Chapter Seven #3
The door creaks open behind us, and my dad enters the room, still in his work clothes, holding a cup of tea.
He places it on the bedside table and sits awkwardly on the bed next to young Belle, frame creaking under his weight.
The smell of cigarettes engulfs the room as we watch him pat her on the back.
She curls up next to him, head in his lap.
I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. Does everyone get this – some quiet audit of every person they’ve ever loved?
Does it happen when you cross the threshold of some big milestone, like a wedding, a moment when your life is about to change – and suddenly you’re there, watching yourself fall apart in your childhood bedroom?
And if so, why does nobody warn you or actually talk about it? Instead, it becomes something difficult you just don’t mention, like tax returns, or the fact that your metabolism suddenly stops working at thirty-five.
I force a look at Jake beside me and catch the way his mouth is twisted.
I say nothing, turn back to young Belle, both of us sobbing.
We stay like that for a long time, Dad and I.
My father doesn’t say anything, doesn’t try to fix it.
He just lets her cry into his lap while the room gets darker and the too-sweet tea on the bedside table goes cold.
The phone lights up on the bed beside her; Grandma Jules’s name flashes on the screen.
I understand now that my mum must have texted her after Jake left, getting Jules on the phone while Dad came up, drink in hand.
A cup of tea and talking to your gran will fix everything, they always said.
Young Belle looks to her dad, mascara now smudged into his shoulder, and he wipes away her tears, kisses her forehead, and hands her the phone.
She answers, voice rasping as he slips quietly from the room and leaves her to find comfort with Jules.
‘Gran, he … I can’t …’ Snot drips from her nose.
‘Right, love, slow down.’ The sound of her voice and the kettle boiling can be heard through the phone.
‘He just … We were … I told him.’ Belle wipes her nose on the bedsheet.
‘Take your time, hen, you’re all right.’
‘What if I’ve …’ Belle sits there, sobbing, clutching the phone to her ear.
‘He’ll be back, so he will.’ I can hear a teaspoon tinkling, stirring around a teacup, tapping one, two, three times.
It’s like watching a devastating movie, one whose ending you know, and it’s morbid, but you can’t look away – why is that?
Aristotle suggested that we learn from it – that it’s like a vaccination: a small dose of pity and fear here and there will build up your immunity, protecting you later.
I think there’s truth in that, as I watch young Belle look down at her phone.
Jake’s name is now flashing on the screen, waiting on the other line, trying to get through.
I watch Belle decline the call.
I notice, distantly, that I’m back to it, picking the skin around my nails. I can’t watch this part.
Because that was the call Jake made to me while his car sat overturned on the road. The last one he’d make before he died.
And I didn’t pick up.
I make myself look at him now. His eyes are on the phone, on his own name fading from the screen. I watch his jaw tighten. Then nothing. The silence in the room feels loud.
I know I’m not supposed to say that it’s my fault. I know the lines: you couldn’t have known, Belle; you didn’t cause it, Belle; it was an accident. But I still hear my phone ringing that evening. His name flashing up on the screen for the last time has been implanted in my brain.
I didn’t pick up. Didn’t get to say goodbye. And now he is here, next to me, somehow alive enough to touch. Close enough that I could reach out for his hand and say …
What exactly would I say? Would it do any good to say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t answer. I’m sorry I confronted you and we argued and then you died on the drive home, and I spent two years barely functioning and another seven rebuilding myself, thinking I was fine.’
I’d rehearsed that conversation so many times.
In the shower, on the train, at 2 a.m. when I couldn’t sleep.
And in my head, it was perfect. I was graceful.
He was kind, he didn’t laugh. We both cried, and then it was done, and I felt better.
Now I watch as his eyes darken, while young Belle sets the phone down on the duvet.
‘Jake …’ My voice comes out raspy, sore.
‘I know,’ he says.
He’s blinking more than usual, the insides of his cheeks clenched between his teeth. I want to delve into his brain and know what he’s thinking.
He opens his mouth again. ‘You couldn’t have known.’
The guilt doesn’t go. I’ve been carrying it for so long, it’s become a permanent part of my being – something so ingrained in me, it’s like an extra rib.
The years of work, this hatred for myself, the ‘if-onlys’ and the ‘what-ifs’, and all I wanted was for him to know how much it ate me up – and now he’s here, next to me, and I got my wish, and he gets it and my body is shuddering and my heart is breaking.
‘I can’t be here anymore.’ The words escape from my throat like a howl. ‘We need to go back.’
Silently, he reaches out and takes both of my hands.