“I don’t want to talk to him right now. I mean it.”
He swallows and nods. “Okay. I’ll let him know.”
A few moments later, Nigel returns to the office with Henry on his heels. He gives me an apologetic shrug. I spring to my feet, shocked by how strangely unfamiliar Henry looks to me now.
He’s wearing the rimless glasses I found in the darkroom. A deep bruise blossoms around his left eye. Dark shadows circle the other like he hasn’t slept in days. His aura hangs around him like an inky cloak. His hair is sleep-matted to his head, clothes are wrinkled and disheveled. He clutches something in his hands. My eyes fix on it, taking in the shape, the size, the details.
Beneath a layer of caked dirt, a bright Yellow Submarine sticker peeks through. Next to it, an All You Need is Love sticker. I can just make out the words through the river sediment.
I blink and tears roll down my face. “How did you…?”
He extends the urn to me and I take it. My hands tremble as I do.
“I had help.” His voice is strained like he’s avoiding tears of his own. “From Sanjay’s mudlarking group. We’ve been looking for days. Got the Port Authority involved. The harbor master called me last night when they found it. I picked it up this morning. I’m sorry I haven’t had time to clean it up yet.”
I remember the call he took at the club as I turn the urn over and over in my hand, examining its weight, sick with worry about the integrity of the ashes inside. My swollen eyes burn.
“When you told me…” His voice trembles. He takes a moment and regroups. “I knew I had to get it back for you.”
“I’ll give you two a moment,” Nigel says. He closes the door of his office behind him as he exits into the bar.
Henry and I bathe in the uncomfortable silence until I can’t take it anymore. I look up at him.
“There was never a John, was there?” Sadness and anger war in the pit of my stomach. “You just made that up. Gave him a fake name.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “No, it’s not like that. When he met my mother, he told her that was his name. His role in the band. She never stopped calling him that. We knew his real name, but we never called him by it.”
I stare daggers at him. “Which makes your mother Yoko. Fitting.”
Henry winces. “You don’t think I know that? I was hurt by all of this, too. I lost them both.”
It’s hard to process. To relive the summer backwards in this new context.
“Shortly after he died,” Henry continues, “I had to watch my family fall apart, and then lose my mother to cancer in the space of a year.”
It’s all too much. A choking sensation lodges in the back of my throat; it’s like drowning on dry land. The room shrinks by degrees and I have to get out. I shove the urn into my backpack, retrieve the letter on Nigel’s desk and put it back in my wallet, then shuffle the backpack onto my shoulders.
“Please wait.” Henry catches me by the arm as I walk past him. I yank against his icy grip and he lets go. “Your mother’s on her way in. She and Patrick land this afternoon.”
My throat closes up. I shake my head, waiting, trying to find the strength to say something without sobbing.
“Coming here was a mistake.”
I try again to slide past him but he steps in front of the door.
“I know how much it hurts, and I’m sorry. I told them this would happen. I knew it would turn out like this and they wouldn’t listen.”
I think back on the night I heard him talking on the phone in the darkroom, when I was eavesdropping outside the door. I know, I tried to tell him. Then I remember what he said about the mugwort tea, that he’d given it to me because he was trying to communicate with me. I want to help you find your father.
“I’m so sorry.” His voice cracks and his eyes fill with tears. “I wanted to tell you. I swear to God I did!”
We are both still for a very long time, no sounds but sniffles.
“Then why didn’t you?”
His lip trembles. “I gave Patrick my word. Your father made some very specific requests when he found out she was dying, and before she died, my mum told us she wanted us to honor them. Patrick gave her his word, and I gave him mine, even though I didn’t want to do it this way.”
“What requests?”
Henry lets out a chest-deflating sigh. “There are letters. You can read them all. Just come back home with me.”
I stare at him a long moment.
“Please, Jo.” He steps closer to me, but I move away. His face falls. “Let me fill in all the gaps for you. Answer any questions you have. Let me try to make this right. Or at least bearable.”
Tears stream steadily down my cheeks, burning the skin on my face.
I nod once.
Chapter 51
: In My Life :
AS WE ENTER through the alley door, Henry’s phone rings.
I hear George’s voice, yelling, before he even says hello.
Henry sighs. “I know, and I’m sorry. I’m—yes. Okay.”
The quiet reverberation of Henry’s bye reaches me as he hangs up.
My eyes must ask the question, because when Henry looks at me, he says, “Dad’s on his way home.”
I don’t respond. We climb the stairs. My body is reluctant and my legs are numb. I’m only here because I want to see this thing Henry claims Pop wrote. I want to hear Pop’s side of this story.
I slide down onto the floor next to the bed in Patrick’s room. Henry goes to his room and returns a few moments later with a shoebox and a piece of paper. It’s folded and tattered on the edges, like it’s been read as many times as the one in my wallet. He extends it to me. Tears prick the corners of my eyes when I see the handwriting. Julia’s name. The address for the Fox Den.
I steel myself and open it up.
* * *
October 9, 2018
* * *
Dearest Julia,
I understand why you’d prefer to keep the pact we made when we were young and foolish. But the easy thing isn’t always the right thing. I’m hiding the truth from my children. Jojo has a brother she’ll never know if we don’t change course. Family is important. Take it from a man who never had one until now. I don’t want to have to tell them alone. I want us to do this together, while we still have time.
Jojo has been begging me for years to bring her here, to show her what my life looked like before I woke up in that emergency room and looked into her mother’s eyes. I’m running out of reasons to deny her that. I need her to know she has family here. I need her to know how much I love you and Patrick, and that her mother wasn’t the only person who saved my life.
I’ll give you time to get used to the idea, but soon, I’m coming back. I’m bringing Kristina and Jojo. Once they know your family, they’ll love them. Henry and Patrick and hell, maybe even George. We’ll give them time to get close, then we’ll tell them all the truth. Believe me when I say it’ll only work if we do it this way. Jojo is stubborn. She’ll never be open to it otherwise. She’s that much like her old man.
Please meet me in the middle on this. If you deny me everything else for the rest of my life, don’t deny me this. I’m already going mad with heartache because you won’t just see me and let me say this to you instead of writing it. You’d think I’d be used to you choosing him over me since you’ve done it all along. It never gets easier. I keep losing you, over and over. But it doesn’t have to be like this. We can be our own kind of family. We can be here for you as you fight this illness. I need you to be honest. I need my son to know who I am. I need my daughter to get to know you all. Really know you.
All my love.
I’m tumbling, rolling underwater, holding my breath. Scanning back to the top, I read it again. And again. And again. Henry slumps over beside me, defeated look on his face.
I clear my throat. “We thought he was on tour. When it happened.”
Henry shakes his head. “He came here in a manic daze, thinking Mum wo
uld be fine with him showing up and telling Patrick the truth. She told him on the phone that he shouldn’t come, that it was a bad idea. They’d agreed long ago that they’d take the secret to their graves, but Mum said he changed his mind when she told him she had cancer. Which is sort of understandable. He knew she wasn’t going to live.” His voice cracks. “The unfair thing, though, was that he wanted to ease you and your mother into the truth, but he wanted to spring the whole ugly thing on my family first, with no preparation. While she was undergoing chemotherapy.”
I shudder at the thought. “Do you think he wanted to leave my mother for her?”
He drops his head and stares at a spot on the floor between us. “I don’t know. They had a long history, but we only ever knew they were friends. It never seemed like anything else, especially to my father.”
“How did they meet?”
“At a pub. While Mum was at university. He was a homeless musician. She gave him a place to stay.”
I inhale, surprised. “She was the uni girl.”
His eyebrows crease.
“Remember, in the letter he sent me... He said a uni girl gave him a place to stay.” I continue, tears rolling down my face and into my mouth.
Henry looks at me through haunted eyes. “She kept all the letters she wrote him. They were all returned to sender. I kind of wonder if he did that to keep your mom from seeing them, or in hopes of my dad finding them.”
He flips open the shoebox he set on the floor earlier. “Would you like to read them?”
I stare at the box. It takes me a minute to find the strength to answer. “I don’t know if I can.”
He nods. “Is there anything I can do?”
I sniffle and shake my head. I wish I could tell him to promise me that the empty feeling will go away. But I know that he has no control over that.
“I think I just want to be alone.”
With this, Henry gives me a solemn nod and leaves the room. I listen to his footsteps in the hall, down the stairs, until they’ve faded to silence.
Then I begin to read.
The letters aren’t really in order, so I have to piece things together as I go.
* * *
Dear John,
George has been fired from Leeds, so we don’t have to hide that we’re together now. He’s secured another job at the community college. Really, you should come out and visit us soon. I think you’d like him a lot...
* * *
Dear John,
I’m in love with George. I know it’s inappropriate because he’s my professor. But you can’t possibly understand what we have. I care about you, but it’s more for you than it is for me...
* * *
Dear John,
We’ve decided to name him Henry... George sends his love. He says you must come back to visit again soon.
* * *
Dear John,
Thank you for coming by to visit. Henry loved the Christmas presents you gave him. If he were old enough to talk, I’m sure he’d say thank you himself. George says he’s sorry he missed you. I suppose he’d be even sorrier if he knew what happened.
The truth is, I regret it horribly. We made a bad choice. We’ve been friends all these years, we just have to forget that it happened. Promise?...
* * *
Dear John,
Patrick was born on Tuesday. He has red hair and blue eyes...
* * *
Dear John,
We must take this to our graves...
* * *
Dear John,
Little Felix the fox is doing remarkably well now. You should come and visit soon. George would love to see you!...
* * *
Dear John,
You understand me in a way that George doesn’t, but I can
never give you what you want. I’m so sorry…
Chapter 52
: Within You Without You :
ONCE I’VE READ all I can process, I pack the rest of my things.
I don’t leave Patrick’s room. I drift in and out of sleep. Though it’s only a matter of hours, it feels like days.
So much for the workshop at Saint Catherine’s. I don’t know if it’s the thought of losing that opportunity or losing the people here that makes me feel worse. Leaving this place feels like another death. The sadness crawls into all my corners and makes me want to hibernate.
“Josephine.” My mother’s voice shakes me awake. She opens the door to Patrick’s room and crouches next to the bed, eye level with me. Her clothes are wrinkled and her face is splotchy from crying. If she’s brushed her hair, it isn’t immediately evident.
I haven’t seen her in a month. I’ve barely spoken to her. But it isn’t the time away that makes her look like a stranger to me now. I stare at her through blurry tears.
“I’m so sorry.” She leans over to hug me, but I sit up and scoot back. She rises and sits on the edge of the bed. Folds her arms over her chest in a way that makes me think she’d crumble if she let go.
“When did you find out?” My voice scratches against my throat.
She shrugs, looking sideways out the window, where a line of blackbirds preen on the roofline across the street. “I always sort of knew.”
I narrow my eyes. “You knew? Before he…?”
She nods. “I didn’t know who. I just knew that he wasn’t always coming here for the band.”
I can’t wrap my head around how she tolerated this. “You didn’t care?”
“Of course I cared! But I didn’t think it was this kind of situation. I didn’t think there was a Patrick.” She laughs grimly. “I gave him room to be himself. He came home alive. That’s all I cared bout.”
“Except that last time, you mean.”
Her lip quivers. “Except the last time.”
I scrub my face with my hands and take a deep breath.
“George reached out to me on Facebook about a year after he passed. It was so hard to keep it from you, but you were finally getting better. I couldn’t tell you and ruin all that progress.”
I sniffle. “You have no idea about my progress. But I’m sorry you got hurt.”
Her face crumples. “Oh, honey. Not as sorry as I am that you did. I knew what I was getting myself into. He was a drug addict that came to me half dead to start with.”
My stomach rolls. It destroys me to hear her talk about him like that—with this tone of acknowledgement that he ruined her life. Does she regret having me? Did Julia regret having Patrick?
“He was this completely other person.” I stand and pick up the urn off the desk where I set it, turn it over in my hands. It’s still covered in river sediment. “Someone I didn’t even know.”
“He didn’t even know himself.” Mama steps beside me and drapes an arm around my shoulders. I don’t want it there, but I don’t shake it off. “But I knew him. And you are all the best parts of him.”
I put the urn in my suitcase and zip it. Mama stands there as I finish packing, make the bed, and tidy up. I look around at Patrick’s room when I finish. It seems empty without my things in it.
“Henry told me he showed you the letter,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“He sent that to her the day he passed.” She clears her throat. “He was devastated about her illness.”
“Is that why he started doing drugs again? He’d been clean.”
She touches my arm. “He thought he was going to dull his pain. But you have to understand, honey, that once an addict has been clean for so long, their body can’t tolerate the same amount of drugs they took before. He made a terrible mistake. The overdose was an accident.”
I give in and hug her. She feels so small and frail in my arms. She’s been carrying this secret around for a long time. Missing her husband, worried about her daughter. She’s just as lonely as I’ve been.
“I got us a hotel room,” she says, once the sniffling has subsided.
Inhale. Exhale. “Okay.”
“Patrick wants to se
e you. I think you should talk to him before we go.”
I’d rather claw my way through the brick of this building’s third story. But I know she’s right. I have a brother, and we have a lot to talk about. I pick at my fingernails.
“Is Henry down there?”
She shakes her head. “He left when I got here.”
* * *
: : : : :
* * *
Patrick sits across from me at the table in George’s kitchen.
It’s like seeing Pop looking back at me. So weird. And so obvious. I don’t know how I didn’t see it the moment I met him. Each time I start to talk, my eyes well up. I glance over at Mama and George in the lounge, where they sit ramrod straight, having tea and stilted conversation. They’re pretending not to listen to us.
“You—eh.” Patrick’s voice shakes a little. “You want to go for a walk?”
I nod.
In the alley behind the Fox Den, we walk side by side. Maybe it’ll be easier this way, to talk without having to look one another in the eyes. Before we get to the end of the alley, Patrick speaks up.
“I’m sorry.”
I look over at him. “Why are you sorry?”
He shrugs. “For not telling you straightaway? For going along with this charade because I thought honoring his last wish was the right thing to do? And, you know, for existing.” And then he laughs, but not because there’s anything funny about this. “I am the thing that ruined two families.”
I stop at the edge of the sidewalk. In all the time I’ve spent feeling sorry for myself—before this trip, before I knew, and since I found out—I never once considered that someone might have it worse than me. Patrick does, though. He is a living reminder of a mistake his mother tried to hide. And he didn’t lose one parent. He lost both.
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