Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
Nora stands in the driveway near the porch door, breathing hard. The mothers are still in the garden, that song is still playing, and Bren is behind her, his nose bleeding. Asking her if she’s okay.
Don’t, Bren. Don’t pretend you care.
Of course I care.
You were no help back there, she says, rounding on him. Why didn’t you tell him there was nothing going on between us?
And without waiting for an answer, I need to go, she says, I need to go after him.
But the song has been turned up loud on Freya’s radio, and she can’t think straight.
In confusion, she looks past Bren, his top lip glistening red, eyes unreadable, into the house.
And then Freya’s voice carries towards them, what are you all doing, out here?
Her own eyes widening as she comes through the hall.
Fudge on a cupcake, she says, when she sees that Bren is bleeding, and Robin is gone. Nora says it’s not what it looks like.
Nora decked me, Bren says, and without missing a beat, Freya says she’s sure he deserved it. Come inside, she says, as the song ends, and begins again; playing, it seems, on repeat.
Nora looks back at the empty green, the bus-less road, wondering once more what is going on, here. Why they’re playing the song from Jon’s funeral.
Don’t get blood on my rug, Bren, Freya is saying as Nora, in spite of herself, follows them inside. I came in for more Pimm’s, she says, steering Bren into the kitchen, his nose tipped upwards. But I think at this point I’ll crack out the whiskey.
I’m leaving, Nora says, in the doorway. I need to go after Robin.
He’s a big boy, Nora, Bren says, just as Josie – who is indoors now too, has carried the stereo with her – says you can’t leave!
Freya is pulling old tea towels out of a drawer, passing them to Bren, and that song is playing too loudly; Nora wishes they would turn it down.
What happened? Josie asks, seeing Bren’s blood, and Freya says never mind that, Jose.
Just tell them what we’re here to do. It’s time.
But, Josie says, I was going to explain over lunch.
Explain what? Bren says.
And maybe now isn’t the right time, after all, Josie says, as if she’s not heard his question. She is speaking to Freya, wide-eyed and worried. I think, she whispers, emotions are running a little too high.
Which is what you want, for an occasion like this, Freya says. All four of us in a room, at last. Everyone ready and raw.
I think it’s too soon, Josie says, but Freya says twelve years too late, more like.
What’s going on, Nora asks, feeling torn.
She wants to leave, to go after Robin; wants to not be in a room with these two women and Bren and that song, stirring up something inside of her, but at the same time, she can’t not know.
Josie glances at her, says nothing, pet, with a fluttering hand. That they’ll do it some other time.
When? Freya says. In another decade, when Bren’s home again, and Nora’s still not speaking to me?
Oh, don’t! Josie says, wringing her hands. Bren is pale, frowning at his mother over the tea towel pressed to his nose.
Josie, Nora says. What’s going on?
And it’s saying her name, rather than repeating the question, that does it. That seems to root Josie in place, stop the twisting of her hands. She exhales, puts the stereo on the kitchen side, says okay. Well. As you know, this is a … special day, for me.
The song ends. Fades out, comes back in.
I’d planned it for a reason, Josie says, as Freya turns down the volume slightly. I’d had this idea, ever since Bren got home. Because your father loved Easter weekend, didn’t he, she says, glancing at Bren, who is still watching his mother over his blood-soaked towel.
Better than Christmas, he used to say, didn’t he? Less pressure. More sunshine.
Just as much chocolate, Freya adds.
And I thought it would be poignant, Josie says, to come together today, and put a few things … to rest. In his memory.
Nora is not following. Her mind is half on the bus with Robin, and not in this room. But Bren shifts in the corner, something flickering across his face as he lowers the tea towel, his nose smeared red with his own blood.
No, he says. Then repeats himself: no.
Nora sees him looking at Josie, then down at his own smart shirt; his mother’s shining, patent shoes in place of her slippers. That song is still playing and Nora’s brain tries hard to catch up.
It’s okay, Josie tells him. It’s all right, pet.
Your father died, Bren, Freya says, in the voice Nora’s heard her use when talking to her tomatoes. It’s time you acknowledged that, don’t you think?
And then Nora understands, too. Her desire to go home – to chase after Robin – wanes slightly. As if what is happening here is weighing her down, like stones in her pockets, making it too hard to move.
I know he died, Bren says.
Do you, though, Josie says. Because you seem unable to talk about him.
Rush of air, as the wind blows. Back door banging against the wall.
I thought this could be, Josie says, gesturing at the four of them, a chance to scatter his ashes, together. Finally.
A memorial, Freya suggests.
No, Bren says again.
Sweetheart –
I didn’t sign up for this, he says. It’s not what I came home for.
He looks panicked; Nora sees it, the look she saw so often in childhood when they’d get out of the house, roam the fields, put time and distance between him and whatever was happening back home. A look she’d not yet seen in him, in adulthood.
But you never grieved properly, Josie pleads.
I grieved just fine, he says.
I’m with him on this, Nora says, and the other three look over at her, surprised. It’s not right, she says. It’s – inappropriate, she adds, in Freya’s direction, but her mother holds her gaze, unashamed, as Josie says Nora, you need to –
We don’t need to do any of this, Nora says. We had the funeral. We paid our respects.
Bren didn’t, Freya says, and at this, something snaps; something Nora knows was already pulled taut, being stretched and stressed, all day, maybe ever since he got back, or for twelve years, before that, with his mum’s condition and his father’s death and his own suppressed, fearful young heart.
You think I didn’t? he says. You think I don’t think about him, every single day? You think I need to be here to know he fucking died? I was there! I was fucking there, in that driveway, when it happened!
Bren –
None of you were! None of you saw it! None of you have to play it over and over, how he fell down and puked, all over himself, the way he looked at me like he wanted me to – to help him!
Oh, Bren, Josie says, her face crumpling, but he goes on, he is ranting now, has stopped bleeding from the nose and it’s like the words are outpouring, instead, hot and red and gushing.
I had to catch him, I had to turn him over, and I couldn’t make it okay, Bren says, because he was the one that made things okay! When things never were! You were too sick! Too scared, too fucking scary! But he was there, he said he would always be there, and then he wasn’t, and I – and I –
Nora watches him, as he melts down. Like she’d always thought he might, one day, half expecting a choked phone call or heartfelt email, except years had gone by and no such thing had arrived and now it is happening in front of her.
Josie has moved towards him, her hand outstretched. Don’t, Bren says, backing away. Don’t touch me. And don’t tell me I didn’t grieve, just because I didn’t wear a suit and tie and sing a fucking hymn. Don’t tell me I didn’t know how it felt, to lose him.
His tears, now. Nora hears them, through her own.
Bren –
But then he’s throwing the bloodied towel on the floor and brushing past her into the hall, out the porch doors. Footsteps receding. Wind chimes colliding and the Bruce Springsteen song still playing from the speakers, from the funeral, from all the good times in Jon’s life, comin’ to an end.
The three women are left stunned and staring. And Nora looks at the two mothers, not knowing what to do, and can think only: what would Robin do, here.
I’ll go, she says. And Josie nods, and Freya does, too, and Nora doesn’t know what she’ll do or say but she knows she has to do it, as she crunches down the driveway after his red hair and black shirt and fast-moving feet, and it is him she follows past the parked cars, past the spot where his dad’s heart gave out, him she grabs by the sleeve because in this moment he needs her, and she cannot feel what is happening, elsewhere, even though something is, the one thing you aren’t worried about is the one thing that matters most and this will haunt her, for the rest of her days, but for now she is catching up to Bren and she is saying his name, and he’s saying no, he is saying no no no.
It’s okay, she says, shushing him; it’s okay.
And she does all she can think to and folds herself around him. She thinks he might pull away but instead he puts his head on her shoulder and it feels heavy and fragile, like a paperweight, and she cradles it in her hands.
They cling to each other on the green, like that.
Like yin and yang. And it is so tragic and so sad and so late for this, and it is one of those moments in life that feels like it’s not actually happening and yet here they are, here is the grief she knew would come for him, in the end; and here she is, holding him the way she knew she would want to, when it did.