Chapter 63 Amy
This feels surreal seeing him grapple with this stuff. My heart breaks for him. It’s so unfamiliar, and it’s not just that he’s telling me through tears, or even saying it in my body; it’s the raw emotion I never get from him. I want to bundle him into my arms, which I can right now because they can easily fit around him. His admission that he made up memories about his dad almost broke me.
Whenever I’d talked about Dad, I’d insisted on him sharing something. He always paused but then offered up a brief anecdote: a happy memory. A Ferris wheel where he dropped his toffee apple, a ruffle of his hair after a rugby match, a roast dinner when he dropped the turkey. I see now these were all fabricated, rosy glimpses of a man he had made up to fill the gaps in his memory. It explains his reticence to introduce me to his mum, the sure knowledge I’d discover it all. I know what grief feels like but at least I can remember my dad, have a treasure trove of gorgeous memories.
It’s obvious as he shares this stuff that he’s also admitting these feelings to himself for the first time and that brings a lump to my own throat.
I understand why he lied. I really understand it. I can see from the pain etched on his features how much it’s costing him to relive that day, admit these things about himself. I can hear it in the way his words are catching, see it in the way he is hunched over, fiddling with his saucer, the table leg, his hands, pushing them together in a prayer.
I hardly trust myself to speak. I’d assumed this was the end, that whatever I learnt would send me running from him. Now I’m a jumble of emotions. The primary one is shame. How come I missed all of this? How did I make everything about me? Laura is right, I am selfish.
It’s a beautiful morning. The misty lake, early workers humming around the pier as they set up the chairs and flower arch where Laura and Jay will marry. It’s the day that Laura had dreamed of for her wedding, warm already and the sun is barely up, a light breeze ruffling the long grass and wild flowers along the fringes of the lawn.
I was going to leave. I was going to get in the car and head back to Bristol and miss all of it. But as I look down at the scene, across at Flynn, broken in the chair next to me, I know I can’t do it. Today is bigger than anything else, and Flynn needs me. I feel closer to him than I ever have done.
A knock on our bedroom door stops me telling him that, and I get up and make my way back into our bedroom, sunshine forming golden stripes on the carpet and walls.
Laura stands in the doorway, a grey jumper over her pyjamas, the hotel slippers on her perfectly manicured feet.
‘Laurs!’ I can’t help the wide smile that splits my face open.
She pauses a beat, tips her head back slightly, searching my face.
‘Come in, come in,’ I say, gesturing her inside.
She follows slowly and I call out, ‘Flynn, Flynn, look who’s here.’
The scrape of a chair and Flynn is in the room, discreetly wiping his face.
‘Sorry, he’s just a bit emotional,’ I laugh, because this is funny and ridiculous and, ‘Oh god, you are here because you believe us, aren’t you? Or the wedding is off. God, please be the former, please,’ I gabble. Mildly hysterical, all the emotions of the last twenty-four hours, the reveals, the relief, the exhaustion tip me into this crazed mood. ‘It’s like the most gurt lush day to get married.’
Laura’s eyes are round as she stares. ‘Is it really, really true?’
She moves closer, not breaking eye contact, reaching both hands up and cupping my cheeks so they squidge together, my mouth a pout, searching my face. ‘Amy, are you really in there?’
The unbelievable relief of being believed makes my whole body relax. I can’t talk because she is still pressing my cheeks together so I just nod furiously.
‘It’s true, Laura,’ Flynn says, stepping forward, red-eyed in my pink jumper. ‘We have no idea how, but it happened on the way here …’
Laura releases my face and then steps across the room, circling Flynn like she’s inspecting an animal in a zoo. ‘So, you are actually each other. For real? I kept thinking about this weekend, all the things that didn’t make sense, how weird you’ve been. It’s real?’
‘Real,’ I confirm.
‘OK, tell me something only Amy would know,’ Laura says. ‘Please,’ she says, staring at me.
I look at Flynn, almost expecting him to speak, but I can see him watching me, knowing I need to do this. That he needs to let me. And I’m so grateful to him.
I pause, not wanting to screw this up again.
Shutting my eyes, I think back; I push past the pain of that last night and think about the weekend before he died. Laura, Mum, me and him all overlapping conversations, screeching, teasing, laughing. The four of us had always been enough.
‘That last weekend with Dad,’ I say quietly, ‘we had no clue we’d never have another weekend like that. We wanted to go out drinking, but Dad forced us to sit in front of the TV and watch an old episode of The Chase. Neither of us wanted to but he insisted, so we huffed a bit and then we gave in, because we always did with Dad. And he paused it on one of the answers—’
‘Bristol Rovers,’ Laura whispers.
I nod, my throat closing. ‘Bristol Rovers! He was so pleased. He turned and beamed at us.’
Laur’s own face wobbles as I continue.
‘He said, “Rovers! My loves!” and then the moment was over, and we kissed him goodbye, and we went out for our drink. And that was the last time we kissed him goodbye. And the last time he told us he loved us.’
I don’t need to ask if she believes me now. I feel her arms around me, feel her own body heave. I cling to her, like I had that day, and feel Dad in the room with us. ‘He loved us so bloody much,’ I sniff into her hair. ‘So bloody much.’
‘I know,’ she mumbles into my chest.
Laura pulls back, a few seconds before she can speak. ‘I can’t believe this,’ she says, touching my face tentatively. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘I know.’
‘Now,’ she says, briskly wiping her face, the efficient City ball-breaker in full force, ‘what the hell are we going to do about it?’
‘But … is there going to be a wedding?’ I ask tentatively.
Laura frowns at the question. ‘What on earth makes you think there wouldn’t be?’
‘What Flynn told you, about me and Jay.’
Laura purses her lips together, almost looking like she is suppressing a smile. But surely not when what I am mentioning is deadly serious.
‘You mean about the night he first met you?’
I nod miserably.
‘You mean how he hit on you at the bar?’
I nod again, wanting to weep. So maybe there won’t be a wedding.
‘You mean how he hit on you but then met your much fitter and cooler older sister and fell completely head over heels in love with her and proposed to her a year later?’
I peek up tentatively.
‘Amy, he told me ages ago – we do, you know, talk. I didn’t know him that night. And you’re hot!’
‘But—’
‘I just wanted to talk to him before we went down the aisle. Not everything’s all about you, Amy Norman.’
‘I’m starting to realize that,’ I say, as she pulls me close and laughs into my chest.
I’m so relieved and so happy I haven’t harmed anything, I tear up all over again as I squeeze her close.
Her muffled voice emerges, ‘Don’t get a boner, OK?’