The Call of the Sea

Chapter 12

Aiofe had grown frail over the weeks since being admitted – Bronagh had watched her mother lose weight, watched as the bones of her legs and arms became jagged peaks and her skin sagged into deep valleys. She was dying, though she would never admit it verbally, and Bronagh knew that she hadn't much longer to live.

Turlough had explained that he had found Aiofe in the bathroom, fallen in the tub. She had been trying to shower and had had a seizure – he hadn't known where she was for a few hours, and with no way to reach Bronagh out in the woodlands, he had assumed that Aiofe had either gone for a walk or was performing her Muir-óigh duties.

The doctors had said that an aneurysm, caused by her mother's spreading cancer, had ruptured. There had been no report of an aneurysm in the notes from Aiofe's most recent doctor's visit. Her mother knew it was a possibility, as she had multiple metastases in her brain, but had not told anyone of the probability.

As Bronagh looked at her mother, she felt betrayed – betrayed that she had not known, betrayed that her mother had not divulged everything about her condition to anyone, and betrayed because they had finally begun to mend their broken relationship. She didn't blame her mother, not for anything. She had had her own role in their family falling apart, and though she hated herself for everything she had done, Bronagh could not hate her mother. Not now, not with her laying in the hospital, her arms the home to numerous needles and tubes, not with her eyes sunken deep into her head and her hair falling out from her inability to hold onto the nutrients that they pumped into her body. But, the feelings of betrayal were still there within her heart. She was still broken-hearted that she was losing yet another loved one.

She hadn't been there for her great-grandmother, and regardless of their relationship, she hadn't been there for her grandmother – she refused to leave her mother's side.

"Bronagh," her mother whispered, her voice cracked and brittle, "I have taught you as much as I know, as much as what was taught to me and then everything I learned as I walked through life as a Muir-óigh. I have taught you everything, except our funeral ritual."

Bronagh was silent, unsure of what to say. She gripped her mother's hand, feeling her knuckles roll beneath her skin.

"You know that we do not cremate, nor do we bury, our dead. There is a book, buried at the bottom of my night-stand, with the exact ritual you will need to perform, including all of the preparations required once the inevitable comes to pass," Aiofe's eyes filled with tears, and Bronagh fought to keep herself calm. "When I finally pass, they will transport my body back to the house. There, you will bathe me and dress me and, with the help of a few pre-selected men from the village, you will take my body to the beach. Their names are written on a scrap of paper used to mark the ritual page in the book. Turlough will notify them of their impending duty. Your focus should remain on the ritual."

Silence spread like the sea between them. Bronagh had no words. How was she supposed to respond? She knew that people dealt with the same things she was experiencing, but she had no idea how to find her way through it all.

"Muirín will know, they all will, once I pass. They will feel it in the waves and in their hearts, as will you. You must not," Aiofe stressed her words, "let the pain and fear take over your spirit. If you allow the darkness to seep into your thoughts and your dreams and your soul, you will find yourself stranded on a cold sea. I need you to be strong, for me and for Idir na Farraigí and for your duties as Priestess."

"I understand," was all Bronagh could bare to say. She could not contain the swell of emotions any longer, and her eyes burst with tears. She heaved as she cried, putting her face into the bed beside her mother's hand.

As Bronagh sobbed, Aiofe called the doctor in and requested that she be taken off of everything that was keeping her alive. Bronagh did not fight the decision, nor did the doctor – how could anyone fight the wishes of a dying person, regardless of how painful those wishes were? There was no fight left in her mother, and Bronagh honoured her choice to pass away.

***

At three o'clock in the morning, while the rest of the island slept, Bronagh watched as her mother took her final breath. She climbed onto the bed and laid her head on Aiofe's chest just as her heartbeat faded. She remained there, holding her mother's body, crying into the thin sheet that she had pulled over her because she had said she was cold.

They came to collect the body a few hours later and Turlough was behind the nurses, offering his sincerest condolences. There were no words that would soften the raging storm within her chest. At first, Bronagh refused to let go of her mother's hand, but Turlough finally convinced her that they needed to transport her to the house for the preparations to begin. He promised to be with her, to walk her through each step as he had helped the Matriarch for as long as he could remember.

Bronagh did not speak as Turlough drove them back to the house. As they neared the driveway, it was dark – no lights, no welcoming music. There was no life left within its walls. She felt the silence in the air, and saw that the sea was calm. Though a maelstrom threatened to burst forth from her chest, the actual sea was in silent mourning of Aoife's death.

Turlough helped Bronagh to her room and set her on the bed. He did the only thing he thought would help and brought her tea and a plate of biscuits to help calm her. It had been an old tradition, one they had begun in her childhood, and one that she was grateful to have whilst surrounded by the pain and loss that seeped through the walls and floors and linens. There was so much to do, so much on her mind, that the simple gesture of an old habit was enough to bring her to tears. In silence, Turlough sat beside her and wrapped her in his arms.