Chapter Fourteen #2
Holly looked deflated, hollowed out and in pain.
Her skin grey, her darting eyes swollen and red.
Jenny seemed to have lost weight in the days since Enya had last seen her.
Two bruises of fatigue sat beneath her eyes, and with her hands clasped in front of her, she looked like a stranger.
There was nothing in her demeanour to suggest this was the same woman with whom she shared snacks at three in the morning, or who had suggested they dance in the kitchen full of plonk and pudding.
But at least they were here, and that had to be a start.
‘Oh! Come in! Come in!’ She stood back to let the subdued twosome pass, simultaneously glad of her sister’s presence while wishing she were not here, knowing her tendency to be blunt.
‘Thanks.’ Jenny gave her a small, closed-mouth smile that didn’t reach her eyes; it was like a knife to Enya’s chest and about as painful.
‘Angela and I are in the kitchen.’
No sooner had Holly set foot inside the door than she started to cry.
It was awful to see. She cried with her whole body.
Shoulders heaving, posture cowed, head low, hands at her mouth, eyes raw and her mouth open, as she let silent howls of distress spiral from the purest kind of despair deep inside her and leave her body like smoke.
‘Holly . . .’
Enya took her into her arms and held her close to her chest, as the girl fell against her, weakened, and altered. Gone was her effervescence, her irritating and unrelenting upbeat energy, her verve!
‘The doctor has given her something to calm her down.’ Jenny spoke with the quiet anguish of a mother whose child was hurting.
‘Is he... is...’ Holly began, her voice no more than a rough whisper, as if her distress had stripped her throat of its velvet and its volume.
‘He’s not here. He’s at work. Come and sit down, love.’
Holly allowed herself to be guided to the table, where she stumbled before taking a seat opposite Angela, who, aside from reaching out to rub the girl’s arm, thankfully stayed silent. Jenny too sat.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No, thanks.’ Jenny’s speech was controlled, exact, with an undercurrent that left Enya in no doubt that things between them were broken, entirely broken. ‘Holly wanted to come and see you.’
Jenny’s words indicated that she would rather have not. This realisation was enough to flood Enya’s veins with sorrow. She just about managed a life without Jonathan, but a life without Jenny too? She felt the rise of tears in her throat and the beginnings of panic.
‘I’m so glad.’ She meant it, having had no reply to the texts she had sent her, sending love and hoping she was doing okay... Enya had feared the longer it went on, the harder it would be to face each other. Not that this encounter was easy, none of this was easy.
‘It just doesn’t feel real.’ Holly spoke again with that scratchy, barely audible voice. ‘I don’t want to see him. Well, sometimes I do, but I don’t think I’m able to. But is he okay?’
Enya pictured her son jumping up and down on the spot at the prospect of Iris’s arrival, how quickly his heart had moved on, forgotten. It angered and hurt her in equal measure.
‘He’s okay.’
‘Good.’ Holly took a deep breath. ‘Good. I know we need to sort things out, like the flat and stuff, but could you ask him if we can do that in a couple of days, just give me a little bit of time to get my head straight.’ Holly looked up to fully reveal her eyes, which were a little vacant and small, like someone had come along and erased her sparkle.
‘Did I do something wrong, do you think?’ Her question and the pitiful hum of sadness behind it was as moving as it was misplaced.
Jenny tutted, her jaw tense, as she exchanged a look with Angela.
‘You did nothing wrong, Holly. You’re wonderful.’ Enya meant it, feeling a flash of disloyalty as rage sparked, remembering it was Aiden who had thrown the rock, caused the ripples.
‘I’ve told her she won’t always feel this way,’ Jenny placated, looking only at Angela, as if it were easier to address her than Enya, the mother of the boy who had caused this.
Enya wondered what Jenny would like to do to Aiden if her resentment towards Blake Dunlop, who had merely kicked an art project decades ago, was anything to go by.
‘It’s true.’ She hoped her confirmation might help drive the message home.
‘It’s, it’s not only that I lose Aiden,’ Holly paused, ‘but I lose you, this house, Pickle, I lose a decade of my life, and the way coming home to this street feels. I lose bits of my childhood and I lose the life I’ve built around us. I lose the future that I imagined.’
‘That’s not true. You don’t lose me or Pickle, or this house.
’ Enya smiled at the girl, knowing this was a lie and that Holly Hudson did indeed lose all of these things.
She also knew that her own loss was not dissimilar, Jenny’s friendship something she prized highly, and their business venture, which had kept her upbeat, filling the void of her upcoming retirement, and yet now unlikely to happen.
She took a deep breath, trying to stave off the panic that threatened.
‘I think we all remember having our heart broken,’ Angela piped up. ‘It feels like the end of the world because it’s supposed to.’
Enya stared at her sister, silently pleading for her to go gently.
‘It’s supposed to because the strongest things are forged in fire, Holly. You get burned but you emerge from the ashes stronger than you ever thought possible. Like a phoenix rising from the flames. That will happen to you, even if you don’t believe it right now.’
‘I . . . I don’t,’ Holly hiccupped.
Angela spoke with conviction. ‘But you will. And when you do, you will not only have found strength, but power too. A woman who has gone through this is metamorphosed and the version of her who comes after takes no shit. She knows herself and she will never be beholden to anyone, she will never again put responsibility for her own happiness in the pocket of another. She is self-reliant and knowing, and in time you will thank him for the chance to change.’
Enya and Jenny stared at Angela, both more than a little taken aback by her wisdom. There was truth in it, yet Enya dared not admit she was still waiting to rise from the ashes, still bound in marriage to a man who had died, trying to find the wings that would give her the courage to take flight.
‘Thank you, Angela.’ Holly did her best to smile. ‘Maybe I will have a cup of tea, Enya, if that’s okay?’
‘Of course it is!’
Enya jumped up, happy to have to fill the kettle, a diversion that she knew could buy her at least three minutes.