by Lauren North
He didn’t even need stitches, Tessie.
The plaster was huge though. A big white square with four sticky corners covering his eyebrow and half of his forehead. When the day came to take it off he wouldn’t let me near it, wriggling and writhing at the slightest suggestion of teasing the plaster away. You plonked him in the bath and played Mr. Submarine Tickle Toes, and then right when he was giggling and slapping his hands on the surface of the water, right when his eyes were shut, you whipped the plaster off. Jamie didn’t even stop splashing.
That’s how I took my first antidepressant. I popped out a pill from its plastic casing and washed it back with a mouthful of water before I could question right or wrong or ask you what to do.
I had a shower and washed my hair. Lathered it with shampoo three times over. I put on jeans and a bra, a T-shirt and a jumper. I’m going to Tesco to buy food today. Not the oven chips, fish fingers, and pizzas—the dregs of the freezer—that we’ve been living on for the last month, but the real kind—onions, mince, mushrooms, tomatoes. I’m going to make a pot of Bolognese for Jamie and me, so we can have spaghetti one night and penne the next, then lasagna with the leftovers.
I’m going to try harder.
That’s my girl, Tessie.
* * *
—
The supermarket on the outskirts of Colchester is busy. Busier than I expected for a Thursday morning. I find a space in the third row of the car park, and a trolley without a dodgy wheel. The air has a biting chill to it that stings the skin on my face, but somehow I feel warmer than I have done for weeks.
As I step through the automatic doors I weave around an elderly couple on their way out. I’m OK, I think. I’m slipping back into the old routine just like I slipped on my jeans this morning. I can do this.
Of course you can, Tessie.
I glance at the paper in my hand, the scribbled list I tore out from the notebook Shelley gave me. It’s the first time I’ve used it, and seeing the clean lined page feels nice somehow. Shame to waste it on a shopping list, but I’m not sure what else to do with it. I don’t need to write a letter to you every night when speaking to you feels so normal.
Shelley texted me earlier, just at the right moment when I was feeling so tired after cleaning up the milk and was wobbling over whether I’d make it to Tesco or not. It wasn’t anything meaningful, just a—Hi Tess, it’s Shelley. Just checking in. Call me anytime—but it helped. She signed off with a smiley emoji, and I felt her calm confidence in the air around me.
Somehow Shelley’s text felt different from the well-meaning messages my Chelmsford friends have sent, as if Shelley knew just what to say at just the right moment. I replied with a thanks and a thumbs-up, then jumped into the car before I lost my nerve again.
I catch the earthy smell of roasted coffee beans drifting from the café and move toward the fruit and veg. I can do this, I tell myself.
It’s the chocolate aisle where things start to go wrong. There’s a display of chocolate Easter eggs, an entire row of every kind imaginable. I know Easter is still weeks away, but I also know that by the time it creeps up on me I’ll be so wrapped up in thinking about Jamie’s birthday that I’ll end up doing a mad rush to the supermarket the day before and all the best eggs will be gone.
So I scoop up a Hot Wheels egg for Jamie. It has two racing cars as well as the chocolate, and a bright orange piece of track that will fit to the parts he already has. I add a Dairy Milk egg for me and some packs of mini eggs in case Jamie wants to do an egg hunt again this year. I lean against the trolley, pushing it forward and reaching for your favorite—KitKat Chunky. There’s two this year. One has a mug with it, and one doesn’t. It’s only when I’m holding them both in my hands, wondering which one you’ll prefer, that I remember you don’t need an Easter egg. You’re gone.
I drop the egg boxes, like a saucepan hot from the stove, and hurry away to the next aisle. Cleaning products line the shelves, but it’s not them that I’m looking at, it’s you, standing at the other end of the aisle, dropping a tube of black bin bags into a basket. Even from behind I know it’s you. The edges of your brown hair are sticking out from under a woolly hat. I don’t recognize the clothes—gray jeans and a navy jumper—but I would recognize your posture, your walk, anywhere, Mark.
And even though I know it isn’t you, I still shout out as you disappear around the corner. I still sprint down the aisle with the trolley in front of me.
I find myself in the central walkway that cuts between the aisles, and suddenly there are too many people, too many shoppers and children in pushchairs, and I can’t see you anymore. I race down pasta and world foods; jams and tins; the frozen section. I dart through the clothes, electrical, the shampoos; I scour the tills, but you’re nowhere and then I can’t breathe.
My legs weaken. My cheeks flush. Of course it wasn’t you. I know that. My hands shake as I dig through my bag in search of my phone. I have to call you, just to hear your voice. Six words on a recorded message—“Hey, it’s Mark. Leave a message.” I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.
I have to hear your voice.
There’s a silence, then it rings. Except the voicemail doesn’t pick up. Instead, someone answers. “Hello?”
“Mark?” A tornado is spinning in my head. You answered your phone.
“Tess.”
“Mark . . . I—”
“Tess, it’s Ian.” His words are rushed, but the moment Ian says his name I register the clipped tone of his voice, the one you always teased him about.
“Ian? But I phoned Mark’s mobile.”
“I spoke to someone in human resources at Mark’s office and they agreed to have his mobile number redirected to my phone. Just in case anyone called who didn’t know about Mark’s death.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought to do that. I am barely capable of answering my own phone. But still I feel put out. Mark was mine, not yours, I want to say, but of course I don’t. Even in my head the thought is childish and silly. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I spoke to you about it when we were arranging the funeral. Your mother was there too, and the vicar.”
“Oh,” I say again. I remember the meeting in our living room. The tray with the teapot, the cups and saucers, unearthed from a forgotten box at my mother’s insistence. Apparently a visit from the vicar requires a saucer. I remember the biscuits on the plate that nobody touched, but I don’t remember the conversation. Jamie had been in the garden playing in his tree house. I’d spent the entire time standing by the window watching the trees, terrified he’d slip on the wood and fall.
“Tess, are you all right? Why have you called Mark’s mobile?” Ian asks.
“I . . . I thought I saw him. I’m in Tesco. It wasn’t him, obviously, but I needed to hear his voice—” I stop talking and glance around me. A group of shoppers have huddled with their trolleys and are staring right at me. A member of the staff is with them. I’ve caused a scene.
“Where are you?” Ian asks. “I can come and get you and drive you home. You sound very upset.”
My husband died and I’ve seen him shopping in Tesco. Of course I’m upset. For a moment I’m tempted to tell Ian where I am so he can come and take me home, but then he sighs and there’s an impatience to it that makes my cheeks grow hot.
“No . . . no, thank you. I’m OK. I just wasn’t expecting anyone to answer Mark’s phone.”
“I’m sorry, Tess.”
“I’d better go.” I hang up before Ian can reply and drop my mobile back into the depths of my bag.
The staff member breaks free from the group of shoppers watching me. She walks over purposefully and rests a hand on my trolley. She is in her late forties, I guess, with dark blond hair tied in a loose ponytail and foundation that sits between the lines around her eyes.
“Are you all right, madam?”
I nod but the tears are falling, streaming down my cheeks and I can’t speak anymore.
“Do you want to sit down for a minute? I can get you a glass of water.”
I shake my head. “No, I just want to get my shopping and go.”
“Let me help you. What else is on your list?” She prizes free the paper scrunched in my hand and guides me down the aisles, finishing my shopping for me and only leaving my side to open my car door and usher me inside.
“Thank you so much,” I say.
“Of course. Anytime.” She nods and I think I see an unspoken understanding in her eyes. I wonder if she can see the grief written across my face, just as Shelley had. I wonder if she has lost someone too.
When I’m alone in the car I pull my phone from my bag again and scroll through my contacts until I find Shelley’s number. My mum is waiting for me to call, my friends and Sam too, but right now I want to speak to someone who understands.
Shelley answers on the second ring. “Hi, Tess, how are you?” Her voice is breezy and bouncing, and I picture her smiling the same smile she had on my doorstep on Monday.
“I . . . I thought I saw Mark.” My voice is almost a wail and finally I let the sobs take over.
“Oh, Tess,” she says after a pause.
“I was in Tesco, and . . . and I swear it was him. He disappeared around the corner and by the time I made it to the next aisle he was gone.”
“The same thing happened to me for a while too,” Shelley says. “Any little boy with blond hair and I would be frozen to the spot. It still happens sometimes. When I’m least expecting it.”
“Did you ever chase after anyone and cause a scene?”
“No. But I was holding Dylan in my arms when he passed away, and however hard that was, it gave me a closure that you haven’t had. You never got to say good-bye. What you’re going through is completely natural. It’s normal to see the loved ones we’ve lost in the faces of others. After what you’ve been through I’d be surprised if you didn’t.”
I nod and wipe a hand across my cheeks. “Thank you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to call you up and dump this on you.”
“I’m glad you did. I’m glad you thought of me.”
“I’d better go.”
“Why don’t you call me later when you’ve had a bit of time to process what happened and we’ll talk properly?”
“OK, I will. Thank you, Shelley.”
You died. It wasn’t you. I hold the thought in my mind as I pull out of Tesco and drive back to the village.
* * *
—
That evening Jamie and I played a game of Parcheesi and ate spaghetti Bolognese at the table with the hum of the radio in the background. I didn’t jump up and dance like a loon when a pop song came on like I used to, but it was progress. And after what happened in Tesco, I was pleased with myself.
Later, when I kissed Jamie good night, I said sorry for shouting at him over the spilled milk.
“Things will get better, I promise.”
I meant it too. Really meant it.
Was it Shelley? Her words of, not comfort, but understanding. The feeling that she gets me like you always did. Was it Jamie? The gnarling guilt of my outbursts that no longer seemed to upset him? Or was it the medication doing its job? A combination, I suppose, but either way I felt better. Not great. Not normal, but better.
Of course I didn’t know then that it was all for nothing. Friday rolled around and Denise from your office knocked on the door, and the two tablets I swallowed, the plans I made were all for nothing. I was right back at rock bottom.
CHAPTER 12
Friday, February 23
44 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
There’s been a whisper of spring in the air today. The wind blowing across the fields had lost the sting of bitterness on the walk home from school, and the sun has clung on for that bit longer. So it’s a while before I realize that the kitchen is shrouded in a dusky gloom. That darkness has won and I can barely make out Jamie across the dinner table. I stand up and flick on the light, scrunching my eyes shut against the sudden brightness. Jamie seems oblivious to the change.
“Not hungry?” I ask, looking at his plate.
He shakes his head.
I cooked too much pasta as usual, forgetting how it expands in the pan. It’s hard to see a dent in either of our plates. Eating has become a clinical process, a conscious step. The sauce and mince tasted of nothing and every mouthful I forced down now lies heavily on the grief. I guess Jamie feels the same way. I can’t remember the last time I saw him eat more than a few mouthfuls of anything.
“Right then. Toilet, teeth, and reading.” I clap my hands, forcing a normal I know neither of us feels.
Jamie stays in his seat, his head bent, staring at his hands. Tears are pooling in his eyes and there’s a wobble to his bottom lip. Seeing his hurt is a physical pain in my chest, and I wish I could take it away. I wish I could add it to my own and shield him from this grief we are living in.
“I miss Daddy too,” I whisper.
Tell him something, Tessie.
I think for a minute.
“Do you remember the time we took you to London to see the sharks at the aquarium?” I ask. “You were only four. It was the summer before you started school. We took you up on the train for a special day out. And we went on a double-decker bus.” I smile. “We climbed the stairs as it started pulling away and you were so desperate to sit at the front that you made Daddy ask the people sitting there to move. Then we went to . . . er . . .” The memory and my voice trail away. Gravel is crunching on our driveway. It’s not footsteps this time, but car wheels, then the unmistakable thud of a car door.
Jamie jerks his head up. The tears are gone, replaced with wide-eyed panic.
All the months we worked on coaxing Jamie out of his shell, Mark. The drama workshops he hated that we thought would build his confidence.
And didn’t.
He was getting better though, wasn’t he? Remember the Christmas assembly when he stood up in front of the entire school and all the parents, and read his poem? Mrs. Banbridge, the head teacher, gave him a gold star sticker.
Of course I remember, Tessie. You were bawling your eyes out next to me.
I was proud, that’s all. He never would’ve done that at his old school.
I told you it was a good idea to move.
Well, it was all for nothing now. Jamie’s shyness has returned worse than before, and I can’t bear to make it harder for him.
“Why don’t you go and start your reading, and I’ll see who it is.”
At the faint tap of the door knocker Jamie scurries upstairs and disappears. I flick on the hall light and heave open the door.
“Hello,” I say to the woman on the doorstep.
“Hi, Tess,” she replies. “I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Denise. I’m the personal assistant for the sales team. I worked with Mark.”
She’s vaguely familiar but it’s only when she steps inside that I recognize her from the sea of faces at your funeral.
Upstairs, the floorboards creak and I hear the tap running in the bathroom.
“I was passing this way,” she says, “and thought I’d stop by and see how you are.”
“Oh . . . thank you” is all I can think to say as I close the door and try to smile at the woman in her smart gray trouser suit now standing in our hall. “Come in.”
Denise is tall. Even in flat pumps she has to stoop her head of auburn hair under the exposed oak beams as I lead her to the kitchen. She has a round face and her makeup is thick and contoured, but it’s not enough to hide the strain on her face when she smiles at me.
“Sorry to barge in uninvited,” she says, her gaze fixing on our dinner plates. I wonder if she’s a clean freak like Ian.
“No problem,” I mumble. “W
e’re finished anyway.” I collect the plates and slide them onto the work surface by the sink. I wonder if she’ll sit down, but she doesn’t. I want to ask her what she wants. She isn’t really here to check on us, is she? But every configuration of the question in my head sounds too rude to voice.
“Mark used to talk about you and Jamie all the time,” she blurts. “He . . . he was so proud of Jamie.”
“Oh.” Is that true, Mark? You were always so worried about Jamie’s school progress, his shyness, his lack of drive. It was one of the reasons we moved. A village school, smaller class sizes. Less disruption. “It’s like private school, but we don’t have to pay for it,” you said when I didn’t want to leave Chelmsford.
Then all at once I see it—recognize it—the look in Denise’s eyes. It’s in the air too, seeping out of her like a bad smell. Guilt.
Denise isn’t here to check on me, she’s here to tell me something.
Oh God. What if she tells me something horrible, something about you that I don’t want to know?
Stop, Tessie.
I can’t.
I stare at Denise’s face and the guilt and sadness. Questions flit through my mind. I want to ask her what she wants. I want to ask her who else died that day. Who else in the office was sitting beside you, the second seat on the plane. I want to ask if she knows what your secret project is—the one you wouldn’t tell me about—but I don’t, because Denise gets there first.
She opens her mouth to say something, then stops. Tears glint in her eyes, causing a shiver to race down my spine.
I shut the kitchen door, leaning my weight against it until the catch clicks into place. Whatever Denise has to say, I don’t want Jamie to hear it. I don’t want to hear it either and I have an almost primal desire to cover my ears and scream and scream until she leaves. Instead I turn my back to her and flick the switch on the kettle. “Cup of tea?” I whisper.