The winner of our current Short Story Competition is published in the September|October issue of Irish Country Magazine, on shelves now. ‘The Things We Carry’ by Philamine Joseph came in second place.
Read Philamine’s story below:
It was a normal cold Thursday morning in Ireland, and Lily was woken up by her alarm, to get ready for work. She felt a sense a unease as she woke up. A gnawing feeling that couldn’t be shrugged away.
For the first time in her life, she called in sick.
After hanging up, she stayed in bed for a while, unsure what to do with the day. She glanced across the room towards the bedroom window and saw cars pass by on the road, people hurrying toward their busy routines as the week edged closer to its end. Life moved on normally outside, while hers felt stuck in place, for reasons she could not name.
Her husband, Joshua, was still asleep beside her. He had previously booked the day off, so they were both home. Quietly, she slipped out of bed without waking him and went to kitchen to make herself a cup of tea.
As she was sipping on her hot tea, Joshua finally woke and he slowly walked towards her in the kitchen with a surprised smile.
“I thought you were working?”
“I was supposed to,” she said softly, “but I called in sick because I was not feeling emotionally well.”
Joshua suggested to go for a walk to help cheer her up, but Lily politely declined. He understood she needed space, so instead he proceeded to made her breakfast.
As the day drifted into evening, Lily grew more and more withdrawn, though she said little. All through the day she had wanted to call her daddy, but the thought of worrying him held her back. She took her phone up again and again, searched his name on WhatsApp, and each time stopped before pressing the call button.
By nightfall, she and Joshua ate dinner in silence. Afterward, they settled down to watch some television. It was nearly half past eleven when Lily’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen and saw that her sister Clara was calling from India. That was odd she thought to herself as it was almost 4 am in India.
She answered the call without much delay and asked “shouldn’t you been asleep?”
After a brief pause, Clara spoke in a flat tone -“Daddy is gone.”
Without missing a beat Clara questioned “Gone where?”
Clara repeated herself, as though whispering the words into the space between them.
“Daddy is gone.”
Then the words suddenly sunk in- Daddy is gone! The words changed their world forever.
Lily collapsed to the floor, a cold shudder running through her body, she felt sharp pain in the middle of her chest. She began to wail—the kind of cry that silences a room. Far away, on the other end of the call, Clara’s own grief broke open at last. The sisters clutched their phones as if they could somehow hold one another through the distance, and they cried together.
Their daddy was gone, leaving them and their mother behind.
The days that followed passed in a blur, flying to India, arranging the funeral, becoming the centre of everyone’s attention where every tear is noticed and every smile judged. Their father had been the axis around which everything turned.
He was the only one in his family to escape debt and build a successful life through his own effort. People spoke of him with a mixture of admiration and envy.
Everywhere they went, the same question followed them:
“What are you all going to do now?”
For he had been the one who knew how to make money, the one who kept everyone afloat. He left no will, just wealth. And suddenly the house was filled with people who smelled both grief and opportunity.
Everyone just saw the three fragile women left behind by a strong man to fail.
Lily had to return to Ireland within a month because work demanded it, while Clara and their mother stayed behind. The months that followed were full of doubt, anxiety, and the feeling of being watched, as though others were waiting for them to break.
But slowly, they figured things out. Even with the physical distance between them. They learned how to manage what remained without the instruction from the man who led them once.
For the world had seen only money, but there are things that are far more precious than money. An heirloom was not just something physical that could be divided, spent, or fought over. It was also the countless habits children absorbed by watching their parents live.
For Lily and Clara, their true inheritance was their daddy’s relentless spirit, his refusal to give up until results came, his willingness to learn new things, and his courage to live life on his own terms. He had raised two daughters to build lives of their own, independent of his own wealth. They had never cared for his money, only for the drive to create something for themselves.
The saplings people expected to wither without the old tree’s shade grew tall and mighty instead, because their roots were deep and strong long before the old tree fell.
Today, Lily lives a good life with Joshua in Ireland, a life they built from scratch in a foreign country. Clara is pursuing PhD in a reputed college in India, and their mother is enjoying retirement, finding joy in little things each day brings. She is immensely proud her two daughters and of her late husband who laid the foundation for everything they now continue build on.
Click here for details on how to enter our next competition.
