He leans back and takes a sip of his coffee.
‘And then I started having these memories of her and they were so vivid that her loss started to feel a little less painful.’ I lean forward and put the cup on the desk. ‘I’d read this article about healthy grieving and it said that you shouldn’t be scared to let yourself remember the good times, so that’s what I did. Every time I saw her, it felt like I was getting a bit better, that I was getting on with life. And seeing her makes me . . .’
Kerry grins over at me from where she is straightening a landscape picture that is slightly wonky.
‘Happy?’ he questions. Tears prickle behind my eyelids as I admit to this stranger what I haven’t been able to admit to my husband. Seeing Kerry makes me happy, even though seeing her is tearing my life apart.
‘Yes.’ The word comes out in a whisper.
‘Your sister died in a car crash, yes?’
‘Yes.’ I clear my throat. ‘I mean no . . . she was hit by a car, but we, we were crossing the road. On a zebra crossing. She pushed me out of the way.’ I look over to where Kerry has her back turned and is looking out of the window. ‘I can’t get the image out of my head. Sometimes it’s the first thing I see when I wake up.’ I close my eyes as I describe it to him. ‘Her body flying backwards, her arms and feet in front of her as though she was trying to touch her toes, her blue eyes staring straight ahead, the clothes she was wearing.’ I open my eyes and meet his. ‘A red coat, red boots and the sound of the brakes screaming.’ I wipe away a tear that is rolling down my cheek.
‘You know, Jennifer, we have a long road ahead of us. It may be that the tablets aren’t the right ones for you, it may be that they take away your hallucinations but replace them with other symptoms. It may be that they don’t work at all. We don’t have a diagnosis for you yet, it’s very early days. But I can tell you that grief is an incredibly powerful emotion, it can affect your mental health in many ways. You’ve suffered some of these already, sleep deprivation for instance, which then interferes with your ability to think clearly, it can hamper how you make decisions, so problem-solving can become difficult.’
I nod as he reels off these things like a shopping list.
‘Have you ever heard of complicated grief?’
‘Isn’t all grief complicated?’ I ask with a sad smile.
He nods. ‘It is, but for some, complicated grief can be like clinical depression, it even resembles post-traumatic stress disorder, even though it is neither of these things. Jennifer, it is clear that you are grieving deeply for your sister, for Kerry, but what you are also dealing with is guilt . . . and guilt can be just as hard to eradicate as ghosts.’
‘So, what’s it like being away from home for so long?’
I reach down to the side of the sun lounger and reach for the sun hat Nessa is passing me – a huge floppy white one, more suited to Audrey Hepburn than me. ‘It’s . . . quiet. I’m reading a book for the first time in ages.’
She straightens the scarlet cups of her bikini, unravels the hosepipe and begins filling the paddling pool in preparation for the kids’ arrival. It’s large, half-way between a hot tub and a small swimming pool, and sits in a neat square of lawn. The yellow nozzle coughs and splutters before a surge of water spews from its mouth and pounds against the turquoise plastic of the pool. ‘And Ed? How’s Ed doing?’
‘Fine. I think.’
Nessa steps into the pool.
‘I don’t know really. I mean, I get the feeling if things were bad, he wouldn’t tell me anyway.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s like our conversations are . . . censored? Like I’m trying to protect him and he’s trying to protect me so neither of us are really having a conversation at all. It’s different because now, when we see each other, we always have the kids . . . we’re never really alone any more.’
‘And Kerry?’
Kerry is red in the face as she blows up the inflatable Lilo that we took on holiday to Lanzarote.
‘Kerry is about to pass out.’ I laugh and look in her direction towards the fence where ivy weaves between the wooden slats and honeysuckle leans over from next door. Nessa follows my gaze. ‘She’s blowing up the pink Lilo that we took on holiday,’ I say, explaining.
‘When’s your brain scan?’
I blink.
Kerry has gone.
‘Next week.’
‘Have you started taking the tablets yet?’
I nod. ‘They make me feel sick.’
‘Well, there’s bound to be some side effects.’
I don’t tell her that every time I take one, they make Kerry sick too.
When we were kids, Kerry would suffer from tonsillitis; every November it would take hold of her. Her temperature would rocket; her skin would be glistening with sweat as her whole body shook. She would get delirious, the world around her becoming distorted and fictional.
A few days after I began to take the tablets, I woke in my old bed in my parents’ house with my dead sister lying next to me. Her skin grey and pallid, her body shaking; she actually looked dead.
‘Yes,’ I reply, ‘I suppose there are always going to be side effects.’ Killing my sister, for the second time, being one. If someone was to ask you the question of whether you could kill your sibling to stay married, to live with your own children, could you do it?
I peer over the top of my sunglasses at Nessa, who is going red across the tops of her shoulders, and offer to put some sun cream on her back. She positions the hose so it stays dropping over the edge of the pool and sits on the lounger next to me. I squirt the lotion directly onto her back.
‘That’s fucking freezing!’ she yelps. ‘Your sister was much more forgiving, she always warmed it in her hands first.’
‘Are you scared that you’ll forget the small things like that?’ I ask as my hands rub small circles of lotion onto her shoulder blades.
Nessa pulls her hair across the nape of her neck out of the way of my hands. ‘Sometimes . . . but I’m trying not to.’
‘I keep remembering things that I haven’t thought about for years, like when we were little, she would make little cardboard houses for insects. She’d spend hours decorating them. Dad would get her ripped-off pieces of wallpaper when he went to the DIY shop. Ages she would spend, creating these homes for them.’
‘Maybe we could do that with the kids?’
‘She would have liked that.’ I flick the lid shut on the bottle as Nessa lies on the sunbed, tummy down, and undoes her strap. ‘Maybe I should do more things like that – things that Kerry would have liked – instead of thinking about all the things she can’t.’
An alarm plays on my phone, reminding me that I need to take another pill. Kerry drops the Lilo and sits next to Nessa’s feet. She watches as I reach into my bag and toss the bottle between my hands. Her chin lifts in defiance: go on then, I know you have to. Her gestures mimic the time Mum caught her sneaking back into the house at half-one in the morning.
‘Did you know about this?’ Mum had asked me: hands on hips, no-messing-about expression. I’d shaken my head: not me, I know nothing.