The Marble Collector

13

I’m sitting on the hood of my car, in a field where I’ve pulled over to view the eclipse. A clever local farmer has charged two euro to everybody to effectively park and view the eclipse on his land. Every car hood is filled with people wearing ridiculous glasses. I’ve just hung up the phone to Dad and there is a lump in my throat but I’m ignoring that and flicking manically through the pages of Dad’s marble inventory. I stop suddenly.

Moonies.

He has many but I run my finger down the list and find what I’m looking for.

Miniature moonies (250) and there is the mention of the glass jar too, in mint condition. Below that is ‘World’s Best Moon’ a Christensen Agate Company single-stream marble and Dad’s description: A translucent white opalescent marble, has tiny air bubbles inside and a slightly bluish tinge to it. Courtesy of Dr Punjabi.

Everyone is cheering around me as the sun has appeared again in its total form. I don’t know how long the entire thing took, a few minutes maybe, but everyone is hugging and clapping, moved by the event and on a natural high. My eyes are moist. It was the tone of Dad’s voice which startled me and moved me the most. It had completely altered, it sounded like another man was talking to me. Somebody else shone through and told a story, a secret story about him and me as a child, but it wasn’t just that, it was a marble story. In the thirty years of my life I don’t recall that word passing his lips and now, while I’m on this… quest and while I watch a natural phenomenon, I feel overwhelmed. I take my eclipse-viewing glasses off to wipe my eyes. I must drive directly to Dad now, talk to him about the marbles. It didn’t feel right to raise the issue before when he clearly didn’t remember, but perhaps the bloodies triggered more memories today.

I exhale slowly, deliberately, and hear Aidan’s voice from a previous conversation.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ I snap.

‘You sighed,’ he says, demonstrating it. It’s heavy and slow, and sad. ‘You do it all the time.’

‘I wasn’t sighing, I was just… exhaling.’

‘Isn’t that what sighing is?’

‘No, it’s not. I just… doesn’t matter.’ I continue making the school lunch in silence. Butter, ham, cheese, bread, slice. Next.

He bangs the fridge closed. I realise I’m not communicating again.

‘It’s just a habit,’ I say, making an effort to communicate, not to snap, not to be angry. I must follow the counsellor’s rules. I don’t want to be in the spotlight again this week for all of my bad faults. I don’t want to be at counselling at all. Aidan thinks it will help us. I, on the other hand, find that silence and tolerance is the best way forward, even if the tolerance is on the edge, particularly when I don’t know what the problem is, or even if there is one. I’m just told that my behaviour points to the fact that there is. My behaviour being one of silence and tolerance. It’s a vicious circle.

‘I hold my breath and then I release it,’ I explain to Aidan.

‘Why do you hold your breath?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know.’

I think he’s going to get in a huff again, because he’ll think I’m holding something back, some enormous secret that doesn’t exist but which he thinks does. But he doesn’t say anything, he’s thinking about it.

‘Maybe you’re waiting for something to happen,’ he says.

‘Maybe,’ I say without really thinking it through, adding the raisins to the lunch box, just happy he’s not in a huff any more. Argument avoided, I don’t have to worry about the eggshells that surround him. Or maybe they’re around me.

But I think about it now. Yeah, maybe I am waiting for something to happen. Maybe it will never happen. Maybe I will have to make it happen myself. Maybe that’s what I’m doing now.

My phone rings and I don’t recognise the number.

‘Hello?’

‘Sabrina, Mickey Flanagan here. Can you talk?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m just on my way home, I pulled in to watch the eclipse.’ I wonder if he knows about my trip to his nephew. I hope not. Accusing him was one thing, accusing a nephew would be a double insult. Even though it turns out he did open the boxes.

‘Ah, a remarkable thing wasn’t it? I went home to watch it with my better half, Judy. We were talking about you and the marbles.’ He pauses and I know something is coming up. ‘We were talking about your boxes and Judy remembered that they didn’t all come together on the same day in the single delivery.’

‘No?’ I sit up straighter, slow the car down.

‘The first boxes came in one van with my delivery fella, just like I arranged with the family. But Judy reminded me just now that a few days later a few more boxes arrived, I forgot about it but Judy didn’t. She remembers because I hadn’t told her that I was storing anything for anyone and she only found out when a woman arrived to the house with three more boxes. Judy had to call me at the office to check. Wasn’t sure if the woman was a loo-lah making it up.’

‘A woman?’

‘That’s right.’

‘A delivery woman?’

‘No, Judy doesn’t think that she was. And Judy’s good like that. Even though it was a year ago, she’s perceptive. Sharp memory. She wasn’t driving a van, just a car. She doesn’t know anything about the woman at all, they didn’t talk much. She thought maybe she was a neighbour, or a colleague.’

‘And this woman delivered three boxes?’

‘She did.’

Which would have to make it the boxes of marbles. Wouldn’t it? Again I think of Mum, and wonder if for some reason she’s holding back, if she hadn’t wanted me to see these three boxes.

‘One other thing,’ he adds in a rush and sounds embarrassed by the minor detail. ‘Judy said she was a blonde woman.’

My mother is not blonde. I think of my aunts but dismiss it quickly; I haven’t seen them for years, they could have purple hair for all I know, or had blonde hair last year and no hair now. I have more questions, but really it’s all he can help me with.

‘Good luck, Sabrina,’ Mickey says. ‘I hope you find them. It sure would put my mind at ease.’