The Crystal Snowflake

Prologue

One of the last things my sister said to me before she went missing was
"I'll bring you back something nice."
It was a cold Tuesday morning in the winter of '93, and I was kept home
from school with whatever virus had been rampant that year. I could
hear the wind whistling through the warping in the window, and the
waves crashing against the pier below the embankment outside our house.
The glass of my bedroom window was caked in sea salt and sand, the door
closed and knocking against its frame.
My sister opened the door, came over and sat at the end of my bed. She
was wearing a white fleece over her school cardigan; pink go-go's in
her hair and a denim rug sack slung over her shoulder. My sister was
fifteen, four years older than I was. She looked young for age, but her
dark brown eyes showed a depth of intelligence and maturity beyond her
years. She put her hand on my forehead and asked if I was faking. I
shook my head and coughed. She smiled revealing a mouth full of shiny
grey braces.
'Are you sure?'
'Ya I'm sure.'
She eyed me suspiciously before standing up.
'Okay then. I believe you. I'll bring you back something nice
okay?'
She adjusted her rug sack and walked towards the door.
'Where are you going?' I strained my voice as I said this, trying to
erase any doubt she had about my fragile state. She turned her slim,
long neck. Her skin was ghostly white and seemed to glow against her
dark, black hair.
'I'm going to the Burren remember? Field study for my summer
exam.'
'Oh.'
'Feel better.' She said, before walking out my bedroom door for the
last time.

When I read in the papers that my sister had disappeared, I remember
feeling angry. In my child's mind terms like "disappeared" and
"vanished without a trace" meant my sister didn't exist anymore and she
was gone forever.
Tracy had boarded the school bus twice that day. The first when the bus
left from the school. The second when it left the Burren at four in the
afternoon.
The students had pestered the teacher to stop off in Ennis town so they
could do some shopping, and the teacher had reluctantly agreed. The
pupils were told that they were allowed one hour before returning to
the bus in the parking lot. Mrs Hennessy would later go on to tell the
police that she was suffering from exhaustion, and was experiencing
marital difficulties. This was why she neglected to do a head count for
the third time that day.
She had remembered to ask the pupils if everyone was on board, to which
they all replied "Yes" in unison. Tracy had not many friends aside from
Sarah Gibson. Sarah Gibson was in a different class and was scheduled
for the same trip the following day. Because of this, nobody noticed
amongst the commotion of flying bottles and chocolate wrappers, nobody
noticed amongst the shouting and yelling and dirty jokes, no body
noticed the empty seat at the back of the bus. It was only when they
had returned to the school that Mrs. Hennessy realised that Tracy
Malone was not amongst the departing passengers.

After my sister went missing my parents started to fight all the time.
My mother would smash dishes on the kitchen floor, slap my father
across the face, bursting into tears yelling things like "It's all your
fault!" "Why?" "How could you?"
My father would always clench his fists and take it on the chin. He
became withdrawn, a distorted, murky reflection in a storm drain river
of the burly, jolly man he once was. My mother was inconsolable and it
was because of this that my father and I grew closer that we ever had
been. Tracy had always been the apple of her father's eye, and I was a
mommy's boy for want of a better term. With the loss of his daughter,
and the loss of my sister and the mother I once knew, we came to depend
on each other.
My mother would sit crying in her bedroom some days. Other days she
would erupt into unpredictable bouts of fury, lashing out at my father
for the most part, sometimes lashing out at me. And there would be
times when she would sit quietly in her tattered leather chair by the
window, smoking cigarettes in silence and staring out at the sea. My
father never stopped loving her. I on the other hand, I sometimes found
myself wondering how I could love this woman living in my mother's body
and yet loath her at the same time.

A week before the anniversary of my sister's disappearance, my mother
attempted to drive our car over a cliff. She may have succeeded in
killing herself if it were not for the heavy downpour of rain the night
before, making the earth soft and claylike, enough for the car to sink
to a stop only meters from the fringe of Hag's Head.
After that, my father reluctantly signed my mother into a hospital.
Days would go by where he wouldn't say a word to me, broken up only by
his occasional need to throw his arms around me and burst into tears.
He wouldn't say anything, just cry, wipe his tears away, and disappear
into his room for another number of days.
The day before my mother was to be released from hospital, my father
gave me a crystal snowflake, large enough to fill my twelve-year-old
hands. He told me that his father had worked with crystal, and had made
the snowflake for him as a child. Seeing that his son was fascinated by
the light it played on the walls, granddad took him up on his knee and
told my father that to behold the colours is to have a colourful life,
and the light would shine in the darkest of places. I kept the crystal
snowflake in an old watchcase. I used the box to stop my library books
from falling over like dominos. When my mother returned, I found myself
taking the crystal out many times, and holding it up to the lamp in my
bedroom. It brought me great comfort. The crystal transfixed me with
its magnificent colours and I truly believed in its power. For a while,
it shone brightly in the darkness.

She seemed like my mother. She smiled all the time. Cooked meals every
day and would hold me in her arms as we watched the television,
stroking my hair. But it felt like she was trying too hard. There was
no love in her eyes. It was as though she felt it was a duty to love
us. A job she hated but had to wake up to every day. Maybe she thought
that if she behaved as if she cared for her family, she would
eventually learn to love them. But my father was happy. Happy as he
could be I suppose, after losing a child. He slowly began to resemble
the jolly man he once was. He was happy to have what was left of his
family together under one roof. It was all he would ask of this
world.

I ran away for the first time when I was fifteen. I got the bus to
Limerick, believing that the ?300 I had saved over the two years I had
been working in the grocery store would be enough to get me started
with a job, a place to stay, and a new life.
I took my money, a few changes of clothes, and the watchcase with the
snowflake inside. It didn't take me long to discover that hotel clerks
tended to ask too many questions of fifteen year old boys looking to
rent a room. Because of this I spent the night on the streets.
Early the next morning, after a long, cold, terrifying night in the
gutter, a man came up to me and handed me a fifty-pound note. I reached
out to take it and he pulled his hand away. He stood up, reaching to
unzip his trousers. I yelled out, hit the man with the lid of a dustbin
and ran for my life. I called my father as soon as I found the nearest
pay phone. He cried at first, told me he loved me and asked me where I
was. He then went on to say he had been driving around all night, had
called the guards, and had just received a phone call saying I had been
seen boarding a bus to Limerick yesterday morning. Then he shouted at
me, asked me how I could do such a thing after what happened to my
sister, before controlling himself enough to tell me to go to the
nearest police station and wait for him there. He hadn't told me how my
disappearance had affected my mother, but I knew that she probably
didn't care. Whatever they had done to her in that hospital, it had
killed her soul.

For a short time after my return I was content to live in a house with
the ghost of a lost sister and a catatonic mother. But it was only a
few months before I ran away again, and six more times after that. Each
time I knew in the back of my mind that I wouldn't get far and that I
would eventually return home. And I always did. Sometimes I'd be gone
for only a few hours. Sometimes for over a month. I knew the true
reason I was running away, and that was because upon my various
returns, I actually felt like I wanted to be part of a family. I would
miss them and, for a while, I would know that I loved them, and that
they loved me. But it wouldn't be long before I would crave my next fix
of love and run again.
Then something happened. It stopped working in the way it used too.
Instead of being greeted with hugs and kisses upon my arrival home
(more often than not with a guard's hand on my shoulder) I was greeted
with anger and distain. My father was sick of me. He told me if I ran
again I needn't bother coming home. My mother became depressed
again.
It was all because of me.
I didn't run anymore after that. I tried to win back my father's trust,
and reassure my mother that I loved her and did not blame her for
anything whenever she insisted it was her fault. Over time, I
consciously went about turning myself into a son my parents could be
proud of. I did well at school. I got a part time job working in a
D.I.Y shop to supplement my father's income from his tutoring job. (He
was a teacher in the local Secondary School until Tracy disappeared. He
had blamed the school for his daughter's disappearance, a had taken
action that resulted in Mrs. Hennessey's "retirement".) I even started
to date the parish priests niece, which in my town was enough in itself
to make any mother proud.
When I graduated I secured an apprenticeship working for my old
Construction teacher in a wood mill outside of town and continued to
work in the D.I.Y shop to supplement my income. I moved into one of a
new block of flats that had a view of a row of houses that had a view
of the bay. I continued to give my father pay checks on a monthly
basis. My mother had gotton better also. She continued taking
anti depressants, but for the most part, she was happy. She even went
to work organising theatre productions for the community centre.

I thought about my sister all the time. I would wonder if she was alive
somewhere. The fact that I found this prospect unlikely, saddened me
deeply. But life was beginning to resemble something approaching
normal, even good. Then one warm Sunday night in Summer I got a phone
call from my mother, saying my father had died in his sleep.

My father was sixty-four when he died. They said it was a brain tumour,
something I found extremely difficult to comprehend. I had always
imagined cancer to be a patient breed of death, allowing the person
afflicted to tie up any loose ends before the final inevitable. My
father had been at my grandfather's bedside when he passed away, and my
grandfather at his fathers. I felt cheated. There should have been some
sign some warning so I could have had a chance to say goodbye after
telling him that I loved him. We buried my father four days
later.

Chapter 1

I was sitting on my father's bed holding Sheila's hand in mine. There
were too many people in the living room, wearing black and offering
their condolences. None of whom I believed knew my father well enough
to say, "He was a good man" or "He'll be sorely missed". I had to get
away from them for a while. Sheila had followed me into my parent's
bedroom. I was looking at a picture. Sheila was leaning her head on my
shoulder, stroking my chest gently with her hand.
We were on the beach. I was beside my father, his bulky arm hanging
over my shoulder. My mom was between the two of us, her right hand on
top of my head. I looked at Sheila, a smile of reminiscence on my
face.
'My sister took this picture.' I took a deep breath, trying hard to
contain the tears.
'Do you have any pictures of her?' she asked, her voice gentle,
delicate.
My nose was running. She handed me a Kleenex. I wiped the tip of my
nose and took another picture out of the shoebox. It was taken the same
day as the other photograph. My mother sunbathing on a beach towel
under a wind breaker, her skin bronzed and sparsely freckled, golden
hair reflecting the sun light. Tracy was to the left of the blue and
white windbreaker, brushing sand off a sandwich. She had her fathers
skin and it had turned bright pink, peeling at the nose and shoulders.
She was thirteen, her hair in pigtails, the same go go's she was
wearing the last time I saw her. Although she was very pretty, she had
a very serious face for a child.
'She's pretty.' Sheila said, her voice as rhythmic as the sea.
'Hmmm.'
'You still miss her.'
For a moment I thought it was the most stupid thing she could possibly
say. Of course I still miss her, and I was about to tell her so. But
she didn't know. She couldn't. She was only trying to comfort me.
Consoling someone is difficult. It's hard to know what to say.
Sometimes you say silly things.
I move my lips to say 'I miss my father' but no sound comes out. I
finally tell Sheila that I want to show her something.
I took her into my old bedroom, which was pretty much the same as I had
left it. I had taken all my clothes and other essentials with me when I
moved to my new home with Sheila, but my radio, posters and library of
books I had left behind. I don't know why this was. Maybe I just wanted
to leave a little part of myself behind.
I walked over to the window and looked out at the horseshoe shaped bay.
The high tide both lapping against and running in-between the boulders
at the bottom of the beach wall, children diving from the rocks at the
other side of the bay. There were masses of people sitting on the rocks
and picnicking on the grassy mounds above the Pollock holes. I could
feel a warm breeze caressing my neck through the warped opening in the
window. It was too much like the day in the picture. All in a moment I
saw Tracy run across the front lawn, screaming and laughing, my father
chasing her in his swimming trunks with a melting ice cream in his
hand.
Sheila took my hand, reclaiming me from the daydream.
'What did you want to show me?'
I reached up to the top of my library shelf and took down a small, wine
coloured box. I looked at her and smiled.
'It's still here.'
I opened the box, stroking the small indentations in the snowflake with
my finger before taking it between my finger and thumb, holding it up
to the light. The sunlight splintered through the crystal glass,
reflecting an elaborate rainbow of colours across the walls and
ceiling.
'It's beautiful.' Sheila said, turning to look at the shifting colours
as I rotated the snowflakes in my fingers, colours dancing across the
room. I placed it back upon the velvet bedding of the box.
'My grandfather made it. He told my father that if he looked at the
colours he would have a colourful life, and that he would see the light
in the darkest places.'
I snapped the box shut. Sheila put her hand behind my neck, looked up
into my eyes.
'And your father gave it to you.'
I nodded. She ran her hand over the hair on the crown of my head and
kissed me on the lips. It was warm, tender. I turned away.
'It's a shame it doesn't work.'
Sheila shrugged, brine welling in her eyes. I could see she was
blinking carefully, trying not to cry.
'Maybe you just have to learn how to use it.'
We both went back to the living room. Not for the guests sake, but for
my mother's. I felt guilty for leaving her alone and I told her so. She
told me not to worry, that she had gone for a walk herself and no one
had seemed to notice.
My father had a brother, Declan, but he was living in New Zealand. He
had told my mother that he would try to get over as soon as possible
but couldn't make it to the funeral. Uncle Declan was the only extended
family we had. The other guests were work colleagues from his teaching
days, and a few men I didn't really know that apparently drank in the
same pub as my father. I am fully aware that my dad had alienated many
of his friends after the disappearance of my sister, and as such, many
of these people were here out of common curtsey rather than mutual
grief. A few even appeared as if they had come exclusively for the
drink.
I sat by my mother for the rest of the evening acting as a bodyguard.
If she was too emotional to answer a question posed by a well wisher, I
would speak on her behalf, allow her head to fall on my shoulder, hold
her hand, offer her a Kleenex when need be. I told Sheila that I had
decided to spend the night. She asked if I wanted her to stay with me
and I told her she should go home.

It was nine thirty when everyone had left, and by then we were both
exhausted. Mom sat at the kitchen table as I made us both a mug of
tea.
'I saw you were drinking the browns tonight?'
She shot me a disapproving glare. She was wearing her dressing gown.
There were bags under her faded green eyes and her hair was wrapped in
a towel. I handed her a mug and sat across from her.
My mother was ten years younger than my dad at fifty-four years, but
her dramatic loss of weight, as well as loss of sleep, had added years
onto her appearance. Although weather beaten, she was still a beauty,
and still retained her long, natural curls of golden hair.
'I don't usually go for the shots mom. I just needed a little courage
that's all.'
She nodded, sipping her tea.
'I suppose we need something to steal our mind from things. I don't
have the luxury of drinking myself into a stupor, with my medication
and what not, but I must've eaten my way through forty fags today
alone.' She laughed 'What's the harm in a little sugar to help us
stomach such cruel medicine.'
She exhaled slowly, lowering her head into her hands.
'I miss him Daniel. You mightn't think so but I do.'
I didn't know what to say to that but nod.
'Can you pass me my cigarettes love. They're on the counter. Beside the
sink.'
I took a cigarette, lit it between my lips and handed it to her.
'You must have a sweet tooth.'
She smiled at that. I was almost going to light one for myself, but
decided against it. I had stopped smoking six months ago and I wasn't
about to start again. Considering I was next in line for a slow and
painful death from a cancerous tumour, it wasn't that hard to say
no.
'Thank you darling.'
'I know you and dad had your problems.' I paused, composed myself 'But
I also know you loved him. If nothing else you were there by his side
until the very end.'
She smoked deeply, the muscles in her neck contracting. She exhaled
slowly, chin up, eyes almost closed as they peered across the table at
me.
'I don't know if I was.' An uneasy laugh escaped her lips
'I mean I was there to be sure. But part of me was somewhere else. Part
of me loved him very much. The other part of me wanted to run away and
leave him forever.'
I thought, then said it must run in the family.
I looked at my mother, and for a moment it seemed as though an
unbearable weight had been lifted off her shoulders. As if my fathers
death had brought her the peace that had eluded her for so many years.
But I knew that couldn't be true.
'Yes, I suppose you're right.'
I felt the mug getting cooler in my hands. I hadn't taken a sip.
'Mom?' I didn't know exactly how to put this. My mother quenched her
cigarette in an ashtray shaped like an oak leaf.
'What's the matter?'
'You didn't know that dad was'
'Was?'
'Sick?'
She didn't look as surprised by the question as I thought she might
have been. Hell, I expected her to be furious at the implication. She
sat back in her chair and adjusted the towel on her head.
'Your father had been sick for a very long time Daniel.'
I was waiting for more. For a moment I was unable to form words.
'You' I finally managed 'You knew he was sick?'
The whiskey I had consumed earlier seemed to ignite in my gut and swirl
around my stomach in a fireball.
'Not just me Daniel. When your father started to get sick he knew it
was cancer. He had seen it with his father.'
'And you didn't take him to a doctor?'
I stood up, holding my hand to my forehead. I paced back and forth
between the oven and the fridge.
'Your father didn't want to go to hospital like his father had done. He
didn't want to be shot full of chemicals and irradiated like some lab
rat.'
'But they could have done something. Cut it out. Burn it. I don't know.
Anything but nothing.'
'He knew there was nothing they could do.'
I laughed.
'When were you going to tell me that dad had a degree in
medicine.'
'Well it didn't work for his father. And that was good enough for him.
I tried to get him to change his mind but he wouldn't listen. I
accepted his decision.'
'You should have told me.'
I was standing looking out the window. My mother stood up.
'He didn't want you to remember him the same way he remembered your
granddad. Weak. Helpless. Dying.'
'Mom I can't'
I was overwhelmed with confusion and grief and not knowing what to
feel. I fell to my knees. She knelt beside me and I cried into her
breast like I had done as a child.

The next morning I woke up in the blue hue of my old bedroom. I noted
the time on my mobile. 6.35.
My internal clock had roused me, obviously uninformed about my arranged
absence from work at the mill that day. I got up and looked out the
window as I had done every morning growing up. The beach was baron. The
bay free of swimmers. I pulled on a pair of jeans I had packed into a
plastic bag when I came over the previous day. My hand was compelled
toward the stubble on my face.
I went to the bathroom, plucked the sleep from my eyes, had a quick
shower, pulled on a wrinkled plain white T-shirt. I had forgotten to
pack a razor so that aspect of my general grooming would have to wait
for another day.
I fried myself an omelette and coupled this with two chunks of soda
bread smeared with marmalade. I looked out the window as I ate and
decided I'd go for a walk before the tourists awoke for their morning
swim.
The tide was out. The air cool and fresh. The sand felt cold and soft
between my toes. The clouds were wisps of cotton wool stretched into
apparitions resembling whatever ones heart projected upon them. That
day, the clouds seemed to fall across the sky like snowflakes.
By the time I returned to the house it was 7 o clock. I crept up the
stairs quietly and into my once parents, now mothers, bedroom. The room
was flooded with light shining through the large bay windows. The bed
wasn't slept in. My mother had been sleeping in the living room for the
past four days. She hadn't even been upstairs since...
I touched the pillow on my father's side of the bed and felt a warmth
flow up my arm and into my chest. I walked to the cupboard and pulled
down the old shoebox where all the pictures that reminded them of Tracy
were kept. I wondered if photographs of my father were doomed to meet
such a fate. Along with the photographs of Tracy being banished to the
back of this cupboard, her bedroom door had remained unopened since the
police had finished their final search. Everything that reminded us of
Tracy had been locked away in the hopes that the memories would fade.
It seemed that, like the magical sparkling light of the crystal
snowflake, the comfort derived from this was superficial, a mere
illusion.
I took out the two pictures of the family on the beach. Happy.
Together. Complete. It was sad to think that only half of this unit
remained. I replaced the photographs, sealed the box, and slid it back
onto the top shelf above my head. As I pushed it toward the back it
caught on something. I guessed a photograph that had lay behind the box
had fallen on its side. Curious, I took down the box and placed it on
the floor. I looked around for something to stand on and I caught eye
of the stool by the bed. I pulled it over and stood up on it. It
wobbled slightly. I caught hold of the shelf to steady myself. I
reached to the back, felt something. It was thicker than a photo. I
slid it forward into my hand and stepped off the stool. I looked at the
brown envelope, turning it over in my hands. There had been a label
with an address on it but it had been torn off. The envelope had been
cut clean open with a letter opener. I sat down on the bed, unfolded
the letter, and began to read.

Hi Mom
Is everything okay? You haven't been returning my letters lately. Tom
took me to Prague can you believe it? I think it's the most beautiful
city in the world. I know you think Tom's too old for me but he's
really very nice and he's good to me. I hope one day the two of you can
meet.
God I hope Dad isn't reading this. Maybe he's the reason you're not
writing back. I better not say too much until I hear from you, just in
case. I have a lot more to say to you but I you have to write me back
first okay? How's Daniel getting on in his new house? Does he miss your
cooking? I know I do.
I need to hear from you. Write soon.
Lots of Love.
Tracy

I read the letter three times, the last time out loud. Then I lay down
on my father's bed, and wept.