Hailey’s room is filled with the fading pink light of the sunset coming through her pink curtains. She is lying on her side, a book clutched between her hands, a glittering fairy smiling from the cover.
‘What-ya reading?’ I ask, the bed sinking beneath my weight.
‘The purple fairy . . . she is late for ballet class and the wind has blown her tutu out of her fairy house.’
I try not to shake my head. Why can’t the bloody fairy be a doctor or an astrophysicist? I smooth her blanket with the palm of my hand. ‘I hope she finds her tutu.’
‘She will. Books never have a sad ending.’
I open my mouth, about to correct her, but I close it again, letting her believe that all books have a happy ending . . . she’ll find out soon enough that they don’t.
Chapter Forty-Five
Jennifer
It’s so nice to feel normal. I’ve ignored Kerry all day, well, most of the day. The kids have been good, the house is clean, and I’ve managed not to burn the dinner. I close the oven door and put the oven glove back into the drawer, noting as I do that I’m almost out of clean tea towels. I’ll put a wash on in the morning.
I can hear Ed and Hailey talking as I make my way upstairs; soft voices meet me as I rest my hand against Hailey’s bedroom door.
‘Listen Hales . . . about Mummy.’
My hand stays against the door, my feet stay still, and I hold my breath in my lungs.
‘She was weird, Daddy, AND she swored. She swored a really bad word. Even worse than—’
I lean my ear against the door but miss the end of the sentence.
I swore? When was that?
‘You told me to fuck off.’ Kerry is sitting at the top of the stairs, licking cheesecake filling from the back of a wooden spoon.
A feeling of unease is climbing up my spine.
‘I know, sweetheart.’ Ed’s voice comes from behind the door. ‘But I’m going to help Mummy, I’m going to help Mummy get better. I promise.’
‘Pinky promise?’ Hailey asks.
‘Pinky promise. I hope she finds her tutu.’
The noise of the bed creaking warns me that Ed is finished and so I hurry back downstairs as quietly as I can, my heart beating hard inside my chest. I reach for the bottle of red wine and fill our glasses, draining half of mine as I hear the click of the bathroom door above me; I refill it.
‘It’s almost ready,’ I announce as Ed walks into the room. I keep my back turned, afraid to see the look of worry that I know is going to be on his face, wanting, instead, to carry on as we were. My hands grip onto the handles of a pair of wooden utensils.
Ed’s hands find mine, stilling my salad-tossing. He rests his chin over my shoulder; his warm arm is around my waist. With his other hand, he pushes the salad bowl away and places his phone in its place, his finger tapping on the videos. I hold my breath as I watch the film: Hailey smashing the biscuits, my back turning away. Bile rises in my throat as I see myself talking to Kerry, my mouth working. I’m not watching an old memory, not imagining my sister . . . I’m talking to her. Hailey’s face drains of colour as she watches me, her mother gesturing with her hands, mouth opening with a silent conversation, and then the speaker blaring out the words ‘Just fuck off!’ as my daughter’s body visibly jumps. The phone screen tips and stops at this point where Ed must have intervened, taken Hailey in his arms while I prattle on about an ice pack.
The timer beeper from the cooker interrupts the sounds of me breathing. Beep-b-b-b-beep. Beep-b-b-b-beep. Ed leans towards the cooker and stretches his arm, turning it off. The warmth of his arm returns to my waist; his chin is propped back onto my shoulder. He doesn’t say a thing: he doesn’t need to. The beat of Ed’s heart is penetrating between the soft fabric of my blouse, through my shoulder blades, hammering against my own. He begins to explain how I keep looking off into the distance, how he’s heard my voice in the garden when there is nobody there.
‘I keep seeing her . . . Kerry. I thought I was just replaying memories, but now . . .’
I begin to flit through the past few months: Kerry sitting at the top of the stairs, licking cheesecake off the spoon; the day inside the café when I ran into Nessa, how she had told me Nessa couldn’t resist a cookie; her worried face beckoning me back from the ledge at Lovers’ Leap . . . those events never happened. I turn to look at her.
‘Surprise,’ she says, blowing me a kiss, a sad apologetic expression on her face. I let my eyes meet hers, acknowledging what, deep down, I have known all along but haven’t wanted to admit to. I haven’t been replaying memories; I’ve been hallucinating my dead sister for months.
‘She’s standing right next to us.’
‘Boo!’ she says in Ed’s ear.
I laugh quietly. ‘I’m not crazy, I know she’s not really here, but the images keep coming. I’ve tried to ignore them, her, but—’
‘I can’t imagine anyone being able to ignore Kerry.’ His chin digs into my shoulder as he talks. ‘Do you think she’s a . . .’ he clears his throat, ‘a ghost?’
‘No.’ I want to explain to him how I know, how I have known for months that I’m not well, that something is wrong with me.
‘So. What are we going to do about her?’
‘Ask her to leave?’ I say, licking a salty tear from my lips with the corner of my tongue.
‘It’s a start.’
‘Do you think I’m going mad?’ The word ‘mad’ comes out in a hiccup.
‘I think you need help.’ I reach for the phone and replay the video, first focusing on my actions but that’s not what I’m bothered about, well, not all I’m bothered about. I’m terrified of what I’m doing to my child. To my family.
‘I need more than help, Ed.’
‘I can help you.’ He holds my hands in front of him, pulling them to his mouth, kissing my knuckles and talking into them. ‘We can fix this.’
I pull my hands free and try to sort through my thoughts, try to find the words to explain to him what it is that I need to do.
‘I need to leave,’ I say.
‘You don’t need to leave, Jen. I can fix this,’ he repeats.
‘No, Ed. No you can’t. I’ll go and stay at Mum and Dad’s.’ I turn and begin to leave the room.
‘Jen . . .’
I hesitate, then face him.
Kerry slips her hand into his and leans her head against Ed’s shoulder.
‘Do you know that right now, I can see my dead sister holding your hand, that she is leaning her head against your shoulder?’
Ed glances down to where his hands are hanging by his sides.
‘That it’s taking everything in me not to look at her face? You saw how scared Hailey was, Ed. I can’t do this to our children, to you.’
‘But leaving won’t make it better, Jen.’ He says the words, but I can tell he knows I’m right.
‘No, but I need to protect them until I am. Thank you . . . for showing me the video.’
‘What will we tell the kids?’ His voice is hoarse, the words strangled.
‘We’ll tell them Dad is ill or something. I’ll go and get my things.’