If Only I Could Tell You

by Hannah Beckerman

  “I just can’t believe they didn’t let me say goodbye. Why they didn’t let me tell her one last time that I loved her?” Her voice began to tear and she waited while it stitched itself back together. She thought about all those times she had recalled that final morning, filled with regret that she hadn’t insisted on seeing Zoe before she left for school. “Knowing I could have said goodbye but wasn’t given the chance . . . It feels like a whole new layer of grief. A whole new layer of anger.” Jess reached into her bag, pulled out a tissue, dragged it under her eyes and across her cheek.

  “Of course that’s hard, Jess. Of course that’s going to hurt. But you and Zoe—you must have said a thousand times that you loved each other. She’ll have known what she meant to you. She’ll have known without you needing to tell her one last time.”

  Ben’s voice was calm and gentle, and Jess wished she could bottle it up, breathe it in, make herself feel it inside, but every time she closed her eyes, there it was: an image of her parents and Lily discussing the fact that Zoe was never going to get better and choosing not to tell her.

  “It’s not just that. It’s all of it. If only Mum had told me that Zoe was coming home to die, I’d never have suspected Lily and I’d never have cut her out of my life. All of this could have been avoided if Mum and Dad had told me the truth. And I’m not sure how I begin to forgive my mum for that.” Jess wound the damp tissue around her forefinger, watched the blood fill the flesh at her fingertip.

  “I get that you’re angry and upset. But ask yourself this: can you honestly say that your mum wasn’t doing what she thought was for the best? When she decided not to tell you how ill Zoe was, wasn’t she only trying to protect you?”

  Jess folded the tissue into a crumpled square and flattened it between her palms. “But even if that’s true, I still can’t get away from the consequences of it. She’s been lying to me for years, not just about this, about other stuff too . . .” Jess stopped herself, the truth about Zoe’s death hovering in the wings, waiting to see if it was about to be called onstage. She glanced across at Ben, had an instinctive sense that he wouldn’t judge her mum if she told him. But it was her mum’s story to tell, not hers. “I don’t know. It just feels as though everything I thought I knew about my mum has come undone. I feel like I don’t even know who she is anymore.”

  “Of course you do. None of this has to change your relationship with her if you don’t want it to. She’s still the same person she was two hours ago. I totally understand that you’re upset, but do you honestly think she meant to hurt you by not telling you? Haven’t you ever done something you thought was for the best for your daughter but somehow, inadvertently, managed to upset her in the process?”

  Jess thought about the fight she’d had with Mia in the car that morning, less than fifteen hours before but already feeling as though it belonged to a different lifetime. When she began to speak again her voice was small and distant as though she were whispering from the far end of a long tunnel. “But it’s not just how I feel about Mum. It’s how I feel about Dad and Lily too. So much of what I thought I knew isn’t actually true. And if everything about your past changes, where does that leave who you are in the present?”

  “You’re all the same people, Jess. You just need to make adjustments in the way you think about your family. It’s what we all do, every single day, shifting the parameters, reshaping our expectations. It’s just that this adjustment is a lot bigger than most.”

  Jess let Ben’s words settle in her head, rubbing her fingers against her temples. “I just don’t know how to forgive her for not telling me. I want to forgive her, I know I have to, that I’ll regret it if I don’t, but I’m just not sure I can.” She blew her nose, shoved the crumpled tissue into her handbag, pulled out a fresh one.

  She detected an expression on Ben’s face that seemed strangely familiar: an expression of independence and self-sufficiency, like a crab’s shell evolved over millennia to protect what was inside. It was an expression she recognized because she’d seen it herself so many times in the mirror.

  And then Ben turned to her and it was as though she could see a decision click into place. “Forgiveness is a decision, Jess. I’ve done things I never imagined my daughter would forgive me for but over the past few weeks she’s begun to let me back into her life. It’s up to you whether you want to do the same for your mum. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but the decision is yours.”

  Ben’s voice had ascended a semitone and Jess couldn’t stop herself asking the question. “What happened? With your daughter?”

  There was a fractional hesitation, Ben glancing at her, then away again quickly, and it was as though Jess could hear the acceleration of his heartbeat.

  “I had a son, Zach. He was a great kid. Funny and smart and interested in the world. A kid full of curiosity. I know everyone thinks their kids are special but Zach really was different. He just had this way of making people around him feel good.”

  Jess watched in silence as Ben rested his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped together under his chin. She tuned out the white noise of other people’s conversations, held on tight to her own memories and focused on Ben.

  “Zach was ten when 9/11 happened. He’d been at school in Brooklyn when the Twin Towers were hit, saw from his classroom window smoke rising out of the buildings. He watched the second plane fly into the south tower, watched both towers tumble to the ground. I still can’t imagine what that must have been like for a child—to see your city under attack, to understand that things you thought were solid and indestructible were weak and defenseless. We lost two of our best friends that day. Zach had known them all his life. It was such a surreal time—I don’t think anyone who wasn’t there can ever really understand. It was like being in a daze for weeks on end, a really bad dream you just couldn’t wake from. There was so much confusion and anger and shock.”

  Ben sat stock-still, shoulders hunched high around his neck. Jess remained silent beside him, knowing that sometimes what stories needed more than anything was the space to find their way out into the world.

  “Zach changed after that day. Everything changed, obviously, but Zach’s whole personality was different. Everyone we knew had been affected by 9/11 in some way but . . . I don’t know . . . Zach seemed to feel it more deeply than his friends. It was as though the dust from all that debris had got under his skin, filtered into his bloodstream, become a part of who he was. He went from being a gregarious, life-loving kid to someone who was watchful, quiet, wistful. I’d always assumed he’d abhor violence and conflict, hate anything to do with war. I don’t know. Maybe we should have seen the signs, clocked what he was thinking sooner. Maybe then we’d have stood a chance of stopping him.”

  Ben paused, ran his fingers through his hair, let his chin rest back on his clasped hands.

  “He told us just before his eighteenth birthday that he was deferring his university place, joining the military, going to fight in Afghanistan. I can’t really describe what a shock it was. Of all the kids in his class, Zach was the last person you’d think would do that. Nicole and I did everything we could to try and dissuade him. We pleaded with him, rationalized with him, showed him the videos and the stats and the New York Times articles. We got angry with him, got angry with each other, but he was resolute. He joined up, did his training, left for Kandahar the day after his nineteenth birthday.”

  Ben swallowed hard, his eyes flicking briefly toward Jess’s face, and Jess knew where the story must be heading but she also knew she needed to let Ben tell it. That now he’d begun, she must let him finish.

  “It was seven weeks later that we got a knock on the door. I was nagging Erin because she was going to be late for school, so Nicole went to answer it, assuming it would be the mailman. As soon as I heard her coffee cup smash on the hallway floor, I knew. It’s weird. You’ve watched that scene so many times on TV, read about it in books, seen reports of it in the newspapers. It just felt unreal, as though we were c
haracters in a film and this couldn’t possibly be real life.”

  Jess heard her own intake of breath, felt the air suspended in her lungs, sensing there was more to come.

  “It was an IED. Zach had been manning a checkpoint when a car had driven up with a single driver inside who’d detonated himself. Zach was the only casualty. Two army officers stood in our kitchen that morning telling us how proud we should be, how brave Zach was, how he’d done such a great service for his country, but all I could think about was what had gone through the head of that driver as he’d drawn up at the checkpoint, knowing what he was about to do. What kind of madness made him go through with it?”

  Anger bled from Ben’s voice and Jess placed the flat of her hand on his back. “I’m sorry, Ben. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”

  She watched him train his eyes on the floor, breathing deeply, as though he didn’t yet trust himself to look her in the eye.

  “You know the thing I find hardest about it? I don’t understand now why I let him go. Why didn’t I just lock him in a room until he’d got the stupid idea out of his system? I look back now and I think, What kind of a father lets his son walk out of the front door and into a senseless war?”

  Ben’s voice was low and tight, as though his vocal cords were being squeezed.

  “He was eighteen, Ben. He wanted to make his own decision. That’s what teenagers do. There’s nothing you could have done to stop him.”

  “Isn’t there? It doesn’t feel like that now. Now it feels like I’d strap my body to his and never let him out of my sight if it meant he’d still be here.”

  Jess blinked hard against images of Zoe that final night and her regret that she had ever left her sister’s side. “You have nothing to feel guilty about, Ben. Nothing to seek forgiveness for.” She thought about Lily standing outside Zoe’s bedroom door that morning and her determination to stop Jess venturing inside. All these years she had hated herself for not doing more—for not pushing Lily aside and forcing her way in—as though perhaps, if she had, she might have been able to save her twin’s life.

  “But that’s not the end of it. I wish to God it was, but it’s not. You know how people say that tragedies either bring families closer together or tear them apart? I didn’t just lose Zach in that explosion. I lost Erin and Nicole too. It was all my own fault. I pushed them away. They did all the things grieving families are supposed to do, but I just couldn’t cope with it. I couldn’t cope with their grief on top of my own. I left four months after the funeral and I didn’t see Erin for five years. It’s inexcusable, I know. There were phone calls, emails, cards, but that was it. But after the concert at the Albert Hall—after your mum told me how ill she was and still she got on that stage and sang—I realized I had to make things better. I couldn’t waste any more time. When I first got back, I didn’t have any hope that Erin might let me back in her life. I wasn’t sure Nicole would even allow me to see her. I’m not suggesting for a second it’s been easy, but we’re getting there, slowly. Erin’s beginning to forgive me, and I can honestly say it’s the greatest gift I’ve ever had. And it’s within your power to give your mum that forgiveness too. It’s completely up to you.”

  Ben raised his head and turned to Jess, his face washed of all color. Jess let the story settle in her mind, let it adjust to being in the outside world.

  “Do you know, I’ve not told that story to anyone in five years? Usually I run a mile if there’s any chance of someone finding out. But I suppose the reason I’m telling you now is that I want you to see that even when you’re convinced relationships are beyond repair, there’s always hope.”

  Jess thought about her mum and Lily in Central Park, no doubt discussing what a terrible mess her misunderstanding had made of their lives. She pulled at the cuticle of her little finger, watched the skin rip away from the nail, leaving behind a bright pink sore. “It’s all very well me worrying about how I’m going to forgive my mum. But what about Lily forgiving me? How’s she ever going to do that given the way I’ve treated her?”

  “I know it’s hard. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy. But there’s always a chance of reconciliation. You just have to be honest enough to want it and brave enough to pursue it.”

  They fell silent and Jess’s eyes roamed the lobby until they settled on a figure she wasn’t yet ready to see. “Shit, there’s Lily. Do you think she’s spotted me? I can’t talk to her yet.”

  Ben followed her gaze to where Lily was standing by the staircase, scrolling through something on her phone. “Of course you can. The sooner you two start talking the sooner you can begin to repair the damage.”

  “Unless she really doesn’t want to speak to me again.”

  “Well, you won’t find out unless you try, will you?”

  Jess looked again to where Lily was standing, her eyes narrowing with uncertainty, before turning back to Ben. “I really am sorry for dumping all this on you. You just caught me at a really bad time. I’m not always like this, honestly.”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s no need to apologize. I’m glad I happened to be here when you needed to vent.”

  There was a pause and Jess felt herself rush to speak before she knew what she was going to say. “You know I’m here with Mum for a few days? Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . maybe we could get a coffee or something before I head back? I can fill you in on the latest episode of my family drama.” She gave a short, tentative laugh, felt heat flush her cheeks.

  “I’d really like that. How about I give you a call here at the hotel tomorrow morning—around nine? We can make a plan then.”

  “That’d be great. And thank you—for listening, I mean, and for the wise advice. I’m sorry for sniveling all over your shoulder. The other guests here must think we’re a couple in the midst of some awful breakup or something.”

  They smiled and said goodbye, and as Jess crossed the marble-floored lobby toward Lily, she tried to think of all the ways the members of her family might yet be able to forgive one another.

  Chapter 64

  Lily

  Lily looked up in time to see Jess walking across the lobby toward her, to see her sister wipe the palms of her hands on the back of her jeans, to catch the hesitation before the question.

  “Where’s Mum?”

  Their eyes met only briefly and Lily couldn’t be sure which of them had looked away first.

  “She wanted a bit of time by herself. She’s walking back through the park. She wanted . . .” The words floundered in Lily’s throat, choked by the strangeness of standing next to her sister, just the two of them, for the first time in decades. “Do you want to . . . get a drink or something?” She felt heat rise into her cheeks, was aware of the seconds stretching incalculably as she waited for Jess to reply.

  Her sister glanced up just long enough for Lily to catch the relief—or was it doubt?—that skimmed across her face. Lily wasn’t sufficiently schooled in Jess’s expressions to be able to read it. But then Jess nodded, and before she had a chance to change her mind, Lily led the way into a room with wood-paneled walls, parquet flooring, and rose-petal lighting. The bar was busy and she headed for an empty table in the corner. She sat down, Jess opposite, feeling like a little girl on a playdate, uncertain as to who should take the lead, which toys they should play with, which game should begin.

  She thought about her mum’s last words to her in the park: I just want you two to be sisters again. Can you try and do that for me?

  As Lily tried to work out how to restart a conversation that had fallen silent years ago, she realized that there were so many ways to begin, yet no way of knowing which might lead to the right ending. “How are you feeling?” The question felt strange in Lily’s mouth, as though her brain and her voice box had conspired to let it out without asking her first.

  Jess glanced up at her—fleeting, furtive—then looked back down at the table, tearing at the corner of a paper napkin. “I’m not sure. Confused.
Angry. Humiliated. Take your pick.”

  Neither spoke for a moment, a carousel of recent memories revolving in Lily’s head: Daniel and the redhead and the new baby Lily would have given anything to be her own; the tone of Jess’s hatred as she’d finally voiced an accusation so much wilder than anything Lily had ever imagined; her mum’s expression as she’d turned to Lily, realizing that Lily had known all along.

  “I just hate the fact that everyone else knew the truth about how Zoe died and I didn’t. Why didn’t you tell me?” Jess’s voice was quiet, just the lightest ripple on the surface to hint at the rip current beneath.

  Lily thought about all the times she’d yearned to confide in her sister. All those evenings in the office, staring at a computer screen in lieu of facing her memories. All those early mornings in the gym, pounding her feet on a treadmill in an effort to pummel thoughts from her head. All those nights lying awake next to Daniel, wishing she could creep downstairs and call Jess to describe the scene that had haunted her for years. Somewhere in Lily’s mind there had always been a parallel life, one in which she had told Jess the truth and, in doing so, had cemented a bond between them.

  “When should I have told you? I couldn’t have told you at the time: you were only ten. It was bad enough for me knowing and I was fifteen. It would have completely destroyed you. And by the time you were old enough to know, you weren’t speaking to me anymore. I tried, Jess. I tried to have a relationship with you but you didn’t want to know.” Frustration spilled from Lily’s voice and she stopped herself before the rift between them deepened.

  “So you’re saying that if I hadn’t cut you out of my life, you’d have told me the truth?”

  Lily was about to nod but then she replayed Jess’s question, dug deeper for an answer. An image shuttered in her mind like the split-second opening of a camera lens: arriving home that day to the parked police car on the curb outside, her heart rising into her throat as she walked through the hallway and into the sitting room to find her mum and Jess locked in grief. A look on her mum’s face not only of shock and horror but of something else too: fear wrapped in a guilt so thick that Lily couldn’t imagine her mum ever being free of it.