The Rachel Incident(87)

We called him Shay, in the end, short for Séamus, which was James Carey’s dad’s name. As soon as I told James Devlin, I received the following screen grab from Wikipedia.


Séamus (Irish pronunciation: [??e?m??s?]) is an Irish male given name, of Latin origin. It is the Irish equivalent of the name James. The name James is the English New Testament variant for the Hebrew name Jacob.



Alright, I texted back. You win.

The brotherhood of James welcomes yet another member, he replied.

I have practised telling him about Dr. Byrne in my head hundreds of times, and despite many revisions to how I would do it—complete with many careful, sensitive word choices—I still have not told him. I have told Carey, which marks a strange and important first in our history: the first time I have told him something that I have not told James. His advice is to wait. Wait until I know more, wait until James comes to visit in the summer. It’s not the kind of thing you want to find out over the phone, he says, and I agree, mostly because it lets me off the hook.

And in the meantime I have written it all down. I am told that writing at night inflames my carpal tunnel syndrome, and I ignore this advice, because you’re allowed to ignore your physiotherapist once you are married to him. I wrote at first for James, and then for Deenie, with some kind of impression in my mind that I would give it to either or both of them. I never will, of course—can you imagine? Your husband in a coma, and someone gives you a three-hundred-page confession?

I wonder what I did this for. And then I look at James Carey, a well-liked man nearing forty, and wonder: Are you capable of the same kind of betrayal? And if you are—do I deserve it? I am about the same age as Deenie Harrington-Byrne was when we first met, the age she will always be in my head. The impossible adulthood she and Dr. Byrne occupied, the easy sophistication that still feels alien to me but surely must be observed by the younger women at my office. Am I their Deenie? Am I anyone’s?

I look at my baby and I am sure he is made of velvet. He has only just forgotten how to sleep, and so inevitably it is the two of us alone at night together. He clings on to bunches of my hair or jewellery or my bra strap. “Sssssshay,” I say, both his name and a request for quiet. “Sssshay, Shay, Shay.”

I think, quite a lot actually, about whether Shay is anything like the baby I would have had back in 2010, if either my brain or my body had been up to the task of keeping it.

I remember, with a kind of sharp clarity that evaded me for years, exactly what those days were like. When the beginnings of me and Carey’s first pregnancy passed through me in clots, and I felt like an animal who had to take itself somewhere to die. The pain spread from my stomach and through to my back, working its way through to each notch on my spine, tapping on the base of my neck. The days in bed, the throwing the sheets away because they were ruined, the money taken off the house deposit because of the deep blood that seeped through the mattress, staining the box springs. James Devlin, coming in and out with potato waffles, chicken dippers, beans on toast. James with his own broken heart, looking after me.

You forget the pain of childbirth. But you forget other kinds of pain, too.

Shay is going to Cork for the first time. The sisters up in Derry are so used to new babies that, who cares, right? But for Mum and Dad, and Chris and Kev, this is new. The boys have both stayed in Cork, graduating just in time for the money to come back, and they both have jobs in tech. Kev is now gruffly bisexual, and has never come out to my parents. Nor has he hidden it. Everyone just seems to get it without being told, and, to be fair to my parents, I think they would cringe at having to discuss any of their children’s sex lives.

I file a column about what to dress your baby in to meet your parents—do you resist the temptation to put a strange hat on him, or does that feel like you’re compensating for something?—and we head to our flight, weighed down by plastic.

Dad meets us at the airport, and he cries when he sees Shay, saying, “Sure, God, would you look at him, look at the little fella, bold as brass, my God, Rachel, who would have thought?” He informs us that Mum has put out a big spread at home, and she’s been to Dunnes, the posh bit of Dunnes, because wouldn’t you get great stuff at Dunnes, these days?

They managed to keep the practice going in the end. They have done a great line in Botox, filler, Invisalign and tooth-whitening retainers that I should really consider getting into. “Wear it to bed, two weeks, Rachel,” Dad says. “You won’t believe the difference.”

There is indeed a big spread at home. Mum cries when she sees Shay. Kev and Chris are emotional, too. For some reason they are still allowed to call my husband Carey, whereas I must only call him James. He was serious about it, from the beginning.

“We can’t do this,” he said, “unless it’s a completely new relationship. We need to get to know each other all over again, Rachel. We’re different now.”

“I’m not different. I don’t think you are, either.”

“You’re very different, don’t kid yourself. You’ll only be disappointed.”

“How am I different?”

He pointed to my scatter cushions, currently on the floor. “The Rachel Murray I knew did not have throw pillows.”

“I won’t be disappointed.”

That worried look again. “This isn’t a walk down memory lane, Rache. For me, anyway.”