I lay in bed, tossing and turning for what felt like hours, it felt too hot in my bedroom and then too cold. I felt sick, usually when I felt like this, I would go and creep into my parent's bed and cuddle up to them both, but Mum didn't need this, not tonight.
I knew after a while that I wouldn't be able to sleep properly tonight. I heard Michelle's voice on the other side of my door. I climbed out of my bed and wrapped my dressing gown around me and picked up my favourite blanket before walking over to the bedroom door. I held the handle for a second longer, waiting slightly to open it. When I did, I pulled the door open and Mum and Michelle were both sat at the kitchen table, each with a glass of red wine in their hands, staring at me.
"I can't sleep" I said quietly, rubbing my eyes as they adjusted to the bright lights in the kitchen.
"Come here baby girl" Michelle said to me. She put her wine glass on the table and then put her arms out. I walked over to her, and she pulled me onto her lap, wrapping my blanket around me. She pulled me into her and then grabbed her wine glass back off the table.
I fell asleep that night on Michelle's lap and when I woke up in the morning, I was lying in Mum's bed beside her. I rolled over so I faced her and she felt me, so pulled me into her. We lay like that, her arm around me stroking my hair as I tried to drift back off to sleep. Mum knew that I couldn't and she soon pulled me into her and kissed the top of my head.
"Did you have a good little sleepover in my bed?" she asked me. I nodded.
"Yeah, but I don't remember going to sleep here." I told her.
"No, you fell asleep in Chelle's arms, and we put you in here. She's sleep on the sofa." She said.
"Can we go and wake her up?" I asked and Mum nodded, before the two of us climbed out of bed and went into the living room. Michelle wasn't asleep on the sofa, she was stood in the kitchen, making a cup of tea.
"Good morning you two, sleepyheads." She said.
"Sorehead, more like." Mum said back to her, just as I got to her and she lifted me into her arms.
"Well the kettle has just boiled, and you little lady, what would you like for breakfast?" she turned to me and asked me as she pulled my head into the crook of her neck.
"Just some toast please, with jam." I said.
"Coming right up, now you two take a seat." Michelle said before placing me down at the kitchen table. I sat down beside Mum and before long, Michelle brought over a plate of toast for me and a cup of tea for Mum. I began to eat my toast, before saying,
"Mummy, what happens now? What happens now that Daddy has gone?"
That night is forever scarred in my memory. I will never forget waking up that morning and feeling that emptiness in the air of Dad not being there. In following days, we all travelled over to Ireland to Grandma and Grandad's where Dad's funeral was held.
Mum and Grandma had a very typical mother-in-law relationship and never really saw eye to eye when Dad was alive, but for that week they managed to get on, with Grandma even offering to come back to Manchester for a little while with Mum to help her out with me. Luckily Michelle saved us all from that and she decided that visiting in the summer holidays would be a better idea.
The night of Dad's funeral, I climbed into Mum's bed in the night. She was awake, and probably, like me, couldn't sleep because she kept thinking about him.
"Hey baby girl, can you not sleep?" she whispered quietly as she pulled the duvet over me.
"No, I just keep thinking about Daddy. Grandma says he'll be happy in Heaven now, but how can he be happy if he isn't with me and you?" I said.
"I don't know angel. Grandma knows more about Heaven than I do, doesn't she? But what really matters now is me and you. We're going to be a little team, and even though we will miss Daddy being in our team, we'll have lots of fun in our team and we will always have each other, ok?" She said, as she stroked my hair.
"But what if you die?" I said softly. As I said it, I felt her pull me into her even more and the stroking of my hair stopped as she just held me very close to her, almost squeezing me into her chest as we lay there in the dark.
"I'm not going anywhere angel." She replied. Her tightness around me continued until I eventually fell asleep beside her.
It's only now that I understand how much that moment meant to my Mum. She had never been maternal and really struggled when I was very little with knowing what I wanted and how to look after me, because she never had a mother who she had learnt from. Dad taught her to be maternal and to care and to love and before he died, I had always been more of a Daddy's girl, so for Mum, in that moment to hear her little seven-year-old girl say that, meant that I really loved her, really needed her in my life. And things have never really changed, besides the fact that as I have grown up and got older, Mum has come to need me almost as much as I have needed her.
"What do you mean 'It's your Mum'?" I said to Maria as I stood in the doorway of her spare bedroom. I'd stayed here last night because Mum really needed a bit of headspace since everything had happened with Frank a few days ago.
"I mean, she's in hospital, and we need to go and see her now, come on quick, get your shoes on." She said before I rushed to the front door and put on my school shoes and my coat. I had started senior school only a few weeks ago and was supposed to go in this morning but couldn't now with everything going on.
When Maria and I arrived at the hospital, Peter and Leanne were sat beside Mum's hospital bed in a private room beside the nurse's desk. I pushed the door open and practically launched myself onto Mum as she lay in bed. As I did, I felt myself automatically burst into tears as she wrapped her arms around me.
"Alright, alright, it's ok baby girl, I'm here, Mummy's here. I'm so sorry. I never should have done what I did, I'm so sorry angel." She said, and she kept saying it over and over again, but I wasn't really listening, to be in her arms was all I wanted, and it made me feel like I was seven again and my Dad had just died and the world was falling apart, because when Maria told me in the car that was what happened, that was how I felt, like my entire world was falling apart and I never ever wanted to feel that again.
"I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking Orla." Mum said to me as I held onto both of her hands. Peter had taken Leanne and Maria home, so it was now just the two of us.
"Mum, you don't have to keep saying sorry. I know that you weren't thinking, I'm just happy that you're here. I'm just happy that you're ok, and that you're going to be ok." I said.
"Oh, Orlie baby, I'm so happy, so proud that I have you." She said, before she pulled me bed into her so it rested in the crook of her arm.
And then life brought us to now. I've just turned 14. At the end of last year, Mum married Peter Barlow. They delayed their honeymoon because Hayley wasn't very well but she had died earlier on in the year at the end of January. Mum's been in Paris for the past two weeks for work and instead of staying at home with Peter and his rubbish cooking, I stayed over the road with Michelle. In the seven years, since my Dad had died, Michelle had become my other parent, more than any of Mum's boyfriends or husbands had been. Sometimes, teachers or friends even thought that she was my Mum. I shared the same dark brown hair colour and piercing brown eyes that both Mum and Michelle had.
I got off the bus after school outside the salon and walked over the road back to the pub, almost forgetting that today was the day that Mum was coming home until I pushed the door of the back room open and Mum was sat with a glass of wine in hand talking to Michelle.
"Hello my Orla baby, I've missed you angel." She said as she got up and pulled me into her.
"Hey Mummy, I missed you too." I said as I hugged her. She always felt like home when I hugged her, no matter where we were in the world or in our lives.
"Chelle's been telling me that you've been an absolute horror for her." She said laughing as we pulled away from our hug.
"No way, you know that's not true, and so does Michelle." I said.
"I'm kidding you, Orlie." Mum replied.
"Of course, she is, could you ever imagine Orla Connor being naughty." Michelle said, as she pulled me into her, "Did you have a good day at school?"
"Yeah, it was good, what's for tea?" I asked.
"Are you not coming home for your tea?" Mum said.
"Are you cooking?" I asked.
"I might do." She replied.
"Well, maybe I'll come home after then." I told her, before the three of us fell into fits of laughter.
That evening, I went home, after having my tea with Michelle. Mum and Peter were sat on the sofa together when I took my bag through to my room. I unpacked my things and then sat down on my bed. Next to it, on my bedside table was a picture of Mum, Dad and I on my seventh birthday. I picked it up and looked at it, all three of us had massive smiles on our faces, taking up almost the entire picture. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I stared at it for ages, with tears rolling down my face and dropping onto the glass of the picture frame. I heard Mum push my door and sit down on my bed beside me. I don't think I moved, until she pulled me into her and used her sleeve to wipe the tears from my face.
"It's alright Orlie, I know, I miss him too." She said.