by Lauren North
The night the police came to the house and Tess told the operator that Jamie was in bed, I thought maybe the police had it muddled. Tess didn’t say anything about it when the officers asked. It was me who showed them Jamie’s room was empty.
It wasn’t until the beach that I was sure Tess was hallucinating. I feel so stupid now, but I didn’t want to believe it. Part of me was jealous as well. I know that sounds awful, but it’s the truth. Tess still had her son but I didn’t have mine. It was all in her head, but to her, Jamie was real. The next time I saw Tess was when we went shopping and she thought she’d lost Jamie.
Ian wanted to tell her in front of everyone—“Jamie isn’t real”—but I managed to talk him out of it. I said it would be better to do it at the house. Clearly I was wrong.
I’m not sure what I would’ve done differently if my judgment wasn’t off. My marriage was falling apart; I was dealing with a lot. Normally when I meet grievers I can reason with myself that they’ve had it easy. They’ve lost a brother or a parent. I lost my child. I can detach myself from their grief and mine, and help them. But with Tess, she’d lost it all—a husband and a child, and she was so desperately in need of help. I hadn’t realized it was Jamie’s birthday. I think that was part of the problem. If we’d chosen a different day—or waited until Monday—I think it would’ve been different, but we didn’t. When I opened Tess’s car boot and saw the helium balloon in the shape of an eight it almost broke my heart. Tess was skittish the moment she opened the door that day, as if she was expecting something to happen.
It didn’t help that Ian waltzed in like he owned the place. Then Tess started accusing us of things. She thought Ian and I were working together. She wasn’t making any sense, and Ian was no help. He just kept telling her she’d lost it. When Tess started talking, it was clear she was seeing Jamie. I’ve replayed that moment with the knife over and over in my head. It was obvious Tess was going for the knife. Ian was closest, and he reached for it too. He had the knife in his hand, but he didn’t stab Tess. She ran into the blade. Like I said, it all happened so quickly. Tess pulled the knife out of herself and collapsed on the floor. I covered the wound and Ian called an ambulance. The rest you know.
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
Signed,
Shelley Lange
CHAPTER 66
68 DAYS AFTER JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY
Piercing rays of summer sun are dancing through the diamond lattice windowpanes, casting torch beams of light across the cupboards, which hang wonky on their hinges. Sunlight hits the kitchen table, illuminating the white box with the neatly typed writing. Mrs. Teresa Clarke. Take two tablets daily (with food).
So much has happened since I last sat at this table with a box of tablets in my hands. So much and nothing at all; but things are different now. I still miss you, Mark. Of course I do. But it’s different. Like the way I miss a stage of my life—the dating stage when anything could happen, the baby stage and holding Jamie in my arms. The grief for you is different now. It’s in a glass box, like a taxidermy display—a wild animal, beautiful and grotesque, that I want to set free sometimes but can’t.
I don’t need to hear your voice anymore. I don’t need to ask you questions and hear your answers. It wasn’t really you anyway. It was my version of you. It wasn’t pretend, but it wasn’t real either.
You were a wonderful husband and father. We weren’t a perfect couple but I think we were as close as two people can get and I loved you. I should never have doubted it, but I have to accept that you’ve gone now. I have to move on.
Jamie and I are a mirror, and if I’m happy then he’s happy. And when he’s happy I feel alive. I am nothing without him.
I’ll be more careful this time. I won’t let anyone in the house when he’s here. I can’t afford another stay in hospital or the medication they’ll force me to take. I can’t afford for Jamie to run away again. The man with the gravelly voice on the phone, he wasn’t real. He was a delusion. I know this now. I don’t need to be scared when he calls me again.
We could move. Find a cottage near the coast, in a different village where nobody knows us. It’s not as if money is an issue anymore. It would be so much easier without the sessions with Dr. Sadler and the “I was just on my way to the pool and thought I’d pop by for a cuppa” from Shelley. It would be so much easier without the second glances from the villagers I pass on the street, and the silent pauses of worry on the phone with Mum and Sam. But this house with its endless nooks and its gloom is where Jamie is. It’s his home, and he is mine. So we’ll stay and I’ll be more careful this time.
Ian has escaped prosecution. I don’t exactly make a reliable witness. He got a police caution. He admitted to lying about you owing him money. I guess he thought that in my state I’d just hand it over and he’d be able to save his company. I know you applied for that loan to help him. You were a good person, Mark.
I feel sorry for Ian sometimes. He really was trying to help and just wanted to save his company. But then I remember the headlights blinding me and I feel only hate for him.
My fingers dance over the foil packaging. Pop, pop, two chalky white tablets fall into the palm of my hand. I hold them in the sunlight just for a moment before closing them in my fist.
“Jamie,” I shout up the stairs. “Breakfast time.”
There’s a pause. A beat of silence that makes my heart thunder in my chest and a familiar pressure squeezing me tight. I don’t dare breathe as I listen for movement. What if he’s gone again? It took two weeks for him to find his way home after my stay in the hospital. He was distant at first—a flash of blond curls in the tree house, the sound of his laughter from his bedroom. But slowly he came back to me, just as he did before.
The thud of his feet creak on the upstairs floorboards, and I breathe again. Our perfect son.
“It’s a nice day,” I say as he steps into the kitchen wearing his school uniform, just like always. “How about we go to the beach after school and jump in the waves?”
He nods, and a wide smile stretches across his face, showing the baby tooth teetering at an angle. I drop my gaze and turn quickly, reaching into the cupboard for the Rice Krispies.
“Can we get an ice cream too?” he asks when my back is turned.
“Of course.”
“Yesss,” he hisses, his voice bouncing with excitement.
I set the cereal on the table beside his bowl and spoon and remember the two chalky tablets cushioned in my hand. I pad to the sink, careful not to knock my stomach on the worktop. My wound is healing slowly. Too slowly, according to the district nurse who came to visit last week. I could tell she’d been briefed. Her eyes kept darting around the room as if she was looking for someone else. She spent forever checking the number of empty medication packets and talking through the correct doses with me. I had to bite my tongue not to tell her to hurry up because I had to collect Jamie from school.
I step to the sink and fill a glass of water. It’s cool in my mouth and I gulp it back before pouring the last of it in the sink, where it washes the tablets down the plughole.
I stare out of the window and watch the sun hit the field across the lane. The sky is a perfect celeste blue above the cornstalks, swaying in the summer air, and I force myself to look at it for longer than I want to.
I miss you, Mark, but I have to think about Jamie now. You died and my world stopped, but without Jamie I have no world.
“Ready to go?” Jamie’s voice reaches my ears.
“Yes.” I turn and smile at our perfect son and his beautiful blue eyes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Tess and Jamie’s story wasn’t an easy one to write. Some days it sucked all of my emotions out of me and left me exhausted. I had an idea in my head of how I wanted their story to be and that didn’t always transfer to the page. (In fact, I scrapped and
rewrote the first half of this book three times.) So my first thank-you (and it’s a big one) is to my amazing agent, Tanera Simons, for believing one hundred percent in me and this story and helping me make it what it is today. And to the whole Darley Anderson team behind you—thanks!
A huge thank-you to my editor, Danielle Perez, and the whole Berkley publishing team. Thank you, Danielle, for believing in this story (and me) and for your amazing editorial insights and support. Also, thanks to the Transworld team, especially my awesome editor, Tash Barsby, for her enthusiasm, support, and fantastic editorial input.
I owe such gratitude to my first readers—Maggie Ewings (aka my wonderful mum), Mel Ewings, Pauline Hare, and Rachel Burton. You’ve been with me on this journey from the very start and your feedback and support means the world to me. Thank you, Rachel, for all of the support you’ve given me.
A mention should go to some of my family—Steve Tomlin (my dad), Maggie and Mel, Tony Ellingham, and Katherine Cresswell—for all the coffees, chats, and chocolates, and for understanding all of the times I disappeared for weeks on end writing this book.
To Kathryn Jones, my amazing friend and personal proofreader. Thank you for being one of the first to read this story and for letting me witter on endlessly about it during our dog walks. For the kid swaps, play dates, sleepovers and wine, and keeping me sane during long writing days. One day I’ll figure out the past/passed conundrum and stop needing to text you.
To all the amazing bloggers who support and cheerlead us authors with such passion—thank you, a million times, thank you! Especially Kaisha at The Writing Garnet, Rachel of Rachel’s Random Reads, and Anne Williams of Being Anne—you have my eternal gratitude.
Last, but by no means least, I need to mention my husband, Andrew, and our children, Tommy and Lottie. Thank-you isn’t a big enough word for all that you do, and the laughter and fun you bring to my life every day. I love you.
Discussion Questions
1. Tess and Shelley are two very different women, and yet a strong friendship develops quickly between the pair. Why do you think Tess was so drawn to Shelley, and Shelley to Tess?
2. Tess’s devastation over the loss of her husband seeps into every aspect of her life. Discuss the role of grief in the novel and how Shelley’s and Tess’s different experiences of grief are displayed.
3. Throughout the novel, Tess speaks to her dead husband, Mark. She asks him questions and hears his answers in her head. Why do you think the author chose to write the novel in this way? What kind of marriage do you think Tess and Mark had?
4. Discuss the role of isolation in the novel. What do you think Tess’s experience of grief would’ve been like if they had never moved house?
5. Tess and her brother-in-law, Ian, have a fraught relationship. Why do you think Ian didn’t trust Tess when Mark first introduced them? Why do you think Ian chose to lie to Tess?
6. When Shelley learns the truth she is reluctant to confront Tess. Why do you think that is? Shelley admits to being jealous of Tess. Did you understand why?
7. At what point did you discover or figure out the truth? How did you feel about Tess, as well as the other characters, when you found out? Had you guessed at any point, or were you shocked?
Photo by Laurie Ellingham Author Photos
Lauren North studied psychology before moving to London, where she lived and worked for many years. She now lives with her family in the Suffolk countryside. The Perfect Son is her first novel, and she’s working on her second.
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