Chapter 30 #2
‘No. It’s not.’ He sits back down, suddenly looking as tired as I feel. ‘But Jude – if you love her, don’t you owe her the chance to explain?’
If you love her.
Present tense. As if that’s still true. As if I haven’t spent the last twenty-four hours trying to burn that feeling out of my chest the way Dad burned Mum’s letters.
‘I don’t know what I feel anymore,’ I say. ‘About any of it.’
Kit nods. Doesn’t push.
We sit there together, watching our father sleep, and I try to figure out what comes next.
Four days later, I’m still trying.
Four days of ceiling tiles and vending machine coffee and the steady beep of the heart monitor tracking my father’s recovery. Four days of nurses with careful smiles and doctors with careful words and Kit sitting across from me, neither of us knowing what to say.
Dad drifts in and out. Sometimes lucid, sometimes lost in whatever fog the heart attack left behind.
When he’s awake, he looks at me with confusion, like he’s trying to remember something important.
I don’t help him. Don’t speak. Just sit there, watching, waiting for him to slip back under so I don’t have to decide what to say.
Four days of not thinking about her.
Almost.
Kit appears in the doorway. He’s showered. I can tell because he doesn’t smell like the inside of an NHS waiting room anymore. His shirt’s clean. His jaw’s shaved. He looks like someone who might actually belong in the world outside this building.
‘You need to leave.’
I don’t move.
‘Jude.’
‘I heard you.’
‘Then get up.’ He crosses the room. Grabs my jacket from the back of the chair and throws it into my arms. ‘Up. Now.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re not fine. You haven’t showered in four days. You’ve eaten nothing but Mars bars and whatever that grey stuff was in the canteen. And you keep staring at Dad like you’re trying to set him on fire with your mind.’
‘Maybe I am.’
Kit sighs. Drags the other chair over and sits down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
‘The doctors say he’s stable. Out of the woods, cardiac-wise. The cognitive stuff—’ He shrugs. ‘They want to run more tests when he’s stronger. But he’s not going anywhere today. Or tomorrow.’
‘I know.’
‘So go home. Sleep in an actual bed. Eat something that doesn’t come wrapped in cellophane.’
‘I said I’m fine.’
‘Jude.’ His voice drops. That older-brother tone I’ve been hearing my whole life. ‘You’ve been sitting in that chair for four days. You’re not helping him by destroying yourself.’
I look at Dad. At his slack face and his trembling hands and the tubes running into his arm.
I built my entire life around this man.
And he lied to me. For twenty years.
‘I don’t know how to look at him,’ I say. ‘Every time he opens his eyes, I think about what he said. What he did. And I can’t—’
‘I know.’ Kit’s hand lands on my shoulder. ‘Believe me, I know. He did damage. Real damage. And you’re allowed to be furious about that.’
‘I don’t feel furious.’ I stare at my hands. ‘I don’t feel anything. Just … empty.’
‘That’s probably the exhaustion talking. Go home. Get some sleep. Figure out the rest when you can actually think straight.’
Home.
The word sounds wrong in my head. Dad’s cottage isn’t home – it’s a museum of resentment and silence, every room haunted by the ghost of a mother I wasn’t allowed to miss.
But there’s another place.
A cottage with a patched roof and windows that don’t close properly. A cottage that smells like sawdust and varnish and something floral underneath.
Brynn.
The name hits like a fist to the solar plexus.
‘Go,’ Kit says. ‘I’ll stay with him. Call if anything changes.’
I take my jacket. My hands are shaking and they continue to shake the entire drive home. First place I go is the boat shed. But it’s padlocked. No lights. No sign that she was ever there, that she ever came back.
‘Fuck.’ I jump back in my truck, and wish I could say that I’m feeling confident, calm, that I can fix this. But I don’t feel any of these things. What I feel is sick, to my stomach, like something bad is twisting there.
The cottage is dark.
No lights. No smoke from the chimney. No music drifting through the cracked windows.
I park in the lane. Sit there for a long moment, engine idling, staring at the building where I spent three nights learning what it felt like to be happy.
I get out. Walk up the path. Knock on the door.
Nothing.
‘Brynn?’ My voice sounds strange in the silence. ‘Brynn, it’s me. I know I – I just want to talk. Please.’
Nothing.
I try the handle. Locked.
Around the back.
I peer through the window. Everything in the kitchen looks exactly like we left it days ago. My stomach twists.
Her car has gone. I didn’t notice before – too focused on the cottage, on the dark windows – but the space where she parks is empty.
I check the front door again. No note. No sign of when she left or where she went.
She’s gone.
I stand in the overgrown garden, the last of the daylight fading, and feel the weight of it settle into my bones.
She’s actually gone.
I don’t know how long I stand there. Long enough for the light to bleed out of the sky. Long enough for the cold to seep through my jacket.
Eventually I walk back to the truck. Sit behind the wheel. Don’t start the engine.
Where do I go now?
Not Dad’s cottage.
Not the hospital. Kit’s there. Dad’s there. And I can’t sit in that chair for another minute without losing what’s left of my mind.
I could find Brynn.
But what would I say? Sorry I threw you out without letting you explain. Sorry I blamed you for sins that weren’t yours. Sorry I’m exactly like my father – quick to accuse, slow to listen.
I end up at the harbour. Parked by the sea wall, watching the boats rock in their moorings. The Mary Jane’s out there somewhere, tied up where Dad always keeps her.
Three generations of Hardings.
I don’t want to be the fourth.
I recline the seat. Pull my jacket tighter. The truck isn’t warm, but it’s shelter. It’s somewhere that isn’t haunted.
Tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do. Tomorrow I’ll decide whether to chase a woman who left without a word, or let her go the way I let everything go.
Tonight I just lie here in the dark, alone, and try to figure out how I became the kind of man who destroys the things he loves.