Finola Cahill

Yesterday

Stella Tyge wasn’t herself. Last Saturday, as the smoke wafted from the spent candles of her thirty-fourth birthday cake, she renounced her birth name, and said she would answer to Stella no longer. Her children, aged three and four, clapped. Mags, the eldest, asked if she could change her name too. Not-Stella and her husband, Marty, said ‘yes’ and ‘no’ respectively. Marty, achingly basic in his best check shirt and neatly combed hair, let out a sound like the outline of a laugh, and Not-Stella made her eyes round and snookerish, begging him silently not to start in front of everyone. Marty fiddled with his watch strap, nodded, and disappeared into the kitchen. She practised a moment of mindfulness, taking in the flicker of prosperity candles against the room’s womb-red walls, inhaling the scent of the courgette cake, and then resting a moment on the sight of her children — barefoot, flushed — surrounded by a group of warrior women. Her sister, Heather, was not at the party. She stayed with their father on the weekends to give the nurse a break, and when Not-Stella tried and failed to invite their dad, she thought it best just to skip Heather too, for simplicity's sake. Anyway, Heather hated Not-Stella’s new friends, or The Essential Oils Alliance, as she insisted on calling them.

‘I’m so proud, a chara, I can’t wait to journey together towards your true name,’ Tanya said, all vibrato.

If it wasn’t for Tanya, Not-Stella wasn’t sure if she would have ever actualized the connection between her imposed birth name and her mother’s natal trauma. As a child she’d asked about the origins of her name, and her mother had said that she liked Paul McCartney and thought ‘Stella’ sounded ‘well, fancy.’ Not-Stella had accepted that. But, when Tanya announced, mid intensive energy exchange, that the name Stella was cleaved of her mother’s unhealed amputation from the feminine mystique, Not-Stella felt that truth root within herself, and understood immediately that this was another part of her that needed fixing.

Tanya entered Not-Stella’s life two years ago, after Not-Stella opened the studio. Yoga had become a haven to Not-Stella when her mother died. The mat was somewhere to be that wasn’t work, home, or the home-house — an hour where not a single face squirmed into the wide-eyed-thin-lipped nod of condolence. With time she harmonised yoga as a spiritual practice, and, back in the time-drunk era before she had kids, teacher training felt like a natural next step. But the idea of a studio bloomed and clung when she was looking down the barrel of the end of two consecutive maternity leaves. She had thought motherhood would be easier the second time round, but it was a peat bog of need, labour squared, one child looking on while the other screamed. Returning to accountancy didn’t seem like a bad idea — it seemed ridiculous, an incomprehensible expectation people had of her.

‘Therapy might be less expensive long-term than leaving the job, Stell,’ was Heather’s response.

But she did it. She quit and put a chunk of savings into getting a space. Only three women signed up for the first class — Heather, a friend from school, and Tanya — and Not-Stella’s fear felt physical, like someone was using a jackhammer on concrete nearby. During the opening flow, Not-Stella’s leggings kept slipping, and she worried that her thong was peeking out during downward dog. She had never considered how different it would be to be the one that everyone watched. Then, during savasana, as she wafted incense and invited the participants to sink into their self-awareness, her phone alarm went off, and she felt like throwing the incense in the bin. After class, Heather was nice about it.

‘My left hip hasn’t felt this good in months, even if all the breathing bits weren’t really my thing.’

Stella still felt like a dope. Heather might have said something more but Tanya approached. Tanya was known around town as the English wan that did reiki and sometimes walked barefoot about the place.

‘I can help heal this place. Help you,’ Tanya said, before hugging Not-Stella, and Not-Stella felt something turn, low in her gut, like a dinghy unmoored itself in there. Heather’s eyes did a full-eclipse.

The next day, Tanya returned with sage, a singing bowl, and jars of salts. When Not-Stella next crossed the threshold, she stood a little straighter, her body adjusting to the cleansed energies. The fee was nothing compared to the benefit.

This party was much more than a celebration of another year.

‘Happy rebirthday, a stór,’ Tanya said. She touched her thumb to Not-Stella’s third eye, pulled a bundle of sage from her russet cape, and lit it. The fat scent hung as Tanya started a slow, anticlockwise circle, eyes shut, bumping first into the sofa, and then tripping over Not-Stella’s eldest, Mags. The fire alarm went off pretty quickly, and Marty returned to open windows.

‘Ladies–’

Not-Stella shot him a look.

‘Could you give me a little warning if you’re burning anything?’

The gaze of the women was upon him. He started to retreat, not turning his back on the pack or making eye contact with anyone in particular. Tanya took a step forward.

‘It’s just...the carpets are new so, eh, hot ashes–,’ he disappeared back into the kitchen.

Not-Stella made sure to smile again before turning back to her guests. Tanya pulled out her bodhrán and thumped a staggered beat. The women threw their hands aloft and let their bodies flow with sound. Not-Stella was light, she told herself, she was aligned with her purpose. She worried how the tops of her arms looked as she waved them, her pale blue sleeves falling away from the soft dough of her.

Stella Tyge wasn’t herself, but it wasn’t enough. Monday arrived, and despite her shucked name, the dread arrived too. Monday dread wasn’t new. Monday dread was a familiar friend, a calcification, a sediment that settled during the week only to re-agitate every Sunday.

‘The dread,’ Tanya said, ‘is the manifestation of disharmony in your spirit.’

They’d first discussed it during a Monday night women’s circle. Tanya sensed something wasn’t right with her, and took her aside while the others meditated. She laid hands, felt her out, then proclaimed that Not-Stella suffered from a profound disconnect to her self-sisterhood. Not-Stella still wasn’t sure she knew exactly what that meant, but she trusted Tanya to guide her through these unknowns. So, Not-Stella ‘did the work’ — she signed up for every course, bought the crystals and oils, and saw Tanya for reiki once a week, minimum. And Tanya had said — had assured her — that the disavowal of her name was the final step. But, today Not-Stella’s yoga class awaited, and once again she couldn’t get out of bed.

Marty was asleep one door down. He couldn’t abide the five a.m. wake-ups her rituals required, and had moved into the spare room. She’d had that dream again — her father’s red, papery mouth, the damp wool smell of her mother, a taste of rot behind her teeth, a headache waiting for her upon waking. She had to get up but couldn’t shake it. She felt like she’d consumed her parents’ fragility and it had no way out. Her skin had galvanised into something impermeable overnight and the collected fluids and thoughts sluiced about in her body, heavy, making it impossible to get out from under the duvet. Maybe she could say she’d a dicky tummy, or a problem with her car, or a child sick. She’d cancelled two weeks ago though. She had to get up. Her stomach winced. She tried to close her eyes, breathe, count, be present, feel her lungs fill and empty. The house phone rang — only her sister or dad had that number. Fear. She rolled out of bed and ran to the kitchen.

‘Dad?’

‘Do you think Dad would be calling this early?’ Heather said, breathless. She was a great woman for the morning walks.

‘Oh, hi.’

‘Sound more enthused. Look, I tried you yesterday but couldn’t get you. Happy birthday! The big four-two. Did you have a nice day?’

‘I am thirty-four, Heather. I need you to respect that.’

‘Jesus Christ, Stella, you’re not still on that craic? I remember the literal day you were born.’

‘Tanya said I need to align my day zero with my first formative memory. That is when I moved from—’

‘“The animal state into inhabiting your human soul.” I remember. To be honest, hearing once about the life changing experience of six-year-old you having an orgasm on our cousin’s seesaw was fecking one-time-too-many—’

‘Heather,’ her voice mewled upwards.

‘And it’s a complete coincidence in your book that you were thirty-four when mam died, is it?’ Not-Stella breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth.

‘All I ask is that you respect my values.’
It wasn’t Heather's fault she couldn’t understand the changes Not-Stella had made. Her aura was murky grey. She might as well be walking around backwards.

‘Whatever you say, Stella.’

‘Heather,’ she exhaled through her nose, ‘it’s not Stella, by the way.’

‘Oh, who is it? Has Marty gotten good at doing your voice?’ Heather laughed to herself.

‘No. I have severed myself from that name. I will go by my soul name moving forward,’ and in saying it aloud, the power of the decision reignited, burning back the dread.

‘Ara Jaysus, Stella. What’s that so?’ Heather gasped, hitting a hill.

‘I don’t know, it’s a journey,’ Not-Stella said, and smiled, feeling the truth of her words.

‘But what should I call you then?’

‘I have to go, but thank you.’

‘Stella, I—’

Not-Stella hung up.

At the studio, the cold chewed her but the light was beautiful. Not-Stella grounded herself, acknowledging her bare feet’s warmth against the tiles. After Heather’s call, Marty had asked again what exactly was wrong, what exactly he could do to help. The need for specific instruction was part of the problem. She never needed to tell Tanya about the dread. Tanya knew from the touch of her, the colours, the cosmic bruising around her body that followed her from night to day. It took time, healing. It took patience. But, even as person after person left, revealing themselves as negative actors in her new life, Tanya arrived each Monday, and stayed after class to heal her.

The morning passed easily, the room full and flow familiar. Tanya met her gaze after the closing namaste, and nodded approval. People filtered out. One woman asked her about pelvic floor exercises. Impatience scratched at her. Finally, they were alone. Tanya approached and placed her hands either side of Not-Stella’s neck, compressing gently.

‘Something new clogs your throat chakra.’

A tear crowded Not-Stella’s eye.

‘Speak it or be eaten by it,’ Tanya said.

‘I rang my dad, the day before my birthday, I wanted to invite him for cake, you know?’

Tanya sighed.

‘But he didn’t know me. I told him who I was, but he didn’t understand, he asked if I was mam, and now I keep having these nightmares where I am mam. I wake up in bed, in one of her cotton nighties, and dad’s hand is on my hip, and my bones are cardboard, I’m so stiff I can’t lift my head, I’m too tired to speak, I—’

Tanya furrowed her fingers into Not-Stella’s hair, hummed, swayed, and then laughed ecstatically.

‘You don’t see it, do you?’

Not-Stella shook her head.

‘This is your anima’s message. She has spoken. Your path is clear.’

‘It is? Is it?’ Not-Stella frowned.

‘Your mother departed this plane with her connection to the feminine divine severed. You work to heal that, and this is your final step.’ Tanya moved closer. Not-Stella could smell the lavender on her neck, the coffee on her breath.

‘Inhabit your mother. Give this shell over, live the years taken from her. Heal her rupture, and you will heal yourself.’

Tanya grabbed her shoulders and the dread lifted, pushed by something heavy, old — ancestral wisdom. She felt her mother’s lost time distil into her own, pulling on her joints, tugging at the skin of her neck. 

‘You know what to do now,’ said Tanya, her gaze fierce, ‘You can Revolut me later.’

Not-Stella dialled her father’s number.

‘Hello?’

She said nothing, heart a fish dancing on a pier.

‘Hello? Who’s this?’ he said.

Not-Stella was blank, a quartz vessel for the universe to fill.

‘Margaret, love, is that you?’ A rope.

‘Hi, Tony, doll.’ Her voice wasn’t her own, it held cigarettes and a childhood in the city. ‘It’s Margaret. I’ll be home soon. What do you want for your tea?’

‘Oh, Margaret,’ he said, ‘Margaret.’ He paused, and they both listened to each other breathe through the phone. ‘I thought you’d gone. How I longed, oh,’ he chuckled. ‘Why she had to go,’ he started to sing, but stopped, brain stuttering, the words greased, getting away from him.

‘I don’t know, she wouldn’t say,’ Not-Stella finished.

Finola Cahill is a writer from Co. Mayo, Ireland. She was the 2023 winner of the Waterford Poetry Prize and the 2024 winner of the Single Poem Award at Listowel Writers Week. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bath Short Story Award, the Máirtín Crawford Short Fiction Award, the Bridport Poetry Prize, the Cúirt New Writing prize, and others. She is at work on her debut poetry collection and a novel. www.finolacahill.com

Finola wrote the following about ‘Yesterday’:

This story was born out of my own mixed feelings around the wellness industry. I love my weekly yoga class, would admittedly be fond of a crystal, and I think there are many good individuals out there trying to help their communities. But, there are also a plethora of people trying to prey on people’s vulnerabilities for profit, spreading fearmongering misinformation, and globally making you feel bad about yourself for not living up to strange, arbitrary standards around diet, fitness, spirituality, whatever.