If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

  Looking at Zoe now, it is impossible to comprehend that this small, frail ten-year-old is the same robust baby who had parted her newborn lips and cried out into the world, her voice loud and muscular, exuding a confidence that seemed to say: This is my life and I will make myself heard. It is impossible to think that Zoe and Jess—two halves of the same soul who have been inseparable for a decade—are soon to be cleaved apart.

  She strokes the back of Zoe’s fingers, rubbing her thumb gently along skin so thin it is like touching bone.

  She needs Zoe to know that she is there, that she would never leave her. Audrey understands that sitting here now, being with Zoe, is the most important thing she has ever done, the most important thing she will ever do. She could live to be a hundred and still there would be nothing more important than Zoe knowing that Audrey would never leave her side.

  If I could give you my life, I would.

  Something rattles in Zoe’s throat and there is a spluttering sound as the muscles respond, an automatic reflex trying to clear the obstruction, but it is as if her body has forgotten what it needs to do and instead her neck twists to one side, her face contorted with pain or distress, Audrey does not know which. All she knows is that her daughter is suffering and that the face on the pillow no longer resembles that of her beautiful little girl.

  It is then that she notices the full bottle of medicine by the bed, remembers Grace’s words as she left the previous morning: Sometimes this stage can last a few days. Use as much liquid morphine as you need to keep her comfortable.

  There is a moment’s stillness during which Audrey is not conscious of making a decision. But the next thing she knows, she is watching one hand reach out toward the bedside table and pick up the plastic syringe, the other hand the bottle, watching herself fill the syringe to the top with clear liquid.

  She slides a hand under Zoe’s head, raising it a few inches from the pillow, and slowly drops the liquid morphine onto Zoe’s tongue, all the time whispering into her ear that she loves her, that she is there for her, that she will never, ever leave her side. She senses a change in the air, a tiny disturbance of light, but she is focused on what she is doing and does not allow her eyes to leave Zoe’s face.

  It seems to Audrey to be an eternity until the syringe is empty. But when, at last, it has all gone, she watches her hand reach for the bottle again, watches herself insert the syringe a second time, sucking up medicine until it is full.

  She is aware of performing these movements but is not conscious of being in control of them. Again she lifts Zoe’s head, again she administers the medicine onto Zoe’s tongue, again she whispers the same recitation: I love you, angel. I will always, always love you. There is a gurgling sound in the back of Zoe’s throat as though, in moving her head, Audrey has dislodged a small reservoir that has collected around her tonsils. She waits for it to pass, and once the second syringe is empty, Audrey fills and administers another and then another—too many to count—until there is nothing left in the bottle.

  She puts the syringe back on the bedside table and is aware that the room is completely still. It is only when she feels that her cheeks are damp and her face is hot that she realizes she is crying.

  She lifts the edge of the duvet and climbs into bed next to her daughter, wraps an arm around her, and holds her close, hoping the warmth of her body will seep into Zoe’s skin. She rests her cheek against Zoe’s, hugging her tight, breathing her in and filling her lungs, as if, in doing so, she is holding on to Zoe’s life. She places the palm of her hand against Zoe’s cheek, feels the thin sheen of skin where once plump flesh had been, feels the vibrations of air rattling in and out of Zoe’s lungs, but does not let go. She needs Zoe to know that she will never stop holding her, that she will never be without her. She sings softly into Zoe’s ear, all the songs they have always loved—“Edelweis,” “Castle on a Cloud,” “Dream a Little Dream of Me”—the notes finding their way through a gap in her lips in spite of the narrowing of her throat and the tears flooding her cheeks. When there are no more songs to be sung, Audrey whispers into Zoe’s ear about all the places they will go, all the things they will do, all the adventures they will have together in Zoe’s dreams.

  Audrey does not know how long they lie there. Time seems to bend and stretch. Zoe’s breaths become longer, the gaps between them wider. Audrey breathes in time with her daughter, the two of them inhaling in unison as though sharing a single pair of lungs.

  Zoe takes in a breath, holds it, lets it out again, and Audrey waits for the next one to come.

  The seconds pass—three seconds, four—with no movement.

  And then it comes: the slow, laborious inhalation.

  Five seconds, six seconds, seven before the next breath. It is a pattern repeated so many times, the rhythm becomes almost hypnotic.

  And then Zoe breathes out and Audrey waits for her chest to rise, for the almost imperceptible widening of her lips, for the air to be sucked in slowly as though it has all the time in the world.

  Six seconds, seven.

  Audrey waits, her own breath static in her chest.

  Eight seconds, nine.

  She closes her eyes, listening, silent.

  Ten seconds, eleven.

  It has been this long before, Audrey tells herself. There has been this great gap of time before.

  Twelve seconds, thirteen.

  She presses her face tighter against Zoe’s, feels her tears slide onto her daughter’s cheek.

  Fourteen seconds, fifteen.

  Audrey’s arm tightens around Zoe’s body.

  Sixteen, seventeen.

  She keeps hold of her, keeps her close, needing Zoe to know she is there.

  Eighteen, nineteen.

  Her lips caress Zoe’s cheek.

  Twenty, twenty-one.

  She holds Zoe’s face next to hers, tightly, fiercely.

  Twenty-two, twenty-three.

  She presses their bodies together, will not let her go.

  Twenty-four, twenty-five.

  Her throat tightens, her eyes sting.

  Twenty-six, twenty-seven.

  She clings to Zoe as though she may yet be able to fuse their bodies together, may yet be able to transfer her own life to her daughter.

  Twenty-eight, twenty-nine.

  The silence hurts Audrey’s ears.

  Thirty.

  Audrey feels the air exit her own lungs, feels her chest collapse under the weight of her grief, feels something empty out of her that she knows will never return. She hears a sound emerge from her throat, something so raw it is as though it must be coming from someone else, something outside her, somewhere she cannot bear to go even though she knows she is already there. Her throat burns, her eyes are hot with tears, her lips brushing over Zoe’s skin, kissing every inch of her.

  She presses her body to Zoe’s, knowing that her daughter is no longer there but unable to let her go.

  For minutes and then hours—long after Edward comes in, long after he has called the doctor, long after the doctor has written out the certificate to finalize a life so short-lived—Audrey lies next to her little girl, holding her tight, determined Zoe should know that Audrey would never leave her.

  And for all the time Audrey lies there with Zoe—all the seconds that pass into minutes, and the minutes that pass into hours—the same single thought repeats silently in her mind, somewhere between a prayer and a lamentation.

  If I could have given my life for you, I would.

  Chapter 58

  Audrey

  Audrey opened her eyes and blinked her tears into the bright light of the afternoon sun, her head throbbing with remembrance.

  She took a moment to get her bearings. A foreign city. Boaters on a lake. Water flanked by trees and buildings. And on either side of her, sitting on the bench, two sisters who had been estranged for over two decades because of the secret she had kept from them.

  She thought back to the evening of Zoe’s funeral: she and Edward sit
ting silently on the sofa, only a single table lamp illuminating the darkness, neither of them able to muster the energy to clear the plates of curling sandwiches and lipstick-marked paper cups that guests had left behind. Lily and Jess had been in bed already and Audrey had wished she could not be far behind but had known there was little point because for the ten days since Zoe’s death sleep had been elusive and the only thing Audrey could now be sure of when she climbed under the duvet and shut her eyes was that she would be greeted by the memory of Zoe’s body, encased in her arms, as the life had ebbed out of her.

  She remembered glancing across to where Edward was sitting, staring straight ahead. She had felt guilt clawing at her throat like rats in a cellar demanding to be let out, and eventually she had found the courage to tell him what she had done.

  He had looked at her—unblinking, disbelieving—but she had seen the realization spread across his face like the tentative light of an early dawn.

  How could you? How could you make that decision and not even tell me? She was our little girl, ours. Not yours. It wasn’t your decision to make. You had no right, Audrey, no right.

  His words had brimmed with rage and she had not known what to do to calm the tempest of his fury. But then he had turned to her and his voice, when he had next spoken, had been quiet, barely more than a whisper.

  You killed her, Audrey. You killed our little girl.

  His eyes had glimmered with anger but there had been something beyond that, something that had made Audrey flinch even though she did not, at first, understand why: he had looked at her not just with disbelief but with contempt.

  She had placed a hand on his arm in the hope that they might begin to find their way back to one another but the violence with which he had shaken her off had made her recoil.

  Don’t touch me, Audrey. I mean it. I don’t want you near me. How could you? How could you have done that? I will never, ever be able to forgive you.

  I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. You know that. The last thing I’d ever want is to hurt you or the girls. You must know that.

  He had turned to her then, his eyes stony, his voice wrapped in ice.

  Do you know the worst thing? Zoe was bearing that pain—she was strong—but you were weak. You were too weak to bear the pain with her. What kind of mother does that make you? What kind of mother can’t look after their own child when they need them most? I’ll never forgive you for what you’ve done. And I’ll never forgive myself for having failed to stop you.

  Just over twelve weeks later, when Audrey had run past the parked police cars and into the sitting room to find Jess hysterical and to be told what Edward had done, she had known immediately that she was to blame.

  So many times during the intervening years she had spent sleepless nights thinking about how different their lives might have been had she never told Edward the truth, wondering whether he might still be alive, whether they might still be married, happy even. Whenever she had seen a newspaper report or watched a documentary about a child surviving cancer against the odds, she had heard Edward’s allegations resounding in her ears until she had understood that there needed to be only the thinnest sliver of doubt between conviction and uncertainty for the guilt to slip in and consume you every single day of your life.

  Sitting now on a bench in Central Park between her daughters, Audrey thought back to that morning in Zoe’s room, administering those doses of morphine in an attempt to alleviate her daughter’s suffering. She remembered how she had sensed a change in the air, a tiny disturbance of light, but had been too preoccupied to turn around and investigate. She thought about Jess’s accusation and her hatred of Lily all these years, Jess’s words hammering in her ears: I saw you coming out of her room. I saw the expression on your face. You were white as a sheet. You barricaded yourself against the door, and I knew—I just knew—something terrible had happened.

  And all at once Audrey understood that decades of unspoken stories were like strata of ancient rock: layer upon layer of family secrets impacting on one another until the truth was hidden so far beneath the surface that only the most committed could excavate it.

  Audrey looked from left to right, from Lily to Jess.

  “Lily didn’t kill Zoe, Jess. It was me. I was the one who helped Zoe to die.”

  She turned to Lily and held her gaze even as she longed to look away. “But you already knew that, didn’t you, Lily?”

  Chapter 59

  Lily

  Lily felt the heat of her mum’s understanding, felt a history she had long since buried begin to resurface.

  For years she had speculated as to the cause of Jess’s hostility but never once had she imagined that Jess had got the facts so very nearly right but all the key players wrong. All this time she had imagined that it was their dad’s death Jess blamed her for, even though she had never been able to pinpoint why. Only now did Lily understand that Jess had plugged the gap in her knowledge with her own version of the truth. Because sometimes, Lily knew only too well, the only way to make sense of the incomprehensible was to tell yourself a story.

  Lily raised her head to look at her mum, at her marbled, tear-stained cheeks and the bones jutting from her skin like mountains rising from the earth. As their eyes locked, she realized that the secret she had kept for almost thirty years was no longer hers alone.

  Chapter 60

  June 23, 1988

  Lily is standing outside the door to the spare bedroom, hovering on the cusp of a decision. She has been told not to go inside but before she leaves for school she wants to say goodbye to Zoe. She knows how ill her little sister is, and ever since Zoe came home from the hospital two weeks ago, whenever Lily now leaves the house she fears that Zoe may not be there when she gets home.

  Turning the door handle silently, Lily slips into the room, her breath held in her chest so as not to make a sound, fearful of disturbing Zoe should she still be sleeping. She sinks her bare toes noiselessly into the thick pile of the carpet, opens the door only enough for her body to squeeze through, careful not to bring too much light into the room. She knows that light can hurt Zoe’s eyes, does not want to do anything that might unsettle her.

  It is dark in the spare bedroom, only the faintest morning light visible around the edges of the closed curtains. She can just make out the shape of the blue hummingbirds that pattern the wallpaper around the window but everything else is in silhouette. The air is still and smells pungent—sharp and slightly sweet—like overripe fruit or an open bottle of vinegar.

  She hears the crying before her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, before they have found the figure sitting on the bed: her mum’s sobs are low and painful, a sound that seems to Lily to be filled not only with fear but with disbelief and a quiet fury that this should be happening. It is a sound that causes Lily’s heart to knock against her chest, gently at first and then more insistently, until she fears her mum may hear it.

  She holds the palm of her hand against her chest. She knows she should not be there but now that she is—unnoticed, unheard—she is too scared to leave in case she accidentally reveals her presence. She allows only the smallest stream of air in and out of her mouth, the shallowest of breaths she hopes will not betray her.

  As her eyes adjust to the darkness Lily sees that her mum is giving Zoe some medicine. With one hand, she lifts Zoe’s head from the pillow as gently as if she were handling a precious artifact in a museum. With the other, she drips medicine from a plastic syringe onto Zoe’s tongue. Her mum is crying, low, mournful sobs, and whispering declarations of love into the darkness: “I love you, angel. I will always, always love you.” Giving Zoe the syringe of medicine seems to take forever but when finally it is over, instead of putting the syringe back down, her mum picks up the bottle of morphine, fills the syringe again, and drops more medicine into Zoe’s mouth.

  Thoughts scramble to form an orderly queue in Lily’s head. She wonders whether her mum has forgotten or whether she is too ups
et to remember the rules that Lily has heard her parents discuss so many times over the past few days: When did you last give her some medicine? Remember, she’s not allowed more than one syringe of morphine an hour. She feels an urge to call out but the words stick in her throat and she realizes she does not know what she wants to say.

  Lily watches in silence as her mum finishes dispensing the second batch of medicine and then administers a third. Her heart is hammering, her lungs tight with the limited supply of oxygen, but still she says nothing as her mum reaches for the bottle, again and again, giving Zoe more and more medicine, until she is holding the bottle almost upside down to fill the syringe with the last of the morphine.

  Lily’s skin prickles, her eyes straining in the semidarkness. Her brain scrabbles to find possible—better—solutions to the shadowy thoughts creeping through her mind, but however much she tries to settle on a different narrative, the same dark story rises up through the gloom.

  Still Lily does not move as her mum gets into bed beside Zoe, wraps an arm around her, and holds on to her tightly. Her mum is still crying but she begins to sing through her tears and the sound is like nothing Lily has ever heard before: a sound so sad Lily knows she will remember it for as long as she lives. She tries to swallow her grief but instead tastes something bitter and metallic on her tongue and she knows it is the taste of fear.

  She cannot stay in there any longer. She cannot stay because she knows—the truth of it clenching her heart in its fist—that what she has witnessed is all her fault. Her own words of eleven days ago come back to haunt her, echoing in her ears like a child’s playground taunt: It’s inhumane. For goodness’ sake, people do more for sick pets than they do for people. There must be something we can do. Please, Mum. Please stop it. You have to.