Chapter Fifteen #2
Lissa nods as they turn to go, Rosy gripping the bear tightly. She tries very hard not to succumb to tears as she heads back into the shop.
There’s a message from Ash waiting for her on her phone.
Meet me for a drink next week?
And because she’s feeling sad, and vulnerable, she types her answer without thinking, because it’s honest, because she wants to know.
Why?
The three dots indicating that he’s typing start and stop a few times. She wonders if he’ll send another GIF, make it into a joke. She wonders if it’s made him question that very fact himself – why, exactly, they are still talking to one another.
Then, finally, the message comes through.
Because I want to see you.
The gravel path crunches under Lissa’s boots as she makes her way from the car park into the graveyard.
Ivy creeps up one side of the church building, and there’s a nod to the end of the season in the form of a Christmas tree outside, modestly decorated with white fairy lights.
She passes crumbling gravestones commemorating people who have long since been forgotten, and moves onto the grass, feeling its dampness seep through the toes of her boots.
It’s been years since she’s been here, but she could never forget the exact route to her sister’s grave.
She stopped coming because it became easier not to.
Because she had reminders enough of what had happened, because she didn’t want to see it, all the graves, with their loved ones left to grieve.
Because, she always told herself, it happened so long ago.
Now she bends down at the rose and black granite headstone, traces her sister’s name in faded gold lettering, then the dates, painfully close together.
‘Hey, Chlo-bear,’ she whispers. It has always felt odd to bring flowers to her grave.
She was too young to really understand the gesture of flowers, and in any case, flowers wither, they die.
She planted a plant a few years ago, and wonders if it will still flower come spring.
And this time, there’s a wreath on the grave, which can only have been put here by her mum.
It was little Rosy in the shop who reminded Lissa of what she used to do.
Bring tokens to Chloe – things her mum would sometimes tell her off for leaving on the ground because they weren’t suitable for a graveyard.
But now she places a wooden reindeer, one she picked up at the Christmas market because she liked the look of it, by the corner of the headstone.
She kneels, cold water seeping through her jeans.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been to visit in a while,’ she whispers.
‘I’m glad Mum has, though.’ She takes a breath, watches it dissolve into the greying mist around her.
She used to come here as a teenager without her mum.
Used to find it so easy to talk to Chloe – as long as there was no one else here.
‘So I went to this spa before Christmas,’ she says.
‘It was a bit of a disaster.’ She can still feel it, water flooding her lungs, the panic at being sucked under.
When, of course, in reality she was perfectly safe.
All these years she’s thought the drowning nightmares were because of Chloe, but what if it was a memory of a past life straining to get through? A memory of the first time she died.
She sighs. ‘What do you think, Chloe? Am I mad?’ She tries to imagine what her sister would say, but can’t quite conjure it up. Because she’s only ever known a six-yearold Chloe, and they would never have had this kind of conversation.
She sits in silence, aware of people coming and going around her, the distant sound of a sob.
But also the sound of a child laughing. It’s unfair, so terribly unfair, that Chloe lost her life so young.
Lost. Like she misplaced it, rather than it being ripped from her because the people who loved her, the people who were supposed to take care of her, didn’t do their job.
She blinks away tears, her vision blurring.
And as she does, she sees the grave in front of her morph into another – a simple wooden cross under a cold grey sky.
The scene shimmers, so that she’s unable to fully grasp it.
She can feel grass under her knees and a hand resting lightly on her back, comforting her.
A man’s hand, one she knows, one she hopes will always be there.
It disappears before she can delve any deeper, and she takes a shaky breath as she gets to her feet, traces her sister’s name one last time. ‘I’m sorry, Chloe,’ she says as she leaves, even as she knows that no matter how many times she says it, it will never be enough.
When she gets back to her car, she sees she has a missed call. A sense of panic spikes her system when she sees who it was. Because Elsie never rings her.
She calls her back immediately. ‘Elsie?’ she says.
‘Finally! I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages.’
Lissa switches the car engine on so she can get some heat, wondering what exactly ‘ages’ constitutes for Elsie, given the missed call was only five minutes ago, tops.
‘Where are you?’ her half-sister asks.
‘I’m … I’m over at the church. St Michael’s.’
‘The church?’ Lissa can hear the frown in her voice. ‘What, are you religious or something?’
Lissa laughs, the sound a little tired, and sad. Because Elsie has to ask the question, because she doesn’t know enough about her to be sure. ‘No, I’m not religious. I’m just visiting someone.’
‘Visiting s— Oh.’
The line goes quiet.
‘Are you okay, Elsie?’ Lissa prompts. ‘Do you need something?’
‘We-ell,’ Elsie drags the word out, ‘I’m sort of … stuck.’
‘Stuck?’
‘Yeah. See, I came into Bath again with Jess, but she got picked up early and there was no room in the car, and I was going to get the train but it’s like another hour or something until the next one, and Dad has already texted asking where I am.’
It is a lot of information given very quickly, and way more than she’s used to getting from Elsie. ‘Right. And reading between the lines, Dad doesn’t actually know where you are?’
‘Well, no, not exactly. I sort of said we were in town, but I let him think it was Frome.’
‘Aha.’ Lissa taps her free hand against the steering wheel. She’s not sure what to do here – what is the big sister role in all this? Should she immediately call her dad – or Nicole – to tell them about it?
‘So, like, do you have a car or something?’ Elsie prompts.
‘A car?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You want me to drive you home?’ Lissa finally cottons on.
‘Yes.’
She hesitates again. She should almost definitely tell her dad. But Elsie is barely fourteen, alone in Bath, and it’s getting dark. She can deal with the family politics later. ‘Where are you?’ she asks.
‘Near Anthropologie.’
‘Okay – if you walk to the end of the high street, I’ll meet you there. Give me about twenty minutes, okay? I’ll be as quick as I can.’
When Lissa picks Elsie up on the corner of the street, her sister looks a bit sheepish. And a bit cold, Lissa thinks – her nose red, hair windswept. Lissa dials the heating up.
‘Thanks,’ Elsie mutters, looking down at her knees as Lissa turns the car around.
‘No problem.’
‘Are you going to tell Dad?’ It’s blurted out immediately, like she can’t stop herself.
Lissa glances across at the passenger seat. ‘I don’t know. I probably should.’ Elsie’s lip juts out in response to that. ‘So they said no?’ she prompts. ‘To you coming to Bath by train?’
‘Yep.’ Elsie scowls. Lissa notices that she’s wearing mascara, and that it’s run a little. ‘They won’t let me do anything, it’s totally ridiculous. I mean, I’m allowed to babysit by my age – surely that’s responsible enough to get a half-hour train?’
‘I guess they’re just worried about you,’ Lissa says diplomatically.
As she says it, it occurs to her that the reason they might be so worried is because they know how easily a child can be lost. Her dad must have talked to Nicole about what happened to Chloe.
And all right, maybe it has nothing to do with that – maybe Nicole just doesn’t like trains.
But it gives her a twinge of guilt that she’d not thought of the possibility before.
‘I guess they’ll know anyway, when you drop me off,’ Elsie says, sounding resigned.
‘I guess so. Though I suppose I could drop you at the end of the street.’
Elsie brightens at this. ‘Yeah. Could you?’
Lissa doesn’t answer. As the big sister, she should take Elsie all the way to her front door, shouldn’t she? And come to think of it, she absolutely cannot be responsible for something bad happening to another sister, even if the possibility is slim.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. I really should drop you at your house – it’s dark out.
But I’ll let you tell Dad what happened.
I won’t say anything.’ Because she decides in that moment that it’s better that Elsie knows she can rely on her if she needs to, rather than her being someone who will dob her in.
There’s quiet for a moment as Elsie fiddles with the radio, switching it to Radio 1. Then she sits back in her seat. ‘So do you go there often?’ she asks. ‘To her grave?’
Lissa brakes a little too hard at the next set of lights. She wasn’t expecting the direct question. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Not as often as I should.’
Elsie purses her lips at this, then gives a one-shouldered shrug. ‘I suppose you don’t have to go there to think about her. You can do that anywhere.’
Lissa stares at her, so that a car behind beeps when she doesn’t immediately pull away at the green light.
‘What?’ Elsie asks, frowning. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘Nothing. I just … You’re right.’ Lissa hadn’t expected her to be so insightful about it. Though she doesn’t know why – as Elsie pointed out, she’s fourteen, almost a mini adult.
Elsie nods, like that’s obvious.
‘So how was Christmas?’ Lissa asks.
‘Oh, all right. My grandparents came round.’ Which would be Nicole’s parents, given that their dad’s parents died a long time ago. ‘Thanks for the hoodie,’ she adds, like an afterthought.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘I didn’t get you anything.’ It’s not exactly an apology, but somehow it reads like one.
‘That’s okay. You didn’t have to.’
‘So what did you do?’ Elsie asks, fidgeting slightly.
‘Spent it with my mum and my cousin.’ And actually, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been – her mum retired early, and she and Mia stayed up drinking far too much red wine.
‘Huh. Maybe you should have come to ours. We had way too much food.’ Lissa glances across at her, trying to work out if that is Elsie’s version of an invitation.
‘What was she like?’ Elsie asks abruptly. She looks out the window as she says it.
‘Who?’
‘Chloe. Dad never talks about her.’
Lissa thinks about this for a moment. ‘She was … young.’ She bites her lip, knowing that is not enough.
So she makes herself carry on. ‘She was adventurous. Like, she was always trying to go off and find things when we went on walks and stuff like that. She loved the swing set. Her favourite flavour of ice cream was vanilla. She could touch her nose with her tongue, something I could never do.’ She attempts it now in the car, making Elsie snort a laugh.
It sounds a little like her own laugh, she reckons.
‘It’s weird. To think I had a sister I’ll never meet.’
Lissa is taken aback at this – but of course, Chloe would have been Elsie’s sister, too.
‘Well, thanks for the lift,’ Elsie says as they pull up outside her house.
‘Elsie?’ Lissa says, as her sister reaches for the door handle, ready to jump out. ‘If you’re ever in Bath and need anything, you know you can call me, right?’
‘I know,’ Elsie says, her tone suggesting Lissa is somewhat dim-witted. ‘I just did.’
And she did, didn’t she? Which is better than nothing. So maybe there’s hope for the two of them after all.