‘Oi! I’m walking on here!’ Kerry sort of quotes from Midnight Cowboy, another film I know she has never watched. I look back to where the lights are approaching, my senses heightened, the adrenaline rushing into my veins as they get closer.
I want you to understand that I don’t want to die right now. I’m going to move in a second, I’m not going to put the driver in danger, the car won’t have to swerve or move out of my way, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to know how it felt for her, how it felt for Kerry in those last seconds of her life.
Just one more minute and I’ll move. I promise. Just. One. More. Minute.
Reluctantly, I return to my car. My chest is rising and falling rapidly and as I pull down the visor against the flash from the low-setting sun, my reflection looks alive, but it shouldn’t . . . I should have been the one who died.
I throw the keys into the bowl on the desk in the hall. The blue light from the TV is flashing silently through the crack from the lounge door. I take a deep breath and push it open. Ed is sitting in his chair; he looks like he’s been crying. I glance over to the small table where a bottle of whisky has been opened and an empty glass sits next to Ed.
‘Where have you been?’ He sniffs and wipes his eyes as he rises from the chair, striding over, holding my hands, searching my face. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I went for a drive. I needed to clear my head.’ I let go of his hands, walk over and refill the glass, taking a long sip, the heat burning my insides. I like the feeling but can’t help but grimace at the taste. I take another gulp regardless.
‘Where?’
‘Hmmm?’ I ask, lost in my own thoughts, the heavy feeling that I had felt when I approached the roundabout returning like lead in my stomach.
‘Where? Where did you go?’
‘Nowhere.’
‘Nowhere? Well next time your children ask where you are at bedtime, I’ll tell them that Mummy isn’t here because she had to go . . . nowhere.’
I drain the glass and refill it; Ed paces the room. ‘I just needed some space, I needed to get out of—’
‘What, Jen? You needed to get out of what? Out of here? Out of our home?’ He throws his hands up into the air, exasperated.
‘Yes. No. I—’
‘Or is it that you wanted to get away from me?’
‘No, of course not . . . Ed—’
He stands up and walks towards me, taking the glass and sliding it onto the dining table before taking my hands again and holding them. ‘Tell me what is going on.’
‘Nothing is—’
‘Don’t tell me that nothing is going on!’ he yells. I flinch. He takes a breath and repeats, with his voice level, ‘Don’t tell me nothing is going on. I deserve more credit than that.’
‘I can’t.’
How can I tell him what I now know? That I should be dead. That Kerry’s death was my fault.
‘I see.’ He drops my hands and leaves the room, hesitating with his hand on the door handle. ‘I’ll sleep in the spare room tonight. Give you some . . . space.’
I find myself nodding. Why am I nodding? I don’t want space from Ed, I need Ed. He makes me feel alive.
‘Ed, wait!’ I head out of the room and look up to where he has stopped on the stairs, his one hand holding on to the banister. ‘I need you, I don’t want you to sleep in the spare room, I—’
‘This marriage isn’t always about what you need, Jen. I think we both need a bit of space.’ He gives me a sad smile. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Night.’
He takes his hand off the banister as I stand and watch his retreating back.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper.
Kerry sits on the bottom stair and takes off her shoes.
‘Doesn’t love mean you shouldn’t have to say you’re sorry?’ she asks.
I don’t know why my subconscious is thinking about Love Story right now, when, right now, my life couldn’t be further away from one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ed
I bet everything looks OK to everyone else here. Look at me . . . my arms are swinging by my side, both hands clutching my children’s as we make our way to the park. I look like the dad that I always wanted to be. The dad that you think about when you find out that you’re going to have a kid. Jen was all about the tiny shoes and the soft blankets, but me? I wanted to be Park Dad, Kids-on-my-shoulders Dad, and I bet that is just what I look like. What I bet I don’t look like is Wife-is-having-a-nervous-breakdown Dad.
Oscar pulls his hand from my grip and runs towards the open gate. Hailey stops walking and looks up at me. ‘Where is Mummy?’ The question doesn’t bother me, the look in her eyes does.
‘She’s in bed, having a lie in.’
Obviously, I don’t tell my daughter that Jen barely sleeps during the night and that I often hear her mumbling to herself in the early hours of the mornings.
‘Will that make her better?’
I turn my back and close the gate behind us. She sucks the end of her plait as we sit down on the bench and Hailey repeats her question.
‘Will it?’
‘Mummy just misses Aunty Kerry very, very much.’ I pull her under my arm and kiss the top of her head, both of us laughing as Oscar hangs upside down from the monkey bars, his ribcage exposed from beneath his red T-shirt, his pale ribs swinging back and forth.
‘Is that why she keeps doing weird stuff?’
My breath catches in the back of my throat. I turn to face her and brush her hair out of her eyes. ‘Sometimes when we lose someone close to us, it can make us do silly things. Mummy just needs a bit of time to fix her broken heart.’
‘Will it fix mine?’
‘No, tickling fixes yours.’ I pull her towards me and begin tickling her under her armpits. Just as I knew she would, she squirms and laughs until no noise is coming out. ‘There . . . better?’
‘A bit.’ Hailey scrunches up her nose and pushes her glasses up. ‘What about when she is late to pick me up from school. What should I do then?’
‘Mummy is late picking you up from school?’
She begins sucking her plait again, avoiding my gaze and focusing on Oscar. ‘Sometimes.’
I reach out and wiggle her knee to get her attention back. ‘How often is sometimes?’
‘Not many, only once, maybe twice?’ She frowns and the purple frame of her glasses moves up with the action.
‘Maybe Mummy was stuck in traffic. That happens sometimes.’
She nods. ‘It hasn’t happened since Mrs Woodley talked to her after school.’
My mouth has gone dry. ‘Mrs Woodley spoke to Mummy about being late to pick you up?’
She nods. ‘Mrs Woodley and Mr Newton.’
‘Mr Newton . . . Oscar’s teacher?’
She nods again. ‘Don’t tell Mummy I told you, OK? I didn’t mean to break the promise.’
‘It’s not really breaking a promise if you tell your daddy, we’re a promise-free zone,’ I say, plastering a fake smile on my face. ‘Now, go and see if you can get Oscar to pull himself the right way up, he’s starting to look like a blueberry.’