The Book of Second Chances

by Katherine Slee

“Make it go away.”

  She wanted it all to leave her: all the memories of her parents, the images in her mind of that day. Unwashed dishes in the sink, a pan dirty with eggs and bacon. A window left open when they skipped from the house. A pale green dress trimmed with lace and her mother’s hair wild and free, with sunshine on bare arms, reaching high and singing at the top of her voice.

  There had been a picnic basket on the seat beside Emily, with walnut cake and fresh pineapple that she was slowly eating, piece by piece. They were in a sleek, black sports car with its roof down, one her father had borrowed from a friend, from Tyler’s dad, just for the day. It was supposed to be a surprise trip to the river, where they would take out a rowboat and have a picnic on the water.

  Her father leant across to kiss his wife, and then a flash of metal came toward them, too fast to miss, sending a tumble of sky overhead as the car flipped over and over.

  A cry, a scream, a hiss, then a sharp pain in her head as all turned quiet.

  “My mother told me to look up,” Emily whispered. “To see a flock of birds flying overhead. Told me to count them all and made me promise not to look back down.”

  Two magpies were on the road and came hopping onto the car. They looked at Emily before flying up and away from the sound of sirens that drew close.

  Shouts, voices, the feeling of being lifted high. Looking back to see her mother’s body, eyes closed and at peace. A red stain on her dress. Her father’s face was turned away, which was no doubt a blessing as he took the full force of the truck.

  Screaming. A child screaming over and over. Fighting against the people who were trying to save her, to stop the flow of blood from her face. To hold her tight, to keep her safe. Then another sharp pain, and Emily’s world went black.

  Emily had told herself those magpies transported her parents to Heaven. She looked for them every day from her hospital bed. She would sit by the window so she could look at the sky and count all the birds that simply disappeared whenever they wanted, to somewhere new.

  “Emily?” Tyler’s hands were on her arms, trying to stop her from scratching at the scar on her face.

  “Why?” she whispered, rocking slowly back and forth, tears intermingling with droplets of blood on her cheek. “Why did she want me to remember?”

  Tyler glanced across at Phoebe, and he saw the look on her face as she finished reading, then passed the pages to him. He scanned Catriona’s words, one fist clenching as he realized when they were written.

  Emily looked up at Tyler, hoping somehow that he could piece together all the fragments, all the questions in her mind. Except he had betrayed her. He didn’t care about her, he was only there for the money.

  Struggling to her feet, she swiped at her nose, surprised to see red in amongst snot and tears. Snatching back the pages from her grandmother’s diary, she stuffed them into her bag and began to walk away.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “Emily, wait.”

  “No.” She spun round to face him. “It’s over, Tyler. Go home, or wherever it is you would rather be.”

  “You can’t go, not like this.”

  “Like what?”

  His hand lifted, then fell back to his side, all the confusion on his face not quite translating into words.

  “You were only ever here for the money, Tyler, not me. Besides, you still have a family waiting for you back home, only you’re too selfish to understand how lucky you are.” Emily pointed over at Phoebe, her voice rising into a higher octave as she shouted out her frustration. “She gave up a life-changing opportunity for you, and yet it’s still not enough.”

  “That was because of me?” Tyler turned to face Phoebe.

  “There’s nothing wrong with living a normal life,” Emily said, realizing how much she resented him in that moment for thinking it wasn’t enough.

  “Who says I want normal?” He was looking again at Emily, seeing the way her body was shaking uncontrollably, but her eyes told him to stay away.

  Emily saw Phoebe place a hand on his arm, holding him back, telling him to let Emily go. So she did. She simply turned around and walked away, her battered leather suitcase trundling along behind.

  There was nothing wrong with normal. It’s all Emily had ever wanted: to be like any other girl, with parents who used to read her bedtime stories, built sandcastles on the beach, or sipped hot chocolate by the fire after coming in from the snow.

  With no idea where she was headed, Emily walked on, her mind a blur of all the memories she had hidden from. All the moments shared with parents taken from her far too soon.

  Verona’s railway station was just like any other, only this time Emily was without direction, without purpose. She scanned the black departure board, so many destinations flashing up in yellow, just waiting to be chosen.

  Where to? Back to St. Tropez? To Antoine and his mansion and all that money tied up with guilt? Because of him, her grandmother never had a chance—a real chance—to be with Noah. Had he not interfered, would Catriona have married Noah, been as happy as Emily’s parents? People who had given her something to hope for when she was all grown up. Her very own living and breathing fairy tale, only without the happily ever after.

  They had honeymooned in Paris, and there was a photograph, in their bedroom at home, of them kissing under the Eiffel Tower. Emily’s mother was dressed in a fifties-style skirt, her hair tied back with a pink ribbon, and she was holding an enormous balloon. It was ridiculous, but it always made her father smile because he said it was the happiest moment of his life, right up until he first held Emily in his arms and felt her tiny fingers wrap around his own.

  Emily wondered where that photograph was now. No doubt boxed up in the attic back in Norfolk, along with all the other reminders too painful to look at, too precious to throw away.

  Paris. She could go back to Paris. To the city where she felt so free.

  And do what? She had no money, no job, nothing apart from a legacy that didn’t even belong to her because she couldn’t finish her grandmother’s stupid test.

  There was no more home. There was no one to whom she could turn. How much pain did she have to bear? How much loss and remorse and suffering of heart?

  Tears kept appearing on her cheek, surprise lines of wet that she tried to wipe away, only to find her fingers dotted with specks of red. She glanced around, saw that she was the subject of much interest—eyes that darted away, whispered words into another’s ear and fingers that tapped away at smartphones. Mounting speculation and curiosity that she had not noticed up until that point. Which made her do what she always did when there was too much attention: she found somewhere to hide.

  The station washroom was stark and white and bright, with two cubicles and a mirror above a plastic sink. Emily turned on the tap and watched water that ran over and through her fingers, the cool bringing momentary relief to her flushed skin as she cupped the water in her hands, brought it to her face, again and again. Looking up, she was startled at the sight of a young woman staring back at her. She had full lips with a pronounced cupid’s bow, hair like strips of sunlight and bright eyes that looked right back. It was as if she was asking Emily to see the memory of the girl she used to be. Screaming at her to be remembered, to be allowed once more to live.

  “I look just like her,” Emily said as she turned her head a little, tilted it up, then down. She leant closer to the mirror, then stepped away, laughing at the similarity between her reflection and the portrait hanging in Antoine’s house, and the photograph given to her in Paris too. How much she looked like the woman who she had kissed every morning and before she went to bed. But she never saw what others did, didn’t realize part of the reason why they stared, because she had been paying no attention to the woman she, herself, had become.

  A decision to be made. To stay or go. To follow this test, this puzzle, all the way to its bitter conclusion, or go back to England. Figure out another way.

 
; Emily smoothed back her hair and tried not to look at how those earrings really did show up the flecks of gold in her eyes, which only made her think of where Tyler could be. If he was still in the city, somewhere, or already making his way back to London, with her.

  Suitcase in hand, she went back to the station concourse, watched the names on the board flicker as another train departed.

  The sound of laughter pulled her attention elsewhere, to a couple, wrapped around each other, him kissing her just below the ear, her reaching around his neck to pull him closer. A diamond on the third finger of her left hand made Emily think back to another couple only a heartbeat away from the table where she had sat, drinking in her grandmother’s words, realizing and remembering the horror of that day all over again.

  A memory of when she found a ring tucked away at the back of a drawer in her grandmother’s study. A simple gold band in which a stone of deepest blue was set (the exact color of Lake Garda, her grandmother had said). It was given to her by a man who once loved her enough to ask for her hand in marriage, but Catriona knew it would never last. Her grandmother had smiled softly as she recalled the exact time and place he dropped down on one knee, placed a kiss on the pulse of her wrist, and said he would never leave her, not again.

  “James Joyce,” Emily whispered, reaching into her bag and taking out the book Giancarlo had given her, in which one of the clues listed at the back, one of the clues to be found, was a tiny depiction of Ulysses, resting on the nightstand of a girl back home. It was a novel Emily had read out of curiosity after hearing the story of how someone had once asked Catriona Robinson to marry him in the exact same place James Joyce seduced his wife.

  That very same day, her grandmother began to map out the idea of a new story. She’d asked Emily to draw her a phoenix with feathers the color of a setting sun. Emily had asked what love had to do with a phoenix, and her grandmother had replied that there was always time to start again, to become someone new, if only you were prepared to try.

  “Scusi.” Emily attempted a smile as she approached a man in a flat cap and uniform. The collar of his shirt was damp against tanned skin, with a shaving cut on his neck that he had tried to cover with a piece of now dried-up tissue. He lifted his head, gave Emily the swift once-over, then adjusted his belt, leant forward as he spoke.

  “Si, belissimo, come posso essere di servizio?”

  “Sirmione? Train?” Emily made a chugging motion with her arms and tried not to notice his amusement.

  “Il suo più rapido per guidare,” the man responded, miming a steering wheel and pointing toward the exit. “Il gruppo taxi e fuori.”

  “Perfect,” Emily muttered as she nodded her head in thanks, before looking up at the yellow sign with a black symbol of a car glaring back at her. She headed outside, looked over to where a line of taxis stood, all neatly in a row, and tried to imagine they were like ducks, simply standing by a pond and waiting to go for a swim. Or schoolchildren fidgeting with conkers in their pockets, ready to soak them in vinegar after school and tie them up with string.

  Anything and everything to stop her from thinking about the last time she got into a car. It had been fifteen years since she’d heard the clunk of the metal doors locking her in; since she sat on the red leather seat and looked ahead through an unbroken windscreen. No speck of blood on the glass; no one trapped behind the wheel.

  She propped her suitcase against the wall and sat on its edge, felt the ancient leather sag a little under her weight. A glimmer of red in the corner of her eye, and she turned to see a robin pecking at the ground by a nearby tree. She gave a low whistle and he cocked his head, regarded her a moment, then came hopping over, stopping just shy of her foot.

  “Hello.” She smiled down at the bird, watching him circle around the suitcase, looking for ants or stray crumbs. A second later and he fluttered up to land next to her, on the very edge of her case. He gave a chirrup, the ruby feathers on his breast quivering with the sound.

  “No.” Emily crossed her arms. “I can’t. I absolutely cannot get into a taxi driven by a complete stranger.”

  The robin gave his tail a little shake, depositing a tiny dropping down the side of the yellow leather before flying away.

  “Fat lot of help you were.” Emily watched the bird loop up and over into the branches of the tree. She heard him calling out, either in warning or in search of a mate.

  Robins are solitary birds. Emily looked across to the taxi rank. And they often sing at night, which makes people mistake them for nightingales.

  “Oh,” she said as she stood all of a sudden, stared up at the tree. The bird was gone, but the memory of when she had first learnt about them came rushing back to the very center of her mind.

  A crisp Sunday morning. Her father in the back garden, digging out his beloved vegetable patch. No matter the weather, he would be there every weekend, tidying the greenhouse, planting out seedlings or trimming back the rose bushes. Emily liked to sit and watch him, sometimes handing him a trowel or helping plant out the seeds, press them down gently with fingers that would still bear traces of the earth when she went to bed.

  Another morning, heavy with snow. When she and Tyler had been taken to the very top of Primrose Hill, toboggans at the ready and misty cheers as they flung themselves down the slope. The toboggan had tripped over a rock, and she fell, with hands laid flat, only for another sledge to shoot straight across them, pushing her fingers into the ground, making her cry out in alarm.

  Her father picked her up, brushing her clean of snow and turned her hands over, slipping off sodden gloves. Then he had declared all was fine, no harm done, but Emily was too afraid to get back on the toboggan, crying and asking to go home.

  “If you don’t go back up now, you never will,” he had said with a smile, then kissed her cheek, straightened her scarf and made her climb once more to the summit. He had waited with a wave at the bottom until she got back on, kicked off from the ground and went soaring through the snow, feeling in that moment as free as any child ever could.

  Face your fears. Don’t give in to the voices of doubt. Embrace the terror because you never know where it might lead you.

  So many lessons taught, but all those memories pushed away.

  He always told her to trust her gut, but she had been ignoring it for years, which meant she ended up as nothing more than a girl, standing outside a train station, too afraid to finish what she started. Too afraid to find out what was waiting for her in a town by a lake.

  This one’s for you, Dad, Emily thought to herself as she picked up her suitcase and walked toward a waiting taxi.

  20

  HERON

  Ardeidae

  On the southern shores of Lake Garda sits the town of Sirmione. At the far end of its peninsula and completely surrounded by water is a medieval castle, a fortification used by the Scaliger family to protect the town from invasion.

  It was at the top of this fortress that Emily stood, staring across the gentle waters of the lake, watching as hundreds of boats crisscrossed the horizon, carrying tourists from port to port. One of them could well belong to the man she was looking for.

  Below was an assortment of streets, and buildings with tiled roofs, evenly spaced windows and thick shutters to keep out the heat. The land stretched out into the lake on either side, clusters of cypress trees breaking up the blue with leaves so dark they almost looked black, and the Italian flag sitting limp atop its pole, with no breeze to make it dance.

  The taxi driver had dropped her on a strip of road, no doubt glad to be rid of the strange English girl who insisted on having the windows down and music turned up full for the whole journey. Emily had sat on a bench, head between her knees, waiting for her heart to return to a normal rhythm. In her hand she clutched the scrap of paper given to her by the taxi driver, with the name and location of Bailey’s Boats. Noah Bailey, the man who asked Catriona Robinson to love him forever, in sickness and in health. Except she rejected him, and Emily wanted t
o know why her grandmother had turned her back on the man she loved most of all. Was it something he did, or did not do? Or something entirely more complicated?

  Tyler was in her head now too. Had her grandmother an ulterior motive for choosing him as her guardian and accomplice? Had she hoped they’d find one another after all these years and become something more than just long-lost friends? Would it have made any difference if he had kissed her in the bar in St. Tropez, or if Phoebe hadn’t turned up?

  She can see the romance now, hidden in amongst all the tragedy. The reminders of love, of forgiveness, of the fleeting pocket of time that is life, which her grandmother kept chucking at her. But romance was never happily ever after. It was never just the highs, but also all the lows.

  Emily stared down at the quayside, with all its tourists, far below, and out across the vast expanse of water. She imagined a time when the castle was filled with soldiers, when ships brought goods from all over the world, and her fingers itched to draw the images forming in her mind: a stowaway hidden in a crate of tea brought all the way from China; a young girl who dreamt of being an explorer.

  There was a rumble of an engine as a sleek black boat traversed the waves below. A man stood at the helm, steering his vessel beneath one of the bridges that would bring him back to land. He had short, dark hair, smudged with gray at the temples, his sleeves were rolled up to reveal strong, tanned arms, and there was a cigarette tucked behind one ear.

  Two by two, she ran down the steps, round and round until she reached the bottom, then had to lean her head against the cool stone to wait for the world to stop spinning. Through the crowds she went, in and out of a group following a woman shouting in German, along with a screaming child trying to escape from its buggy and a mother smiling her apology behind tired eyes.

  The man secured his boat to shore with a thick length of rope before assisting each of his passengers back onto dry land. He turned as he felt someone’s eyes on him, raised one hand to his mouth and said something Emily could neither hear nor see.