I’m really, really not a bitch.
    “Hi, Sam,” I smiled, deciding now would also not be the best time to tell him he stole my name.
    “They will calm down, you know. They’re just so excited. It’s like the return of the prodigal son. My mum said she never expected to see her sister again.”
    “Oh I know, and it’s such a lift for Mom as well. It has been tough.”
    “I heard. That’s too bad about your dad,” Sam said, shifting his legs, trying to get comfortable. “Shit when people die, isn’t it?”
    I was taken aback by his bluntness. But he was right. And it sounded better in a Derry accent. It really was shit when people