When I can finally hold myself upright again, her top is damp with tears.
I touch my finger to it. ‘I’m sorry.’
But I’m not just talking about her top. And I think she knows.
* * *
I sleep most of the day away. There are no nightmares, but whenever I wake I remember Jolie is in the hospital and feel even worse. Twice more I try to call Luc but it goes straight to his voicemail each time.
Cass texts in the afternoon to see if I’ve heard. We agree to share any news and I drift back to sleep.
It’s like my body is trying to catch up on the sleep I’ve missed in the last months.
I wake after four, and venture downstairs. I can’t put off talking to Mum and Dad any longer.
I stand in the kitchen doorway for a minute, watching them. Dad places a coffee in front of Mum and retires to the other side of the table to read his section of the Sunday paper, squeezing her shoulder as he passes. She looks up, her gold-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, and offers him a small smile, which he returns.
There are matching deep creases around their eyes. It’s like I blinked and missed a decade. I don’t know when it happened but they’ve grown old. Weary.
‘Zoey?’ Mum’s spotted me.
‘Sorry I slept so long,’ I say. I cross to the fridge and pour a glass of water. Anything to avoid having to see how Dan’s death, and maybe my reaction to it, has aged them so.
They share a surprised look. I guess it’s been a while since I bothered explaining or apologising for anything.
I lean back against the counter. It’s one thing to know I’ve made mistakes, another to put it into actual words. Ones that aren’t full of excuses or accusations.
Mum breaks the silence. ‘How are you feeling?’
I stretch my arms above my head. ‘Tired.’ I hesitate. ‘And really sad. Jolie is . . . she’s amazing.’ I have to swallow past a lump in my throat. ‘It’s not fair.’
Dad sighs. ‘No, it’s not.’
I can almost feel my brother right there at the table, wondering how I could be so stupid. I’ve pushed away the two people who really understand what it’s like to miss him.
‘I’m sorry. Really sorry. I just couldn’t . . .’
Mum crosses to me, her arms wide. ‘I know.’
I take the last step and close the distance between us. She holds me, and soon Dad’s arms wrap around us both. Not as big a family as we once were, but still a family. When I break the hug we share a teary smile.
Mum straightens and checks the time, dabbing at the corner of her eye where her eyeliner is smudged. ‘Shivani had to work late this afternoon. We’re taking a casserole around there for dinner.’ She hesitates. ‘Would you like to come? I’m sure they’d like to see you. Little Danny has grown so much.’
I saw the single serve of pasta she’d left in a bowl in the fridge when I grabbed a drink earlier. I know she expects me to say no, but now I realise that doesn’t mean she wants me to stay behind. Her comment that they’d like to see me isn’t a dig about the dinners I’ve missed.
Mum’s simply doing her best to keep going. Just like me.
Dragging myself upright, I stretch some of the kinks from my shoulders and nod. ‘Sounds good.’
She smiles. ‘Good.’
Dad doesn’t comment when I slide into the back of the car, carrying the pot still warm from the oven. But when I meet his gaze in the rear-view mirror his eyes are crinkled at the corners in a way I can’t remember seeing since Dan died.
I’m nervous as we walk up the path to the house. I haven’t exactly been sister-in-law of the year. The setting sun stains the sky above a pale orange as the streetlights come on. There’s the hint of a chill in the air and I shiver.
I hate the cold.
I remember Dan’s scrunched up face as he made the declaration on a family trip to the snow. He changed his attitude after he discovered snowboarding, but he always liked summer best.
The door ahead is opening and I hurry to catch up to Mum and Dad. My foot catches on a crack in the pavers and I stumble, looking down so I don’t drop the dish. I hear the phone ring and the sound of a child crying, and when I straighten, the others have gone inside already. I missed it, my chance to say something—anything—to Shivani.
I step inside and close the door behind me. I can hear little Danny grizzling as Mum takes the dish from my hands and leads the way to the kitchen, where she pops the casserole in the oven and begins organising plates and cutlery. She moves around the space with a familiarity that reminds me how many times they’ve done this.
The guilt settles in my chest like a stone, and for a second I wish the anger back. That all-encompassing rage at everything and everyone that meant I could avoid moments like this.
Because it hurts. It hurts in a way only sticking around will help. And right now that seems pretty hard. But then Mum is holding out the cutlery and nudging me in the direction of the big old table, and the urge to run from this fresh grief fades.
I walk around the column that divides the two areas and freeze. There, in the shadows in the corner, is Dan’s chair. The brown leather recliner was given to him by our Pa when he first moved out of home.
Placing the cutlery takes only a minute, then I follow the pull of the chair and cross the room. The mumble of Mum and Dad’s conversation fades to nothing as I sink into its warm embrace.
I check my phone and send another text to Luc.
Sitting in the chair, I imagine I can smell my brother. The odours of boy sweat and the cheap aftershave he wore through his teenage years, rather than the more grown-up one he favoured by the time he got married.
I close my eyes and breathe him in.
God, I miss him. The lump in my throat threatens to give way and let the building tears flood me again, but I hold them in.
When I’ve pulled myself together enough to open my eyes, little Danny is on a bright red and blue play mat a few feet away from me on the floor, and Shivani is in the kitchen. Another chance to speak to her missed.
I look down at my nephew. A little stranger, although not as little as I remember. Mum was right when she said he’d grown.
And something a lot like wonder wraps around me. Wonder at the little person lying there on his back like a stranded mini-whale. He’s wearing nothing but a nappy and singlet due to the warmth of the late sun through the windows. He’s all baby rolls and chubby cheeks and drool. His hand reaches towards a toy, a little red plush cow. It lies just out of reach, taunting him. His face screws up.
Uh, oh.
Just as I’m about to call for back-up, he seems to decide not to cry. He squirms, wriggles, does some crazy worm thing and propels himself across the floor . . . in the exact opposite direction to where he’s trying to go.
Cue wails.
‘Know how you feel, buddy,’ I mutter. I’m out of the chair and on my knees beside him before I can think.
He startles, mid-cry. Blinks at me.
‘I’m Zoey,’ I say, because it’s been so long he deserves an introduction.
His head tilts and I swear I can read his thoughts in the widening of eyes. The expression is so like my brother’s, it’s painful to see.
So what?
A laugh escapes me. ‘So, I’m big, and I can help you out.’
I pick up both him and the red cow and sit them together on my lap. He stuffs the cow’s leg into his mouth with one chubby fist.
‘He’s teething.’
I look up at my sister-in-law. I tense, half expecting her to take him from me. I would if I was her.
But she doesn’t.
Her slender shoulders droop and she brushes at a tuft of little Danny’s hair. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘Good to see you. Both of you.’
‘It’s nearly dinner,’ she says before returning to the kitchen and leaving me to get to know my nephew. It’s Sunday night, family time. Thinking of Luc and Jolie reminds me of how lucky I am to be here.<
br />
Little Danny squirms in my lap and I can’t help but smile at the sheer life in him.
He’s not my brother.
But I’m the only one who’ll be able to tell him about the Dan I knew. Only I knew Dan the big brother, who I adored even while he drove me crazy. The boy who cut a lock of my hair on a friend’s dare at eight, and who stood up to the meanest of mean girls for me when I was six. The boy who smelt so bad I’d pretend to suffocate in his presence.
The boy who gave the best hugs in the world.
* * *
I receive the text I’m dreading three weeks later.
Jolie May Hunter passed away peacefully in the early hours of this morning, with her family at her side. Funeral details will be shared in the coming days. The family asks for privacy at this time.
CHAPTER
19
Petals to memories. Something that once was. The yellow still bright in my mind.
‘Daisy’—GRAY
I lift my hand to press the bell three times before I give up and turn away. Now I know. I finally understand how hard everyone found it to speak to me after Dan died. Because what is there to say?
There’s nothing that can make it better. No words that will bring Jolie’s cheeky smile back.
I take two steps away from the house before I catch myself and squash the instinct to flee. This isn’t about me; I’m here for Luc. Because despite knowing that not a single thing I can say will make it better, not coming would be worse. My hand touches my wrist.
I remember.
I remember that people tried. I remember that my pain mattered enough to Cass and Finn that they at least tried. No, I didn’t want to hear it. Yes, I threw it back in their faces and pushed them away, but I remember they tried.
I ring the doorbell. The sound echoes through the house. The blinds are drawn in the front windows, as though the inhabitants can’t bear the bright light of the first autumn day. The grass has grown long, but the flowers in the pots lining the path are exploding with defiant colour.
Jolie’s touch, I bet.
I listen for footsteps. Maybe they’re not home? But there are two cars in the driveway. The one their dad drove them to Cass’s in that first day of our trip, and a beaten up old green Ford. There’s a pale blue bike leaning against the side of the house. Jolie’s, I’m guessing. It looks like she leant it there in a hurry, heading inside to grab something, intending to come right back.
No-one is coming.
There’s no external sign that grief lives here. After Dan died I remember it felt like there was a neon sign flashing from our double brick, telegraphing our loss for the neighbourhood to see. The house had to look different—the whole world had changed forever.
But there was no sign then and there’s none now. For all people know, this home could be filled with joy.
Except it isn’t.
I press the bell again. If no-one comes, I’ll leave them in peace. Every breath is tight as I wait. Once, when I was about seven, I stole the remote to Dan’s prized model car. And broke it. He held me down with a beanbag until I thought I’d pass out. I feel the same way now—like I’m trying to suck oxygen through a mountain of polystyrene beans.
I’ve thought of a thousand versions of what to say and discarded them all.
The handle turns, the door opens, and he’s there. Smaller somehow, still gorgeous but unshaven and red-eyed. The cargo shorts he’s wearing hang low on his hips, his flat stomach revealed by a mis-buttoned blue shirt. His feet are bare and part of me thinks they look strange, because they’re free of sand. He’s different here. Not just because he’s grieving but because he’s home. Sometimes I worry that the Luc I knew on the trip existed only in my head. But then I remember the conversation we shared after playing basketball, and the intensity in his face when he kissed me.
It was real. We’re real. I have to believe it.
He blinks like he’s taking a second to work out who I am and why I’m standing on his doorstep.
‘You didn’t answer my texts,’ I say. It’s not what I planned, and it’s all wrong, but I’m flustered and he’s looking at me like I need a reason for being here. ‘Not that I mind,’ I add quickly.
‘Why are you here?’
‘I thought—well, I wanted to see you.’
He shoves a hand through his already messed up hair, making it stand up in all directions. ‘This isn’t the same thing.’
‘I don’t get what you mean.’
His face is a mask. One made from his bare bones and veins, after pain has stripped him bare. ‘I don’t know what you thought, but we’re not going to bond over my sister’s death.’
‘I didn’t . . .’ But my voice fades away because maybe I did think something like that.
His expression goes from cold to icy. ‘Duty done. You can go now.’
He steps back into the shadows of the hallway and goes to close the door in my face.
I reach out, gripping the damp skin of his bare wrist. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe I imagined myself as this caring angel that would sweep in and help you through this and maybe that was beyond dumb of me. But only because I care about you.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Nothing.’
He shakes his hand free. ‘Look, we had some fun, but I’m not in the mood for fun anymore.’
‘It was more than that.’ I sound so desperate, but I’m sure what we had was real. ‘I wouldn’t be standing here otherwise.’
He doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t disagree either. It makes me brave. ‘The timing is bad, really bad, I get that. And if you don’t want me around right now . . .’ I take a steadying breath. ‘Well, I get that too. But when you change your mind, and I am certain you will, remember I said I’d be waiting.’
A brow lifts. ‘You’ll be waiting.’
It could be a question, or a scornful echo, but I choose to interpret it as a statement. ‘I will.’
‘Good for you,’ he says, turning away.
‘One more thing,’ I say. ‘Please.’
He glances back but there’s no warmth in his face. ‘What?’
His eyes are cold and I want to flee, but then I see it. A flash of grief so raw that I fear he’ll crumble before my eyes. Without planning or thinking I take a step towards him.
He steps back.
I flinch, but take another step. I’m practically in the doorway now—he can’t shut the door.
‘I’m here.’ I say it loud and strong so he has no choice but to hear the words. ‘And I will be here for you whenever you need me. I’ll wait as long as it takes.’
His face stays blank. There’s not a flicker of reaction in those dark eyes.
‘Come to me, call me, whatever. Any time, day or night.’ Now my voice wavers, but I force myself to go on. ‘For anything.’
His head jerks.
I step back, and the door closes.
He needs time, that’s all. I’m confident we’ll find a way back to each other. I’m sure of it, right up until I reach my car and slide into the driver’s seat. Then the sobs begin, wrenched from deep in my chest. I can’t forget the blank look on Luc’s face. The ice in those eyes that used to hold so much heat for me.
I said I’d wait for as long as it takes but right now, as I wipe away tears with the back of my trembling hand, I’m afraid I’ll be waiting forever.
* * *
Cass and I sit at the back of the huge chapel a week later. The old stone building is overflowing with people of all ages. I’m guessing Jolie touched a lot of lives—she was that kind of girl.
Like everyone else, I honoured her request to wear colour to her final party. My hot pink and black zigzag dress with its royal blue collar, which seemed too bright in my bedroom mirror, fits right in with the crowd, and matches the blue streak in my hair. The sea of colour brings a few smiles amid all the tears. I guess that’s what she wanted. The chapel is dominated by two huge flower arrangements. Red, yellow and pink gerberas ov
erflow from the vases, set off by achingly pure white lilies.
The service passes in a blur of stories and music and memories that are almost too hard to hear. But I listen to every word.
I can’t look anywhere but at Luc. The dark waves of his hair, the stiff line of his shoulders. His blank expression when a blonde woman who I guess is their mum tries to talk to him.
I want to be at his side, but I don’t want to intrude. Luc needs to get through this however he can. Apart from that one terrible visit, I haven’t spoken to him since Jolie died. I’ve texted a few times, but he hasn’t responded.
The minister in charge of the service calls Luc forward, and he stands.
He walks with heavy steps, like he’s being dragged down by grief. The bright blue of his crisp shirt is the summer sky or the calmest sea. I cling to the edge of the pew to stop myself going to him; it’s smooth and cool in my hands. He makes it to the small podium, lifts his head and scans the crowd. I’m pretty sure he’s not seeing anything.
Except . . . our eyes meet.
I swear he sees me; the air between us positively crackles. But then he’s scanning again. He picks a spot high above all our heads to address his words.
‘Jolie wanted me to speak today,’ he begins. His voice is steady, but his hands tremble, holding a tattered piece of paper. Even from this distance, it’s clear the thing has been folded and unfolded a million times. ‘In fact, she wrote out what I should say to make sure I’d get it right.’
He lifts the piece of paper, covered in loopy scrawl, and all around me people chuckle.
‘That’s my girl,’ someone murmurs.
It doesn’t surprise me. I only knew Jolie for a little while but she saw what she wanted and she made it happen.
Luc’s eyes are shining and red-rimmed, but no tears fall. ‘She first wrote it forever ago. It wasn’t too long after she was diagnosed, and she was in hospital. The docs thought she didn’t have much time left and she wanted to get things sorted. She was just a kid, but she refused to leave anything to chance.’ His voice wavers but he keeps going. ‘As she outlived every one of their predictions and grew older, she made modifications to that first speech. Because the kind of impression a twelve-year-old wants to leave is a bit different to a nearly adult.’
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