Alain took Betina to stay with his parents for a few days so she wouldn’t witness my breakdown and to allow me the space to do what I needed.
On the third day, after two whole days of non-stop lamenting, I woke up without crying. I spent the day zombie-like but without tears. And I went to sleep without tears. On the fourth day I managed to do something different. To go to work. And Betina and Alain came home.
And it was like a new beginning. Catharsis had finished and I entered the stillness of afterwards. Everything felt like Day One. Like I had finally, finally, been let out of prison and I was allowed to enjoy life.
My mind didn’t have to keep flitting away to wondering who did it, whether Serena would come clean, whether I should try again to make her confess. I was finally, conclusively, whole again. And that meant my life was whole again. It was fabulous. And terrifying. And what I had needed ten years ago when I left prison.
Now everything is new and shiny and fun and scary and complete.
And I can do things like sit at the beach hut sipping gin, discreetly sexually teasing my fiancé with my toes and listening to our daughter chat as she draws. I can do all that and not feel as if I should be doing something better with my time. And I can watch my parents walk towards us, Betina between them, chatting and chatting as she leads them to our table.
‘Hello, Poppy love,’ Mum says.
‘Hello, Pepper,’ Dad says.
‘Hi,’ I reply simply because I’m still getting used to this. To them acting as though I am here in 2020 and not like I died back in 1989 and have been reanimated to haunt them. We have a long way to go, my parents and I, but we are getting there. We are at the start of this path called the future and I know, as I walk along it, they’ll be somewhere along it with me.
‘Aunty Bella is coming later,’ Betina informs me. ‘And she’s bringing her special friend Myron.’
‘That’ll be nice.’
‘Can we go and see Uncle Logan again soon?’ she asks, in case anyone felt at ease or comfortable or anything.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’ve told you yes.’
Mum and Dad have been on a journey. They are trying to balance the absolute horror of what Logan has done with wondering how complicit they were because of the way they handled my imprisonment. I don’t envy them their journey and I’ve mostly kept out of it as it’s their problem to solve.
I love my brother, I will visit him in prison, but I will never tell him he was right to do what he did. I thought hearing Jack Halnsley’s story would have changed Logan, but no. He still feels justified in what he did because he hadn’t known. Mum and Dad need to work out how they deal with that. I’ve made it clear that I am not going to help them with anything, and I am not going to go running around after them any more.
Bella is on an even keel. She and Logan have worked out what happened and in all of this, she’s the only one who he has ‘forgiven’ or has real compassion for. He would never have told about her hitting him, he’s said. He would have protected her till the end of time.
Logan and I have a complicated relationship now because he thinks I am friends with Serena. He hates her, will always hate her. He thinks she should have gone to prison with me and have had her family’s life implode, too. He sees me, especially since I bring Betina, and we talk and joke until he remembers how much he dislikes me for my newly brokered friendship with Serena. There is nothing of the sort, of course – if we see each other in the street we say hello, but other than that, nothing.
Serena was right – what would we honestly have to talk about?
Alain gets up and grabs a couple more seats from inside the beach hut.
Mum has a large plastic bowl of food wrapped very tightly with cling film, the condensation from being covered while hot sits on the underside of the temporary lid.
‘How are the wedding plans coming along?’ Mum asks, while Dad grabs a section from the newspaper in Alain’s hands and sits down next to him. They often just sit and read together in companionable silence.
‘Oh fine,’ I say as Mum hands me the bowl of food. I daren’t look down, can’t face seeing what she’s decided to bring to our little beach gathering. ‘I’ve got some magazines over there if you want to have a look. Everything in them is too over the top for me, but it’s fun to pretend I might go for it.’
She goes to my seat and starts to flick through the magazine pile.
‘Mum,’ Betina whispers so loudly she may as well have shouted at me. ‘Mummmm! Grandma’s been “cooking” again.’ My bright, bright daughter even does me proud by using her fingers to air quote the appropriate word.
‘I know,’ I reply, plastering a smile on my face. ‘Isn’t that nice?’
‘Chuck it out for the birds, Pepper love,’ Dad says without looking up from his paper. ‘It’s what we had for dinner last night. And she boiled the pasta for twenty minutes and it was still like chewing rocks. And don’t get me started on the salad cream and tuna she put on top. Do us all a favour and chuck it out for the birds. Might cull the seagull numbers a bit.’
‘Did you mean to say all that out loud, Dad?’ I ask.
‘Say what?’ Dad looks up innocently.
‘Grandpa, you just told Mum to throw Grandma’s food away and that it might kill a few birds.’
‘Ahh.’ Dad returns to his paper. ‘It was bound to happen one day. I’ve had fifty years of defending her cooking, it was inevitable that I would break.’
‘Everyone has their limits, love,’ Mum says without looking up from her magazine. ‘Who knew it’d be tuna pasta that would break your father?’
Alain looks up at me with a smile. Just six months ago this type of conversation would not have been possible. ‘Well, I think it’s great this is all out in the open,’ Alain says.
‘Are we allowed to tell Grandma the truth about her food now?’ Betina asks with glee.
‘NO!’ Alain, Dad and I exclaim. There is admitting you don’t enjoy something and then there are Betina’s character assassinations that start on one subject and then very rapidly segue into various things that you did when she could barely talk that she has been hanging on to for many, many years. Very few people recover from those.
‘All right, calm down. I was only asking.’
‘I know you were, sweetheart.’ I can’t help but get down and give my daughter a hug. That is the best part of this new reality. I give her more hugs, more time, more of the me who has been hidden under layers of worry, and the past and not feeling like I deserved to be out there in the world. Over her shoulder I see Tina sitting on the sea wall, her face turned up to the sun, her body relaxed and unburdened. That’s how it should have been, and whether she’s here for real or not, this is how I’m going to think of her from now on. Chilled, calm and free.
I’m free now, too.
Truly free.
And I get to spend all that freedom with the people I love.
serena
Now
‘Surprise!’ everyone cries when Evan and Conrad enter the living room.
Conrad, who knew all about it and who had taken his dad out to give us a chance to set the party up, actually jumps and looks genuinely ‘surprised’ while clutching his chest. ‘Cool, everybody, thank you,’ he says, looking around at our various gathered family and friends. ‘Thank you.’