Chapter Fifteen #2
I laugh. “In an unconventional way. Pretty questionable dress sense at times, but luckily he toned it down for the office.” I smile as I remember Freddie’s novelty shirts, the ones he wore at the weekends. I liked that he didn’t seem to care how he came across to others.
Jack looks down at his own outfit. The slightly creased white shirt, open at the collar. The suit trousers. “I’m afraid I’m a bit more traditional than all that.”
Do I detect a hint of regret?
“I like traditional,” I say quickly, and he seems pleased.
“Anything you don’t miss?” he asks.
It’s an odd question. I think of the argument Freddie and I had just before he died. The accusations that we flung at each other. Accusations we’ve never been able to take back.
Usually, people only focus on the positives of the one they’ve lost, like all the bad was wiped away the moment their heart stopped beating.
But we’re all multifaceted. There’s darkness in everyone.
And I like that Jack seems to understand this.
I wonder if the question comes from a place of jealousy.
Not necessarily a bad thing. A bit of healthy competition never hurt anyone.
“I don’t miss fighting with him. We had an argument just before he died. I regret that I didn’t get the chance to say sorry,” I say quietly.
Jack nods slowly. “It’s natural to feel like that, Iris. But fighting is a normal part of any relationship. You couldn’t know what was going to happen. Fights are healthy.”
This is all becoming horribly morose and I don’t like to think of that time if I can help it. I straighten my spine, reestablish eye contact. “And what about you and Alice? What do you miss? Or what don’t you miss?”
He’s quiet for a moment before he says, “I miss so much. Having someone there all the time. Someone to come home to. Her cooking. As for what I don’t miss…” A long pause. “Nothing. She was as close to perfect as I think I’m going to get.”
It’s trite, overly sweet, utterly unrealistic.
No person is that perfect. Not even Freddie.
I can’t believe Jack’s been crass enough to mention it in front of me.
Me. The person he thinks is special, but apparently not perfect.
I remove my hand from the table and curl it into a tight fist. I need to get a hold of myself, keep him talking.
“How did you meet?” The question has a gritty edge to it, but Jack doesn’t seem to notice. He smiles to himself—at some memory, no doubt. Recalling the moment he met his perfect wife.
“At a mutual friend’s party. It’s a cliché, but I literally couldn’t take my eyes off her.
I worked up the courage all evening to go and speak to her.
Drank way too much beforehand, which was par for the course for me back then.
We had this instant connection, you know?
We spent the rest of the night together.
I was a bit worried I was coming on too strong—I tend to become a bit consumed by relationships—but she didn’t seem to mind. She was—she became—everything to me.”
My nails are now digging into my palm so hard I’m sure I’m going to break the skin. But still, he plows on.
“We spent every day together after that. It was one of those whirlwinds where we just couldn’t get enough of each other.
She really helped me get it together. I was heading down a bad path, which is what happens when you get shipped off to boarding school aged eight.
Your peers are your parents. And when your peers are experimenting…
it normalizes a lot of behavior that’s just not acceptable.
I’m pretty sure most of the teachers knew about it and turned a blind eye.
” He takes a breath. “But yeah. Alice was like a guardian angel, I suppose. She helped me turn everything around. Helped me get sober. She saw me at my worst and loved me anyway.”
Call me naive, but I hadn’t given much thought to the dead wife up until now. If anything, I was grateful to her for dying when she did, bringing me and Jack together at the group. Letting some light back into my life. But now? Envy blooms in the pit of my stomach.
“Well, she sounds like quite the saint.” I’m not sure where it comes from, but it leaves my mouth with searing venom. Usually, my armor is pristine, but this small crevice of darkness causes Jack’s face to drop, then harden.
“I just mean”—I huff a laugh, but it sounds strained—“that she sounds like a really lovely person.” I can’t get the tone right. It sounds too high.
Jack’s eyes have narrowed. I scramble for something to say, but my words sit heavy between us. The mood sours so suddenly, I don’t have another chance to pull him back in.
It is a singularly British thing to struggle through something that no longer holds value, and that is exactly what Jack and I do.
Conversation is painful. I try my best to generate more and more and more questions, but they feel forced.
He doesn’t ignore me. It’s worse than that.
He gives short, sharp answers that leave the silence blooming once more.
When the waiter asks if we want pudding, he says no quickly and reaches for his wallet.
I’ve lost control of the situation. It doesn’t happen very often, and I’m not quite sure how to deal with it.
How to claw this back. And so I do something reckless.
I lean forward and grasp for Jack’s hand with the sort of thoughtless desperation Marcie would have laughed at.
It doesn’t work. He jerks his hand away, looking at me with so much disdain I shrink back into my chair.
“I think you’ve misread this, Iris.” There’s none of the playful, flirtatious tone now. “I’m just not in the right place at the moment. I’ll see you later.”
He stands, shrugs into his jacket, and without a single glance back, leaves me sitting by myself at the table.