by Faye Bird
“I want to know why you did what you did. I want to know why you killed my daughter,” she said.
“I—”
“You must realize that is the only reason I have let you into my home. So I can ask you and hear your answer—the answer I’ve been waiting for all this time.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said, and I started sobbing. “I’m so sorry.” And I kept saying it because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Hearing you say that,” Frances said, “it means nothing to me. I thought it might be worth something—to hear it, an apology—but it’s not. And you know why, Ana? Because it changes nothing.”
I looked up through my tears. Frances’s face was hard, worn. There was nothing I could say to her. Nothing I could say to make any of it better.
“Does your mother know you are here, Ana?” she said.
“Rachel? No,” I said.
“What does she know—about you?” Frances asked.
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.
“And you don’t want her to know?”
“She mustn’t ever know,” I said. “It would break her heart.”
Frances nodded and took a sip of tea from the cup that was sitting in front of her on the table. Her fingers curled around the cup like the warped branches of a dead tree, and I could see that it hurt for her to move, to lift it to her mouth.
I watched her for a moment. “Are you okay?” I asked.
She swallowed and put the cup back down on the table slowly.
I waited.
“Osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and now gallstones,” she said. “Bones are crumbling. Body’s packing up. Not much I can do.”
“Are you in pain?”
“Most of the time,” she said.
“And today?”
“Today isn’t such a good day. In fact, you could pass me my pills. They are in the sideboard,” she said, pointing across the room.
I stood up and walked over toward the sideboard.
“Second drawer down,” she said.
I opened the drawer and saw papers and pens, a pack of playing cards, and a small plastic pill pot, all neatly arranged in front of me. And there, to the right, was a stack of birthday cards. You Are One and Two Today! I flipped them between my hands inside the drawer. They were old, worn. My heart sped up. There were more underneath. Congratulations! You are 3! 4! 5! I turned around to see if Frances was looking over at me. She wasn’t. She was filling a glass with water for her pills from a carafe on the table next to the tea. These were Catherine’s cards. They had to be. I felt as if somebody had their hands around my neck. My throat was tight. There was no air. I glanced back at Frances again and then pulled in a deep and painful breath before opening one of the cards to read.
Dear Catherine,
Happy Birthday!
With love,
Amanda, Richard, and Emma
This was Mum’s writing. It was hers. I let my fingers stroke the card where her pen had been. I was close to her, in that moment, closer than I’d ever been before. I quickly opened another card, my hands still in the drawer.
Dear Catherine
Have a day filled with fun!
Lots of love,
Amanda, Richard, and Emma
And still, another, the same.
From Amanda, Richard, and Emma
And on one, I’d signed my own name.
Emma
And in another I’d drawn a smiley face—
For my friend Catherine
My writing was big, scrawled.
“Can’t you find them?” Frances asked. I jumped at her voice, and then I took one of the cards and put it in my skirt pocket. It was instinctive. I just knew I had to have the card. To have something that had been touched and held by Mum.
“Got them,” I said, holding the pill pot up to show Frances, and I closed the sideboard drawer.
I went and sat back down and passed over the pills. I watched while Frances opened the pot up and tipped the contents out into the palm of her hand. She was slow. So slow. Arranging and rearranging the pills on the table and then again in her hand. And as I waited I felt anxious, restless.
I looked out the window at the Green.
And suddenly it was there. An almost-immediate pain—and with it that feeling again. My dad. I’d been waiting for him to come and play. Where had he been?
I turned back to Frances.
“He didn’t come out and play,” I said, and as I said it I felt as if I was still waiting for him now, willing him to come.
“What are you talking about?” Frances said, setting down her glass of water on the table in front of her.
“Dad. He never came out and played like he said he would. He never came.”
“He was talking to me,” said Frances.
“To you? But he was meant to come out and play with me—” I said, and I recognized the child in my voice as I did.
“I’m sure he would have come, but we had things we needed to talk about. What does it matter, Ana?” Frances said.
“It matters,” I said. “To me!”
“Why?” Frances said.
“Where was Mum?”
“She was already at the party. You’d all gone to the party early—around half past five. Amanda was helping with the food. She’d baked. She was always baking something. So you and Richard helped Amanda carry the food over to the party and then he brought you over here to see Catherine. The plan was that the four of us would go to the party when it started at half past six. But none of this matters, Ana. None of it. Because it isn’t what happened.”
“We’re going to the river, Catherine. We’ll play hide-and-seek by the river.”
“If you don’t play I’ll tell on you. You have to come or that’s what I’ll do.”
“What were you and Dad talking about?” I asked.
“I don’t remember,” Frances said.
“But he never came,” I said, again. “He’d promised!”
“You never could accept the way things were. Never! You could never just leave things alone! And still—now—”
“But you said you had things you needed to talk about with Dad. That’s what you just said. You must remember what those things were.”
“I told you. I don’t remember,” Frances said.
I looked at Frances. She was lying. I knew she was. She was pretending she didn’t know, because she didn’t want to say.
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
“What have you got there?” she said, suddenly pointing her crooked finger at my pocket. I looked down. The card I’d taken was sticking out so it could be seen.
“Nothing,” I said, tucking it back in.
“It’s something of mine, isn’t it?” Frances said. “From the sideboard. Show it to me!”
I didn’t move.
“Now!” she said.
I pulled the card out of my pocket and held it in my hand. I didn’t want to give it back to her, but Frances was shouting at me. She was shouting.
“That was Catherine’s. Give it back to me!”
I stood up and put the card down on the table in front of her, just out of reach. It was cruel, I knew it was, but I didn’t want to lose it.
“I can’t reach it from here!” she said. “Put it here, in my hand.” And as she held out her hand toward me I could see it was so weak. The only strength was in her voice, her words.
I didn’t move.
“You stupid, stupid girl! Give it to me. Now!” she screamed.
“Don’t shout at me!” I screamed back. “Don’t shout at me like that!” And I heard in my voice a fury like I had never heard before.
“You don’t understand anything!” Frances said. “You are just like Emma! Just like her! Now give me the card!”
“No!” I said, snatching it back off the table, taunting her with it. I knew it was childish, but I couldn’t bear being shouted at like this—like I’d been shouted at before.
“She’s dead! Sh
e’s dead! She’s gone! Because of you! How could you? We trusted you, and she’s gone.”
Frances’s voice was in my head now—from before—shouting, screaming … she was crying—
“Get out! Get out of my house! Get her out! Now!”
She was raging—at me.
And there was nowhere I could hide. I had nowhere to hide.
“Why have you still got these cards?” I said.
“They are my daughter’s birthday cards, Ana!”
“But they’re from us—from Mum and Dad and me.” And I walked over to the sideboard, opened it again and began to pull out the cards. “There are only cards here from us—no one else! Catherine must have had cards from other people. Not just us!”
I walked back toward Frances. She didn’t speak.
“I want to know why you’ve kept those cards—only those. Our family’s cards to Catherine. She must have had others!” I said. “Why would you keep cards from me after I did what I did to her?” And I saw her arm rise up from the chair in front of me, and the next thing I felt was a hot and scorching pain across my left cheek where Frances’s pale and bony hand had struck me hard.
The card fell to the table, fluttering in the air as it went. I raised both my arms to defend myself against a second blow. I was sure another was coming. I closed my eyes and waited.
Nothing.
I opened my eyes.
Frances was sitting back down in front of me. The card was now between the palms of her hands, her twisted fingers clasped around it so tightly all the blood had drained from under her nails. They were almost blue.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry.
That’s what I said to myself as I stood there, trying to take in what had just happened, my cheek burning with the rising bruise.
And then I picked up my bag and I walked out. And as I went I glanced at Frances, and I swear she was smiling.
16
NO ONE TOLD ME that standing up high, and I mean really high—on-top-of-a-building Spider-Man high, where all you can see is the sky, until there is no more sky to see—would make me feel okay. But then I don’t know who could have told me that.
I am lucky.
Lucky that today—this afternoon, while Rachel was at work—I climbed out of my bedroom window and discovered that if I swung my leg around far enough to the right, I could lever myself up and make it onto the bathroom window ledge and then onto the flat roof.
I don’t know what made me do it.
Well, maybe, thinking about it now, I do.
I needed to get away. Just for a little while. And there was literally nowhere else to go.
monday
17
I DIDN’T SLEEP.
I couldn’t.
Being shouted at like that, being hit. It stayed with me. I lay in bed, still, all night, with my eyes open, trying to feel blank. Trying to feel nothing. But my feelings were all over me, like itches I couldn’t reach to scratch.
“Ana, sit down. I want to talk to you.”
Rachel was standing in the kitchen waiting for me the next morning. She looked hassled. Worried. I sat at the table and pulled up my knees to hug them to me. I wasn’t sure I could eat any breakfast. I’d grab something if I needed to on the way to school. I took a sip of juice. It was cold. Too cold. It made my teeth hurt. I touched my cheek. I hoped my makeup had covered the mark on my face. I didn’t think Rachel had noticed the bruise last night. She’d gone out, and we’d talked when she got in, but I was in bed with just the side light on. I looked tired this morning. I knew that. I had bags under my eyes, but in a way that helped; it masked the slight swelling on my cheek. There was no way I could have explained to Rachel what had happened yesterday. No way.
“You look tired. Did you sleep last night?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Right, but are you sleeping?”
“I’m waking up a bit, during the night. It’s nothing.” I didn’t want to tell her I was so exhausted I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day.
“You cried out in your sleep last night. Did you realize?”
“No,” I said. I wanted to change the subject.
“Are you having nightmares again?”
“Again?”
“You had them before—”
“When?”
“Years ago now,” she said.
I shrugged, like it didn’t matter, but I didn’t remember having nightmares before and it bothered me. I was sure I hadn’t slept at all last night, but I must have if I’d cried out. I didn’t know what to say. All I knew was how I felt at night. That was what was keeping me awake. The frightening ugly feelings.
“Ana? I’m talking to you … Ana? Are you listening?”
I looked up at Rachel. “What?”
“What’s going on? Is something worrying you?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“It must be tough, without Ellie. I know how close you two were.”
I’d almost forgotten about Ellie. With everything else going on, there hadn’t been room to miss her anymore. The only person I missed was Mum. Always Mum. And since I’d seen Frances, I was missing her even more.
“I guess I do miss her,” I said. Because I didn’t know what else to say.
“And Jamie?” she said. “Are things okay with Jamie?”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” she said awkwardly. “I’m just asking.”
“I’m not seeing Jamie,” I said. “If that’s what you mean. We’re friends. Nothing’s happened.” I didn’t want her to know about me and Jamie. It was all so new.
“That’s not what I meant,” Rachel said. “But fine, if you’re just friends—then fine.”
“What? You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, Ana. I just want to find out what’s wrong. Something’s up. Something’s worrying you—I know it is. The way you’ve been—ditching school, crying out in the night…”
“I’m fine. Honestly. You don’t need to worry.” And as I said it I shifted closer to her and took her hand in mine, to try to prove the point, to try to change the subject, to try to make it better. She couldn’t know about any of this. Not ever.
She nodded.
“Maybe we could do something, you and me, after school?” I said. I knew that would make her happy.
“That would be nice,” she said, brightening at the suggestion, and she pulled her hand back onto her lap and patted her knees. “But it’ll have to be tomorrow. There’s too much going on at work today.”
“Okay. Tomorrow,” I said, and I forced a smile.
“Well, look … if you are sure you’re okay then I’d better go into work. I’m late already. But I’ll see you this evening.” And as she moved forward, to give me a hug, I closed my eyes. I sat still as she held me. I couldn’t hug her back. Because I couldn’t bear her not being Mum. Not even for all the lovely things she did for me.
“Oh, Ana,” Rachel said, as she drew back and stood up. “I wish just once in a while you’d let me hug you.” And even though I wanted to do something, to say something, to make up for it, I just couldn’t think of anything that I could do.
* * *
When Rachel left I thought about climbing back into bed. I was so tired. But I’d promised I wouldn’t bunk off again, and I owed Rachel that much. I grabbed my blue Converse and slung my school shoes in my bag. I’d change at the school gates. I wanted to wear my Converse today. The blue ones were my favorites. I knew they’d make me feel better, for now, and as soon as I pulled them on they did.
Except as I bent down to put my books in my bag my cheekbone started to ache again where Frances had hit me. I couldn’t stop thinking about the blow. Frances’s weak hand, her old skin. It hid such strength. Her power frightened me. I should have given her the card back. I knew that. I didn’t feel good about the way I’d been or about what I’d done. But she’d hurt me, and I couldn’t stop thinking about that, and how it was a
ll that I deserved. Her striking me across the face was actually nothing; nothing compared to what I’d done to her when I’d killed Catherine.
I stood up and pulled my bag onto my back.
I checked my face in the mirror one last time. A pale, unhappy face gazed back, thick makeup covering the bags under my eyes and the bruise on my cheek. I almost didn’t recognize myself. I put my hands through my hair to flatten it and then I took a deep breath and opened the front door to leave the house.
“Hi!” said a voice as soon as I stepped out. Jamie.
He was sitting on the front wall in the garden, waiting for me.
“Hi,” I said, and as I turned to lock the door I touched my cheek again. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the mark.
“I thought we could walk together,” he said.
“Sure,” I said. I couldn’t quite believe he was here. That he’d been waiting for me.
“You okay?” he said, as we started to walk.
“Yeah. How long have you been waiting?”
“Just a few minutes,” he said. “I thought I might have missed you.”
I nodded.
“You’re wearing your Converse.”
“Yeah. My school shoes are in my bag. These blue ones are my old faithfuls,” I said, looking down.
“Not feeling blue?” he said.
I shook my head, smiling. It was a relief to smile.
“I like the blue,” he said, and as he said it he slipped his hand in mine and we walked together, quietly, holding hands, almost all the way to school.
And then my phone rang.
“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice. Familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time. “Ana?” she said.
“Yes?” I could feel my heart pounding in my rib cage, shaking my frame. I had this feeling like a bomb was about to go off, like it was strapped to me, fused, and ready to blow, but there was nothing I could do.
I let go of Jamie’s hand and stopped walking, motioning to him that he should walk on without me. But he didn’t.
“Is that Ana?” the voice said again.
“Yes,” I said. “Who is this please?” And as I said it, I knew.
“It’s Amanda—Amanda Trees.”
I turned away from Jamie and faced the way we’d just walked. I needed the privacy. As I turned it felt like the whole world was turning with me, and there I was, alone, in the middle of it; the spine of a spinning top, twirling tall, the world fanning out just a little bit faster all around me.