If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

  “He said he just needed some space. I thought everything would go back to normal once he was home.”

  Lily’s voice flatlined, and she stared straight ahead as if gazing toward a future she didn’t dare approach.

  All this time Audrey had allowed herself to believe that Lily was strong, secure, unshakable. Five months earlier she’d moved in with Jess rather than Lily, to live with the daughter who needed her rather than the daughter whose life, she’d believed, was perfect. Now she felt as though she had failed them both.

  With Jess sitting silently next to her, Audrey sensed something stir in the atmosphere, as if somewhere out to sea a hurricane was gathering pace and the winds on land were eddying in response.

  Chapter 55

  Jess

  Jess sat unmoving as her mum held Lily’s hand.

  It had always been like this, for as long as she could remember. Lily, the good girl, who could do no wrong. Lily, the chosen one, who deserved the very best life had to offer. Lily, the innocent, to whom nothing bad should ever happen. Except she wasn’t. And it had.

  “Maybe it’s karma, Lily.” The words whispered their way through Jess’s lips. Her heart knocked in her chest, warning her of what was to come, cautioning her that once the story was out in the world there was no way of erasing it from their family history.

  Jess watched Lily raise her head from their mum’s shoulder, watched her widen her bloodshot eyes, thin red lines streaking above her green irises like a pastoral sunset.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean.” Jess tried to encourage some air into her lungs, willed her voice to stay strong.

  Lily glanced at their mum as if she might hold the answer.

  “What are you talking about, Jess? What karma? What could Lily possibly have done to deserve this?”

  Perhaps it was the incredulous tone of her mum’s voice. Perhaps it was Lily’s self-righteous tears. Or perhaps it was simply the change of scene. But suddenly decades of unspoken fury were erupting from deep within Jess where they had lain dormant for decades. “Stop pretending, Lily. Stop lying. You know what you did and so do I. I saw you. Don’t pretend you don’t remember. You know I saw you.”

  She watched Lily turn to their mum, saw the almost imperceptible shake of her head, watched the lines furrow across Lily’s forehead as she turned back to her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you think you saw?”

  And there it was, before Jess had a chance to stop it: the ticking bomb that had always been destined, one day, to explode. “I saw you! The day Zoe died I saw you coming out of her room. I saw the expression on your face. You were white as a sheet. It was so obvious something had happened in there but you wouldn’t let me in, you barricaded yourself against the door, and I knew—I just knew—something terrible had happened. And then I got home from school and Dad told me Zoe had died that morning, and he said she’d died naturally in her sleep, but I knew what had happened. I knew it was you. I’ve always known it was you.”

  Chapter 56

  Audrey

  Beads of sweat trickled down Audrey’s spine and pooled in the small of her back. Scenes she had packaged up so carefully and sealed in boxes many years ago ripped themselves open, the past fighting its way into the present. All this time, unbeknown to her, Jess had been rummaging inside those boxes like a child in a dress-up chest, discovering a version of family history that didn’t quite fit but which she had been trying on for size all these years nonetheless.

  Audrey gripped the wooden slats of the bench, her head vertiginous with memories, aware that she was tumbling down a rabbit hole and that there was nothing to break her fall.

  It was all her fault. She should have been able to protect them, all three of them. But she hadn’t, and this was the consequence of her failure: tales told to fill the gaping hole where the truth should have been.

  Chapter 57

  June 22, 1988

  Audrey peeks around the edge of the curtain to see if there is any sign. Her eyes skim across the square from left to right, past empty benches, parked cars, magnolia trees that have long since shed their bloom.

  The square is empty. No one is yet hurrying toward her front door.

  She closes the curtain, careful not to let any glaring sunshine into the room. Even in her sleep, bright light seems to hurt Zoe’s eyes.

  Kneeling by her daughter’s bed, Audrey watches her sleep and listens to her breathing, imploring herself to hear it differently.

  She noticed it as soon as she woke up this morning from a fitful night on the camp bed in Zoe’s room on which she has slept since her daughter came home from the hospital thirteen days ago. The change in Zoe’s breathing: shallow, irregular, as though her lungs occasionally forget what job they’re supposed to be doing. Edward has tried to reassure her, has tried to convince her that she is imagining it, but Audrey knows she is not.

  Zoe’s breaths murmur in and then out again, short and sharp, as though wary of loitering too long.

  Finally the doorbell rings. When Audrey answers it and sees the home-care nurse standing in front of her she is unable to hold back her tears. As she allows her head to fall on the nurse’s shoulder she does not know whether she is crying with relief that here at last is someone who can explain to her what is happening or shedding tears of dread that her worst fears are about to be confirmed.

  After Grace, the home-care nurse, has examined Zoe, she asks Audrey and Edward to accompany her to the sitting room below. Grace suggests they all take a seat but Audrey refuses: to sit down might indicate that she intends to stay when all she really wants is to get back to Zoe.

  “What can we do to make her more comfortable?” Edward’s voice is calm, and even though his calmness is one of the things Audrey has always loved about him, today she finds it intolerable. Today she needs to hear her panic reflected back at her, needs to know she is not alone in her terror.

  “You’re doing everything you can, honestly. I know how upsetting it is seeing her in distress and not being able to stop it. Just be with her, talk to her, let her know you’re there. Even right up to the end there’s a chance she’ll be able to hear you. But I should warn you now that this final stage can be quite protracted. You do need to prepare yourselves for that.”

  Audrey thinks about her little girl, upstairs alone, restless even in sleep. “What do you mean, protracted?”

  There is a pause during which Grace smiles so kindly that Audrey fears she might cry.

  “It’s difficult to be precise. Sometimes it can be just a few hours. Sometimes this stage can last a few days. I know that’s really hard to hear but I need you to be aware of what might happen. We usually find that the better prepared parents are, the better they’re able to cope.”

  Audrey reaches out for the back of the armchair to steady herself. The thought of Zoe struggling for breath for days to come clutches at her throat.

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to find a hospital bed for Zoe? The nurses would take exceptional care of her and you could still stay with her the whole time. It might just take the pressure off you both.”

  She senses both Edward and Grace looking at her but does not raise her head to meet their gaze. She knows what they are thinking. It has been discussed already, at length, but nothing either of them says will make Audrey change her mind. “Absolutely not. I want to keep her here, at home. I want to look after her myself.” She hears the determination—almost maniacal—in her voice but does not care what they think of her. She will not have anyone taking Zoe away.

  “OK, I understand. You know you can call me anytime, day or night, and I’ll come. And you’ve got the number of the hospital if you change your mind. In the meantime, use as much liquid morphine as you need to top up Zoe’s medication and keep her comfortable, just not more than one oral syringe an hour. If you think she’s still in too much pain, do talk to the doctor about increasing her dosage. But the best thing you can do for her
now is to be with her and talk to her, let her know she’s not alone. You’re doing a wonderful job, both of you. Please don’t forget that.”

  Grace picks up her bag from the arm of the chair and turns to leave. Audrey allows Edward to see the nurse to the front door as she makes her way back up the stairs, back to Zoe, already mourning the three or four minutes she has lost of the precious time she has left with her little girl.

  Audrey walks into the kitchen where Edward is washing up. The girls got home from school half an hour ago and she has left Jess snuggled up in bed with Zoe, reading poems aloud even though Zoe is sleeping.

  Ever since Grace left this morning, Audrey has been plagued by thoughts she cannot shake from her mind, thoughts she does not want to keep to herself but is nonetheless fearful of sharing.

  She studies Edward’s back as he stands at the sink. His hair is thinning on top, a depletion she is sure had not begun before the onset of Zoe’s illness. “I can’t bear to see her like this, Edward. What if Grace is right? What if it goes on for days?”

  Edward turns around and offers her the kindness in his eyes. “We don’t know that it will. We just have to be there for her. You heard Grace. That’s all we can do.”

  He moves to walk past her, but as he reaches for the tea towel she grabs his soapy hand. “It’s just . . . I was thinking . . . Those morphine doses are such an inexact science. No two ten-year-olds are the same. How do we know that what we’re giving Zoe is enough to ease her pain as much as we possibly can?”

  Edward frowns, and Audrey is unsure whether he is failing to follow what she is saying or simply choosing not to understand.

  “We know because that’s what the doctor told us to give her. I know how hard this is, but we just have to get through it, one hour at a time.”

  He pulls her into his arms and she knows he means to be comforting but Audrey does not want comfort. She frees herself from his embrace, walks over to the back door and looks out onto the garden that is overgrown with weeds after months of neglect. “But days, Edward. We can’t let this go on for days, can we? She’s in so much pain, so much distress. We can’t just sit by and do nothing, can we?”

  “We’re not doing nothing. We’re with her. We’re loving her. We’re letting her know she’s not alone.”

  Audrey thinks of Zoe upstairs, struggling for breath, and panic knocks inside her chest. “Is that true, though? Is that really as much as we can do?”

  She turns around to find Edward staring at her, unblinking. “What do you mean?”

  Audrey hesitates, still unsure whether she has the courage to say the words out loud. “Morphine isn’t just for pain relief. It can do more than that . . .” Her voice trails off and she isn’t brave enough to chase it back.

  She watches Edward’s expression shift—confusion to uncertainty, then a flash of recognition—and he glares at her with a look she has never seen before, something between disbelief and disappointment. “If you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then don’t. Don’t even think it, let alone say it. It’s a dreadful thing even to consider.”

  There is such incredulity in his voice that Audrey cannot bear to look at him. She feels herself falter but then remembers Zoe upstairs, her breaths shortening, her life ebbing away one inhalation at a time. “But she’s in pain, Edward. She’s suffering. How can you bear to see her like that and do nothing?”

  “Because I don’t believe in playing God. Anything could happen—anything. The doctors don’t know everything. She could get better, you just don’t know. Miracles do happen. You hear about them all the time in the papers.”

  It is a line Edward has repeated again and again over the past fourteen months and Audrey cannot tell if he actually believes it or whether it is simply a verbal comfort blanket. He has never been a particularly religious man but this belief in miracles—in the possibility of divine intervention against all the scientific and medical odds—has erected itself as an invisible wall between them.

  No, Audrey wants to say, miracles don’t happen all the time. The reason you read about them in the papers is because of how rare they are. “But you heard what the doctor said, you heard what Grace said. There isn’t going to be an eleventh-hour reprieve. She’s not going to get better, Edward. She’s dying. Our little girl is going to die.”

  Her voice splinters, the words she has not dared say aloud before burning in the back of her throat, and there is a moment of terror that voicing them has somehow sealed Zoe’s fate, like a spell in a fairy tale that cannot be undone.

  “Stop it, Audrey, just stop it. You don’t know that. You don’t know what’s going to happen. You might have given up hope but I haven’t. I won’t give up hope until there’s nothing left to hope for. I can’t believe you’re even thinking like this, let alone talking about it. I will never give up on her, never. Now I’m going upstairs to be with Zoe. Don’t follow me—I want to be on my own with her.”

  Edward’s cheeks are blotchy as he turns and leaves. Left alone in the kitchen, Audrey sheds tears for the miracle she feels certain will never arrive.

  Audrey has not slept all night. She has not wanted to sleep, has not wanted to miss a second of however much time Zoe has left. Instead, she has sat by Zoe’s bed listening to her breathing, her ears attuned to every change, however small, like a bat vigilant to the sound of predators swooping through the darkness.

  She knows that, in spite of Edward’s belief in miracles, Grace is right—they have already passed the beginning of the end. She does not know how long the end will be but she can sense its presence. Life is retreating from her daughter, leaving her gasping for air, her body restless and twitching, and there is nothing Audrey can do to make her better.

  She runs her fingers along Zoe’s forehead where once her hairline had been. It had been such beautiful hair, so thick and shiny, just like Jess’s. Now all Audrey has left of Zoe’s hair are photographs and the single envelope of locks that she keeps tucked away in a box at the back of her wardrobe, hidden from Edward, who thinks it macabre.

  She leans over, kisses her daughter’s bare scalp, breathes in a smell that she silently implores to be different: she wants it to be the sweet, fragrant, childlike scent of Zoe’s first ten years, not this sour bitterness which seems to ooze from her pores as if the leukemia is leaking out through her skin.

  From the kitchen two floors below Audrey hears a loud clatter and silently curses the disruption. It is probably Edward organizing the girls’ breakfasts or emptying the dishwasher. She and Edward have not spoken since their disagreement yesterday afternoon. Audrey has kept vigil by Zoe’s bed overnight while Edward has assumed the household responsibilities that had, not so long ago, been Audrey’s domain. His belief in miracles has wedged itself between them and neither of them has the strength to close the gap.

  She strokes Zoe’s bare head, brushes her fingers across her forehead, over her temple, behind her ear, following the same path again and again, just as she has so many times throughout Zoe’s childhood.

  Stroke my hair to sleep, Mummy.

  When she was little, Zoe would ask it almost every night as she clambered under the duvet, Jess in the bunk either above or below, the two of them taking turns each night as to who would sleep on top. Often, in the morning, Audrey would find them curled up in the same bed, their limbs tangled, flesh pressed together as though—even seven, eight, nine years after their birth—their bodies still craved being entwined in a confined space. Audrey would sit or stand by the bed, stroking Jess or Zoe’s hair, and sing to them both—“Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Hush Little Baby,” “My Favorite Things”—until her daughters’ breathing deepened, lengthening into that heavy, satisfied sleep in which they would remain until morning.

  Now when Audrey runs her fingers along Zoe’s skin it is arid and unyielding, like writing paper puckered by dried tears.

  Zoe’s eyes are closed and Audrey tries to convince herself that her daughter is asleep and dreaming, even though she knows
Zoe is in something much deeper than sleep.

  Morning creeps around the edge of the curtains, creating a thin shaft of light on the tiny blue hummingbirds that decorate the wallpaper. The silence is punctuated by the short, shallow breaths that rattle through Zoe’s body. They seem to serrate her throat on the way down, get caught somewhere between her lips and her lungs, forcing her to arch her neck as if trying to clear a safe passage for air to pass through. There is an invisible snag somewhere inside Zoe’s windpipe that Audrey can neither see nor cure, but she hears it, feels it as though it is reverberating through her own body.

  So many times she has wished she could swap places with Zoe. So many times she has sat by her daughter’s bed, at home or in the hospital, and silently intoned the same incantation: If I could give you my blood, I would. If I could swap your damaged cells for mine, I would do it in an instant.

  Now, as she watches the life receding from her daughter’s body, one rasping breath at a time, she knows without a shadow of a doubt that if she were given the chance to swap places with Zoe, she would not hesitate.

  If I could give you my life, I would.

  Audrey does not know which is worse: watching her little girl writhe in pain and being unable to help or wishing that her suffering would soon be over in spite of what that means.

  As Zoe breathes in and the air catches in her throat, her fingers squeeze hard around Audrey’s hand with a strength she did not know Zoe still possessed. For a brief, ephemeral moment, Audrey imagines that perhaps she is being granted the miracle Edward so fervently believes in. But when she looks at her daughter’s face—sees the pinching around her closed eyes, the tensing of the muscles across her forehead, the jaw slack and mouth open—she understands that this is not the beginnings of a miracle.

  She holds her daughter’s hand as tightly as Zoe holds hers and waits for the convulsion to pass.

  Clutching Zoe’s hand, Audrey remembers the first time she held Zoe in her arms. She remembers Zoe’s warm, sticky skin against hers, the flood of love so great it had temporarily washed away the unfinished pain that was yet to bring Jess into the world. During her pregnancy Audrey had worried that perhaps she would not experience the same intensity of feelings as she had with Lily, that perhaps there was a special bond reserved for firstborns, never to be replicated. But as soon as she had held Zoe against her chest—as soon as those tiny hands had clutched her little finger, as if holding on for dear life—she had understood that every new baby remade you as a mother.