The Meeting

Lack of Understanding

"Can I start getting the bus to school?"
"Huh? Why would you want to get the bus when I can just drive you?" I chuckled.
"Everyone gets the bus." Aoife shrugged.
"I don't know, Aoifs."
"Please, Mum. You always say that you don't know when you actually mean I'm scared the paps will chase you. I just want to be normal. Everything else about me is so not normal, can't I just have this one thing?"

She was right, her life hadn't been normal. She had been thrown to the lions of the media since she was born.

"I mean - I guess. If you promise to text me every day when you get to school?"
"Thanks, Mum. I promise."
"What we promising?" Leah asked as she entered the room.
"She's going to start getting the bus to school."
"Why?"
"Everyone gets the bus." Aoife mumbled again.
"Right. So you're going to leave here at 7:45am every day to walk 15 minutes to the bus stop, and then get the bus which takes 45 minutes to get you to school just because everyone else does it?" Leah cocked her eyebrow.
"Yep." Aoife shrugged again.
"And you're fine with this?" She directed the question at me.
"It wouldn't hurt her to have a bit of normality, I guess."
"Fine, but Aoife we aren't doing this whole arguing when it comes to getting up thing."
"I'll get up, I promise."

Leah and I had been grateful for how grown up Aoife had been about everything; helping around the house as Leah struggled to overcome the post-surgery tiredness, understanding that Leah and I were trying our best to phase back into the life that we had once had, and adapting to the fact that she would become a big sister again. It was hard not to be immensely proud of everything she had achieved, and to think that this was anything other than exactly what she had told us it was - wanting to have some normality.

If only we had known what the normality she was talking about actually was.

As promised, Aoife got up every morning on time for the bus, we didn't once have to ask her otherwise. She would text the second she got to school, text when she was leaving school, and arrive home on time every single day. She worried about Leah a lot, she worried that she would get sick again, or that she would try to do too much, constantly trying to relieve some of that pressure by offering to do things herself; organising that her friends parents would take her to training, refusing to ask Leah to pick her up one day when she missed the bus, and instead texting to say she would get the later one.

Again, if only we had known why.

The world still didn't know that Leah was pregnant, which I suppose made the secret Aoife was keeping from us easier. The more Leah began to show, the less we wanted to have her out and about; in turn, the more Aoife was able to not show that actually it was being seen with us that she was worried about.

Secrets don't stay secrets though, and this one would ripple through our lives as we knew them.

Just two months before the baby was due to arrive, I was lay on the floor of the nursery desperately trying to build a flat pack cot in anticipation for the new arrival. Leah's laughter from the doorway made me look up to see her stood with a piece of paper in her hand.

"If they're instructions, I don't need them. I will do this." I sighed.
"You are so stubborn. They aren't instructions though." Leah chuckled, taking a seat on the chair.
"What is it?"
"Look."

Dear parents,

Our annual school holiday will take place in Iceland this year, a chance for pupils to see the Northern Lights, a topic they will be required to study for their upcoming summer examinations.

The total cost for the trip will be £742 per pupil, plus spending money.

In advance of booking, we will require a photocopy of each pupils passport, and a signed copy of this form returned within 7 days.