‘I’ll tell the kids that you’re going on holiday with your parents. I’ll tell them they can’t go because you have to help with Grandpa’s back and I have to work. They’ll understand.’
I want to reply but my mouth remains closed.
‘I’ll come and visit you every day, I’ll take you to the doctor’s, I’ll help you. You’re not going to do this alone.’
My hand twitches and reaches for the open packet of tissues on the sofa. And I begin wiping away his tears. I’m not sure he knows that they are running along the curve of his cheeks, that they are glistening on his lips. The room is silent; we stare at each other, trying to wipe away the layer of guilt that is covering us.
‘Are we really going to do this, Ed?’ I ask. I can see how much this is hurting him; his words are trying to be controlled but instead they come out in a rush.
‘We-don’t-have-a-choice.’
I glance up at Kerry, who mouths the words, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat.
Ed opens his mouth as if he’s about to speak but instead pulls me into his chest, where I can feel him shuddering with the sobs he’s trying not to let me hear.
I don’t know how long we’ve been walking but Kerry and I are sitting on top of Hayworth Hill.
‘You have to do it, Jen,’ Kerry says again, but no matter how many times she says it, I still don’t know how I can. ‘You have to let me go.’
‘I don’t think I’m strong enough,’ I reply.
‘You’re stronger than you think.’
‘Really? Do I need to remind you of the state of my life right now? Losing you once has cost my family, my sanity . . . my life.’
‘You still have a life; you know you do. You have to let me go. Think about that day, the last day you were happy. You think you can’t be that happy again because I won’t be there? Right?’
I nod.
‘But imagine that day without them, Jen. They’re here, they’re alive, they need you . . . they need you more than I ever have.’
I close my eyes: the volcano erupts; Hailey and Ed look at me. A sob catches in my chest.
‘Will you help me? I can’t do it on my own.’
‘Yes, you can. It’s going to be tough at first, Jen . . . but you can do it. I know you can. Get stronger tablets in case Dr Popescu is wrong and this isn’t just complicated grief.’
‘But they make you so ill.’
‘I can take it. You can do this, Jen,’ she repeats. ‘You have to do this.’
‘I know.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
Jennifer
I pull the duvet over my shivering shoulders; the tears won’t stop today. I can’t stop them. I’ve lost count of the days I’ve been here, since I’ve seen my children. I remember Mum mentioning it was August . . . August used to be my favourite time of year, when I had the kids all to myself. My face hurts, my skin is dry and itchy and my mouth tastes stale.
‘Try and take a sip.’ Mum is sitting on my bed, holding a straw that has pierced the cardboard carton of the strawberry-flavoured protein shake.
I shake my head angrily.
‘Jennifer, take a drink or I’ll fetch your father.’
‘Come on, Jen. I will if you will.’ Kerry looks as bad as I feel as she holds her nose and slurps through the straw, a pinched and soured expression on her face, like the time I made her taste peanut butter.
Kerry stretches and puts the carton onto the bedside cabinet. She rolls onto her side, tucks her knees up, pushes her palms together and rests her cheek against them: the same foetal position that she was in at the beginning of her life, as she heads towards the end of it.
I swallow a few sips of the milkshake to please Mum, even though my stomach cramps. I close my eyes and think back to the volcano, to my trip to the doctor’s, where I’d told her that the tablets weren’t strong enough.
‘Mrs Jones, this isn’t an exact science, we don’t even know what we’re treating you for yet.’
‘I want stronger tablets. I would like my sister to leave. No offence.’ I flicked a glance towards Kerry: her fingers were re-plaiting her hair, holding her bobble between her straight teeth.
‘None taken.’
How long ago was that? My eyelids close, Mum leaves, Kerry snores and as I slip into sleep, I see my fingers picking up the capsules, one by one. I see my body shaped in glass, a working sculpture: my heart beating, my lungs expanding, the blood rushing through my veins, through the transparent shell. I watch the fragile glass, fingers reaching for the pills and swallowing them one by one, filling up the inside of the sculpture like a jar: a blue pill, a red one, two white ones, a yellow and black one, a green one. Pill after pill after pill, until there is no room inside the glass for the lungs, and all that is left is a glass body filled with colour.
‘Hey, beautiful.’
I open my eyes to see Ed’s face peering around the corner of the door.
He closes it quietly behind him. ‘Good or bad?’
‘Bad.’ My voice is a crack, a void, sucking out the daylight.
His shoulders drop a little but a smile forms on his face. ‘How are the kids?’
‘Good. Oscar has just got his five-metre badge.’
‘He’s grown five metres?’
‘No, he, um, he swam. Five metres.’
‘I know, Ed, it was a joke.’ I shuffle myself up the bed. ‘Let me take a shower and then shall we order a takeaway?’ I’m amazed that my voice has the energy to stretch into a higher octave, making it sound like I can’t wait to force some food down my gullet.
‘Nah. I’ve already eaten, and I’m knackered, Jen. Why don’t we stay in here, eh? I’ll go and get us a cup of tea and the biscuit tin . . . What do you fancy watching?’
Kerry is coughing again, a dry hacking that she can’t get rid of. I’d suggest Ed runs to the shop and gets some cough medicine for her, but I don’t think it would work, what with her being dead and all. I’m struggling to hear what he is talking about.
‘Sounds good.’
He kisses the top of my head and leaves the room. As I move myself again, I get a waft of body odour.
‘I love the smell of palm oil in the morning.’ I roll my eyes at her. Her film quotes are getting more and more predictable and less and less precise. It takes all of my concentration to coordinate my limbs in order to get myself into the shower.
Kerry coughs again. ‘I’d offer to help you but . . .’ She mimics a throat-slitting action.
I pull myself from the bed. The floor feels bouncy; the room feels like it is tipped onto its side, a rocket ready to launch inside a child’s hand. I reach for the glass of water beside the bed and chuck the water into my face. But it feels warm and doesn’t have the desired effect. Kerry laugh-coughs. I order my feet to shuffle me to the bathroom; I step onto the landing, past the stairwell which looms to my left like an orange lozenge sliding downstairs. I can hear my parents’ voices, hurried and urgent, and Ed’s voice, deep and calming, a never-ending battle like the tides of a sea, pulling and pushing, pulling and pushing. The sea has been doing this since the dawn of time . . . When will it learn that the argument will never be solved?