by Lauren North
“Here is our main headline today: A suicide note from the pilot of the Thurrock plane crash has been handed in to police investigators. The letter was posted by Philip Curtis to a colleague in the human resources department of the airline and remained unopened until yesterday. Forty-five people were killed in the crash, including—”
The screen turns black, plunging the room into silence. I stare at the remote clenched in my hand. I don’t want to know who else died that day. I don’t want to share the grief.
I force myself to stand. Every part of my body is willing me to climb the stairs and lie on Jamie’s bed, or sink into a bath, but I can’t keep doing that. It isn’t helping me, and it certainly isn’t helping Jamie. Instead, I shuffle along the hall to the parlor and slowly, very slowly, I continue to unpack the boxes.
By midafternoon it’s done.
CHAPTER 28
Saturday, March 10
29 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Memories have been haunting me today, Mark. The ones from before you died that are still intact and running like old home movies in my mind, filling my head with laughter and joy. So after lunch I switch off the TV Jamie is slumped in front of and we put on our wellies and go out in the drizzly rain to the playground.
“Why isn’t Shelley coming over this weekend?” Jamie asks. He skips ahead a little in his wellies and I let him. The lane into the village is so quiet. I guess people are tucking themselves up indoors, away from the heavy gray clouds and the rain in the air, but I like it. The feel of the droplets on my face, the chill blowing through me. I feel more alive outside.
“She’s visiting her sister. I’ll ask if she can come after school one day next week instead. Would that be OK?”
“On Monday?”
“I don’t know when. I’ll ask her.”
He gives a huff-like sigh and steps ahead a little further. “I wish Shelley was here now.”
So do I.
We’re almost at the gate to the playing field when we find the puddle covering the entire width of the lane. It’s too long to jump over so we wade through in our wellies. We’re halfway in when I think of you beside me. If you were here right now, you’d scoop me up and pretend to drop me in the water and I would scream and Jamie would roar with laughter.
A sob catches in my throat but I swallow it back and jump—a little splash—but Jamie’s giggles fill my head and I laugh too. I jump again, harder this time, causing water to spill into the tops of my wellies and soak my jeans, but I don’t care because I made Jamie smile. I made him laugh.
We’re giggling and jumping so much that I don’t hear the car on the lane until the horn toots and I flinch, pushing Jamie to the side of the road and waving an apology as we step to the gate. The playground is just across the field. The bright red and yellow climbing frame looks out of place amidst the green of the trees and the bleak sky.
The Land Rover moves closer and stops. I recognize the black paintwork and tinted windows—it’s Ian.
He buzzes down the driver’s window and smiles at us. “Hey, I thought that was you.”
“Hi,” Jamie and I chorus.
“Puddle jumping, eh? Glad to see you feeling better.”
The frown creasing his forehead says otherwise, but I don’t bother to comment. Jamie tugs at my coat and looks at the playground with hopeful eyes. I nod and he’s off through the gate, racing across the field to the zipline and the swings.
“I was just coming to see you,” Ian says. “I’ve got a tool kit in the boot. I’ve got some WD-40 too. I thought I’d oil the hinges on the side door to stop it creaking for you and see if there are any other jobs I can do.”
“Oh . . . erm, thanks, but that’s OK. We’re fine.”
Ian doesn’t look like he’s come to do jobs. He’s freshly shaved and is wearing a dark Ralph Lauren polo shirt.
“Do you want to jump in and I’ll give you a lift back?”
I shake my head and motion toward the playground where Jamie is swinging from the monkey bars. “I think I might be here awhile.”
Ian pulls a face as if I’ve just given the wrong answer in a quiz. But now that I’m out of the house I have no desire to go back. Maybe I’ll take Jamie to the pub for hot chocolate after he’s finished playing.
“Look, about the form I dropped off—”
“I haven’t signed it yet.”
“But you’re going to?” he asks.
“I think so.”
“That’s good. I’m glad you’re going to let me help you, Tess. I’m not trying to pressure you into signing it. I just wanted to give you the option, that’s all.”
I give a laugh. “You’re not trying to pressure me, but you dropped off the form at the weekend when you could’ve posted it, and your solicitor’s has left a load of messages telling me to call them. It kind of feels like pressure.”
He shakes his head. His eyes soften a little and I think again how much like yours they are. “I wanted to drop the chili off to you. That’s why I came to see you last Saturday. The weekends are the only time I have to cook. Didn’t your friend tell you that? I’d hoped to talk to you about the form and let you know that I’m happy to help if you need it. I’m sorry if you thought I was being pushy. I’m more than happy for you to continue as the executor for Mark’s will, Tess. I was only trying to help.”
“Thanks,” I mumble.
“How long have you known Shelley?” he asks.
A drop of rain hits my eyelashes and I blink it away. The change of conversation throws me. “Er . . . not long, I guess. Why?”
“She seemed quite protective of you the other day. She wouldn’t even let me through the door.”
Good, I think.
“Not everyone has your best interests at heart, Tess,” Ian says then.
Maybe because of the sheer bloody ridiculousness of his warning, or because I’m still giddy from my puddle jumping, I laugh. “Don’t you think I know that?” I say.
“Look, how about you get in the car and I’ll drive you back? It’s pouring down out here. We can talk properly over coffee.”
He’s right. The rain is no longer a drizzle but fat droplets bouncing in the puddle. Water is streaming from my hair down my face, and my coat is so wet that it’s no longer waterproof.
“You’re right. I’d better go,” I say, stepping toward the gate. Jamie is on the zipline now, zooming back and forth, oblivious to the weather.
“Tess, wait.” Ian reaches behind him into the back seat before opening the driver’s door and stepping out beside me with one of those large white golf umbrellas in his hands.
He opens the umbrella and moves nearer so that we’re both sheltered from the rain. I don’t like how close he is.
“Tess, please. We can’t keep having conversations like this.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“What do you mean, why not?”
“I mean, you never bothered with me or Jamie, or Mark, for that matter, before the plane crash. The only reason you’re bothering now is because you want me to sort out Mark’s will and look for your money.”
“That’s not true at all, Tess.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve never liked me—admit it.”
My words hang in the damp air. The only sound is the pattering of rain on the umbrella.
“What difference does it make now whether I liked you or not?” Ian says with a long sigh. “Not everyone is supposed to get on.”
“Right.” I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t an admission. “But you never tried to get to know me.”
“You and Mark didn’t give me a chance. The first time I heard anything about you was from Mum when she phoned me up to tell me that Mark had got a girl pregnant. When I met you, all you talked about was giving up work and having a family. What was I supposed to think? You saw Mark as your g
olden ticket to an easy life.”
“Easy life? Does any of this look easy to you?”
“No, it doesn’t. And for what it’s worth, my first opinion was probably wrong. You and Mark clearly loved each other.”
“But not everyone is supposed to get on,” I finish for him.
Ian shrugs and I find myself fixated on his eyes, your eyes. “We’re different people.”
“So why are you here then? If you don’t like me, then why are you bothering?”
Ian looks past me to the playground and Jamie, now standing on one of the swings and swaying back and forth, higher and higher. “You’re the closest thing to family I have left. I want to help you. I want us to get on. It’s what Mark would’ve wanted.”
Tears swim in my eyes at the mention of your name. “I have to go.” I back away until the rain hits the top of my head.
Ian stands for a moment as if he might follow me, but then he moves back to the car. “If you change your mind, give me a call,” he shouts over the sound of the rain.
I hurry through the gate, breaking into a run for no reason at all except wanting distance from your brother and a sudden need to be near Jamie.
My head spins with Ian’s words. “You’re the closest thing to family I have left. I want to help you.”
Does he? Why don’t I believe him?
There has to be more to this than brotherly obligation, I’m sure of it. And there is no way I’m signing that form until I find out what it is.
CHAPTER 29
Wednesday, March 14
25 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Tessie, remember our honeymoon in Scotland and the evenings in the little B and B when Jamie slept like a log and we cuddled up together trying to stop the bed creaking?
Please don’t. Not today, Mark. I don’t have it in me today.
Oh, Tessie. I thought you were getting better.
So did I. So did Jamie. I saw the disappointment on his face this morning when he walked into our bedroom already dressed for school and found me still in bed. It was awful, Mark. You should have seen the look in his eyes as he turned and left without a word. He despises me, my own son.
He loves you, Tessie. We both do.
Why would you? What is there to love?
I feel like I’m being pulled to the ground, weighed down by a hundred dumbbells. It’s an effort to breathe in and out, to blink, to think. I don’t even have the energy to cry.
What happened, baby?
Nothing. Nothing happened. The weekend ended. Monday came back around. Our eighth Monday without you. Day after day and it’s the same hurt right in the center of my chest, the same fight to carry on. No end. No way out.
But not today. I can’t fight today.
“Imagine you’re the beach,” Shelley said when I called her this morning, after forcing myself out of bed to take Jamie to school. “And your grief is the sea. Sometimes the tide will be high and it’ll be all you see and all you feel. Other times the tide will be out and your grief, that pain, will feel further away. Not gone, but distant.”
It was a good analogy but I phoned her for actual help, not a supportive chat. Plus I promised Jamie I would invite Shelley for tea.
“Can you come over later?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said, and I could feel her smile all the way down the phone. “I have a few clients I’m meeting this afternoon. I’ll swing by about five thirty. How about I bring a takeout? Anything you want.”
“That would be great actually. Thank you.”
We agreed on KFC. Jamie’s favorite.
“KFC it is.” Shelley laughed before hanging up.
* * *
—
The KFC family bucket had lost its heat by the time Shelley arrived. The chips were halfway between cardboard and soggy; the southern-fried chicken slimy with grease. Even Jamie didn’t show his usual enthusiasm for his favorite fast food. He barely said more than a few words during dinner, and went to bed without any fuss.
Later when Jamie was asleep, Shelley and I slouched on the sofa and watched Bridget Jones’s Baby with the rest of a mint Viennetta I dug out from the freezer balanced on a tray between us.
“Finally, someone who’ll watch this film with me,” Shelley says with a grin, licking green ice cream from the back of her spoon. “Tim won’t go near anything the least bit chick flick.”
I’m reminded then that Shelley is married. She has a job; she has friends too, I bet. Yet she’s spending the evening with me. I guess I haven’t thought about Shelley at all except for her visits to me. “How long have you been married?” I ask.
“Fifteen years. We had Dylan and were just at that point of talking about having another baby when he got sick. We decided to wait until we got the all clear from cancer before trying, but it never happened.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Tim wanted to have another baby a few years ago, but I couldn’t do it. The oncologist thought that the type of cancer Dylan had was linked to his genetics, and I couldn’t go through it all again. Here—” Shelley reaches behind her neck and unclips her necklace. She fiddles with the clasp of the locket for a moment before it opens and she holds it out to me.
The photo inside is small and wrinkled at the edges from being pushed inside the case, but the image of Dylan is crystal clear. He is young in the photo—three, I guess. His blond hair is wet and sticking up as if he’s just out of the bath or a swimming pool. He has Shelley’s smile, I think, staring at the two rows of baby teeth. There’s a gauntness to his face, hollow cheeks that should be chubby, but it’s his eyes I find myself staring at. They are light blue, like the early morning sky in summer, like Jamie’s. The thought lurches in my head. Dylan looks just like Jamie did at that age.
“This was just before the chemo when he lost all of his hair,” Shelley whispers. “He was perfect in every way.”
I nod but can’t find the words.
“He’d be eight this summer.”
Just like Jamie, I think again.
“It’s funny, but I miss being a mother almost as much as I miss Dylan. Having someone to care for and love unconditionally. I’m not sure I’d call it a biological clock, but there is definitely something inside of me urging me to be a mother again. I want to adopt,” Shelley continues. “It’s not like there aren’t kids out there in need of a decent home, you know?”
Shelley sighs and I can feel the hurt radiating like heat from her body. “Tim thought it would feel like we were trying to replace Dylan. He didn’t think he could love a child that wasn’t his. So we did neither. I have my job and my work with the charity, and Tim has his company and his golf club membership. We muddle along. Sometimes I wonder why we’re still together, whether it would be easier to just run away and start again. I worry we’re holding each other back from moving on with our lives. Sometimes I can spend entire days fantasizing about what Dylan would look like now, what kind of boy he would be, what fun we’d have had together. Other times I fantasize about adopting a child and moving far, far away.”
“So why don’t you?” I force myself to ask. My voice is shaky. I push the locket back to Shelley. I can’t look anymore.
“Maybe one day,” Shelley says. “That’s what I keep telling myself. I’m still young enough.”
A silence falls between us and I try to find the words to fill it but I can’t.
“I’m sorry,” Shelley says then. “I’m being insensitive. With everything you’re going through, I shouldn’t be talking about my marriage and wanting a child.” The locket clicks shut in her hands and she fastens it at the back of her neck.
“It’s OK,” I say, although I’m not sure it is. Dylan’s face floats in my thoughts. “I’m glad we have each other to talk to.”
“What about you?” Shelley asks. “You didn’t fancy more kids?”
The pain is instant and cuts deep into my chest, and suddenly Dylan is forgotten. “I did. We both did. I was so desperate for Jamie to have a little brother or sister, but it just never happened. It’s one of those stupid things. I fell pregnant with Jamie instantly, but then when we actually tried, it never happened. I took it hard and blamed myself. We’d just decided to try IVF when Mark’s mum died and we decided to move first. I was going to mention it again on my birthday . . .” My voice trails off.
Shelley lifts the tray of melting ice cream away and slides it to the other side of the sofa, budging closer to me until our shoulders are touching and I can feel the warmth of her body against my own. We watch the rest of the film in companionable silence.
* * *
—
“It’s really coming down out there,” Shelley says, stretching her arms up and arching her back as her words trail into a long yawn.
I blink and realize the end credits are rolling up the screen. I have the strange sensation of waking up from a doze, except I wasn’t asleep. I glance at the window and watch raindrops trickling down the black glass in long snail lines. Every few moments a gust of wind rattles the glass inside the rotting window frame, blasting a spattering spray of raindrops against the pane and making me wish I hadn’t been quite so hasty in ripping down the moldy curtains on moving day.
“I’d better go,” Shelley says. “Tim will be starting to worry.” She reaches for her phone and scrolls down the screen. “Or not,” she mutters. “He’s just texted me to say he’s had a few too many drinks and is staying at the hotel by the golf club.” There’s a bitterness to Shelley’s voice that I’ve never heard before.
I’m about to ask Shelley if she’s all right but she gets there first. “Do you mind if I make us hot chocolates before I go? I could do with the sugar before driving in the dark.” Shelley stifles another yawn as she stands and rubs her hands over her arms with a shiver. “I didn’t realize how cold I was getting.”