Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
Joel
“ G o on! Go on! Go on!” Edith chants at the side of me, right before running over to the other side of Barden Bridge and looking over the wall, reaching up on her tiptoes as she shines her phone’s torch towards the water.
Meanwhile, I remain in place, leaning against the bridge watching her, grinning like an idiot.
Pooh sticks.
She’s got a thirty-three-year-old man doing fucking pooh sticks on a Friday evening.
“Yes! I won again.”
“Are you sure you’ve not just confused your stick with mine?”
She turns her head to look at me over her shoulder as if I’ve insulted her. “Erm. No. You’re just a sore loser.”
I push myself off the wall and go over to her. Even though we are now in late Spring, it’s still often chilly in the evenings here in the Dales, which more or less means Edith is always wrapped up like a fluffy bear.
Looking down, the rumble of the river surrounds us as I try and find the sticks that we’ve just thrown in. But I can only see one. And it’s mine.
“You mean I’ve won.”
“Noooo. I did.”
I point down at the river. Still in disbelief that this is how I’m spending my evening when I could do with getting shit-faced after the week I’ve had. “ That is my stick.”
“Are you saying I’m lying?”
“Yes, because yours had an extra twig on the side. That one doesn’t.”
“Because mine has already gone downstream.” She grins, causing my eyes to widen.
“And what? Did it have extra power or something? ”
She shrugs, now trying not to laugh. “It was a turbo twig.”
“You are full of shit.”
Her enthusiasm for life is something I envy at times. Even when I know her heart is bruised, she seems to have it all together. I don’t know where I would have been this past year if it weren’t for her. “Come on. We’ve been out here for too long. I want a beer and to get the use of my hands back.”
“Ah, there’s this thing they’ve invented to stop cold hands. You see these?” She holds her covered hands up. “They are called gloves. You should try wearing them. Or are you too manly for that?”
Playing to her sarcasm, I tug on the strings to her hoodie before I lock my arm around her shoulders and rub my knuckles against her head. “It’s cold but not that cold.”
“My hands are always cold. I can prove it if you want?” she teases. Too many times she’s lifted my T-shirt and placed her freezing cold hands on my back.
“Do that and there’ll be trouble. Now, shut up and walk with me.”
We head to my car—where Milo, my black Labrador, is waiting patiently on the back seat—and get in. Making the short drive to my place, I let him in the house and ensure he’s comfortable as he looks at me with the puppy dog eyes he’s always had. I’ve had him for a little over twelve years and he truly is a man’s best friend.
“There you go, boy,” I say, stroking him down before I head back out to Edith who is looking up at the stars.
“Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
Linking her arm in mine, we walk down towards my brother's pub. That’s the one thing I love about this place: everything I love is on my doorstep.
My place is an old farmhouse I had converted when it came on the market. The owner beforehand hadn’t had any livestock for years, and with old age he’d let the farm run down. Other than Milo, I don’t have any animals; Sophia was never really interested in entertaining anything like that—Milo had been enough—but I’ve always fancied the idea of chickens.
“So how was it seeing Lorna yesterday?” I ask as we head down the road.
She sighs heavily, and I can tell she needs to offload. “She never showed. Apparently, her ex-law school friends were more important and so she arranged a late lunch.”
“Meanwhile you lose out on business,” I state, hating the fact Lorna can’t see the importance of a business. Edith’s business.
“Yes, but I was glad of her no show. That was until she followed it with a message saying she’d already had her nails done by a top-notch salon in Leeds that knew what they were doing.”
“Lorna strikes again.”
“Yep. But don’t worry. Her fabulous dinners will no doubt make up for my misfortune,” she says sarcastically. “I wish you’d come with me next time. Lord knows I could do with some support.”
That tension is back in my chest. I stopped having dinner with the Kennedy’s a couple months ago. Each time I’d gone, it had got harder, and no matter how much I expressed my feelings to Lorna over the topic of conversations she insisted we had, nothing changed.
Her parents are like chalk and cheese. Gerald Kennedy is one of the nicest men I know and the greatest father-in-law anyone could wish for, and I hate the fact I’ve not seen him in a while. Lorna Kennedy, however, is challenging and twisted to say the least.
From the day Sophia announced we were in a relationship, Lorna has been a woman I can’t shake off. She’d become the third wheel in our marriage, and in the years I’ve been around her, it has become evident just how unfairly Edith has been treated by her stepmother.
Of course, all the times I’d been there for Edith, sticking up for my best friend, had resulted in me arguing with my wife.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Edith grabs my arm and stops walking as we reach the Craven. She has that look of understanding in her eye, maybe even sorrow which makes it worse because that means she’s hurting, too.
“I get it, Joel. You know that, right? I may not have said it enough to you or I probably should have said it sooner, but I understand. It drives me crazy, too, how Sophia’s always mentioned.”
“I know.”
“Not that she shouldn’t be because we loved her, but just that—”
I place my hands on her shoulders. “Edie. It’s okay. I know what you mean.”
She’s getting herself worked up for no reason because I get what she’s trying to explain. We loved Sophia and she should be remembered. She is remembered. But having dinner with the Kennedy’s where the entire conversation revolves around their dead daughter isn’t going to help anyone.
Especially me .
Time and time again, I’ve tried to change the subject. At first, I’d understood. I’d still talked about Sophia as if she were still in the room. I’d wanted to talk to remember. I’d wanted to talk to try and ease the pain. But with Lorna, the conversations that take place are constant. It’s like Sophia’s never left.
I loved my wife, despite our differences and volatile marriage, but I need to heal, and I can’t do that with Lorna around. She can’t understand why I’d packed and boxed up Sophia’s things. No one should have to suffer the pain of packing up their loved one’s belongings, and that for me had been one of the most gut-wrenching and difficult things I’d had to go through as I grieved. And at a time where I’d needed everyone’s support, I’d got nothing but disregard from Lorna because, in her eyes, I was wiping the memory of her daughter away.
The shrine in Lorna and Gerald’s conservatory is what had tipped me over the edge, and yet she still doesn’t understand why I’d reacted like I had.
I haven’t cut all ties with Lorna because that’s easier said than done, but I haven’t been back to the house since, and it kills me knowing I leave Edith to go it alone.
“Sometimes we don’t have to talk to remember. Sometimes we just need memories. ”
She nods, holding my gaze before a grin breaks out. “She would have hated pooh sticks.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Yeah, she would have. Come on. Let’s head inside.”
The atmosphere inside the Craven never changes. The friendly bar is a contrast of old wood and slate, real log fires, thick wooden bench tables and real ale. The place is small and winding, but the Cruck Barn at the back doubles as a restaurant and a venue for events like weddings and birthdays. Behind the pub there are a few self-catering huts for mini-breaks.
This place has been in our family for generations—our uncle being the previous owner—but it was my brother out of the two of us who wanted to take it on and continue the legacy for the sake of his son, Teddy.
“Holy shit. I’m sorry but who are you? Because you look like my shit head of an older brother,” Daniel says, rounding the bar.
I’d never made it to the pub the other night after all.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He grips my hand and pulls me in for a hug, smacking me on the back. “Good to see you, bro.”
Releasing me, he turns his attention to Edith, squeezing her tight and lifting her off the ground as he knows she hates it. “Hey, you.”
“Put me down, arsehole,” she protests.
Freeing her, Daniel heads back around the bar and pours us both our usual beers without even asking us.
“How’s Ted?” I ask, taking the first mouthful of my beer.
“Driving me up the wall. I swear he’s aged like ten years since he started school. The boy can be a right verbal little sod and the thing is, I can’t help but love it.”
“He’s nothing of the sort,” Edith adds. “He’s just a character. A true Fitzpatrick.”
“I don’t recall asking my teacher out for Dad when I was his age,” Daniel adds, looking somewhere between pissed and amused.
“Oh shit. He didn’t?”
“You shouldn’t have been giving Miss Kurt your best smile then when Ted was late.” Edith grins.
“Danny Boy. You flirting with Teddy’s teacher?” I ask my brother, knowing it’s a high possibility.
“Fuck yes. The woman is hot as shit.”
I shake my head, grinning.
Teddy spends one evening a week after school at our parents and sleeps over at the weekends so Daniel can close the bar himself rather than getting his staff to do it for him. Plus, it gives my parents much needed time with their grandson.
“You are like a dog on heat.”
“What can I say, Ted is my secret weapon with the ladies.”
“And he loves that just as much as you do,” Edith chuckles.
My brother and my nephew are like two peas in a pod. Both are full of quips and laughter. Daniel had always been the joker growing up. He’s three years younger than me, and I fucking love having him as a brother. We hardly disagree on anything. We don’t have many differences, and we certainly don’t run each other down.
I look over at Edith, hating the times I’d had to listen to Sophia rant about her sister because she wasn’t taking her side.
Edith knows what Sophia had been like, but that doesn’t excuse the fact hateful words were said about her. I dislike anyone who says a bad thing about Edith because she is special to me. So, when it had been my wife who was bringing her down, I’d found it hard to remain silent. Until the day I couldn’t take anymore.
“Any way enough of my shit. How’s work? Finalised any villas I don’t know about?”
“Not this week.” I sigh, taking another sip of my beer, still frustrated over the meeting with Miss Anderson. “I’m glad it’s fucking over. ”
“Oh. Who pissed on your bagels?”
“Miss Moneypenny from the city. She wants him to replan her dream home once more,” Edith says, using the nickname she has for Rebecca Anderson.
Daniel’s eyebrows raise. “Dude. Not again. Just tell her no.”
“That’s what I said to him.”
“The money will be good,” I interject. “Besides, it’s not just that.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them, and I know I won’t be able to back out of this one, especially with the two of them now staring and waiting for my explanation.
“So what else is it?” Daniel asks.
“She asked me to do our next meeting over dinner.”
“You never told me that,” Edith says. “What did you say?”
“Nothing. I shut her down.”
“Because you don’t want to do dinner with her or because you just don’t want to do dinner with another woman?”
Holding her gaze, her eyes are full of apprehension and I can’t work out which part of her question is worrying her more.
“Both. ”
"Well, I think it's about time you both got back out there," Daniel says looking between us.
Edith chuckles nervously. “Coming from Mr Singleton himself.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not getting any. You should let your hair down, pretty girl. Get back in the game.”
"I'm happy as I am, thank you." She side-eyes him, and her tone tells me he’s hit a nerve, but my brother is oblivious to it. Where Edith and I have become closer in many ways since losing Sophia, we have become lost in other ways. I can tell she's not happy, and I can sense more had gone on with her and Leon when it came to their split. It hadn’t been long after losing my wife that I learned Edith and he were over.
I’d never liked him.
The cocky bank manager in a suit had never been any form of friend to me. There’s something about that man that grates on my nerves, and the jealousy I’d felt at times was something I can’t get my head around, nor something I can speak of.
I had been jealous of the times Leon had with her. I’d envied the way that she held him because I’d wanted it to be me, and despite the chaotic confusion racing through my mind, I’d desperately wanted with my wife what they’d had with each other.
My and Sophia’s love had been too far gone .
Our marriage had been nothing more than shattered glass, and each day I’d had to tread carefully. Everything had seemed perfect for Edith and Leon in contrast, so I don’t believe this ‘we wanted different things’ bullshit. I know she is keeping something from me, I just need to work out what it is.
As she excuses herself to the bathroom, I watch as she leaves the bar area, now wanting to dive deeper and find out what happened—why she hasn’t opened up to me—but Daniel’s eyes on me have me turning back to look at him.
“Just say it.”
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is that’s burning your tongue.” I take another mouthful of my beer, waiting for his interrogation.
“Okay.” He leans forward, resting his folded arms on the wood of the bar. “Why did you really say no to dinner with Miss Moneypenny?”
“Because the woman drives me insane.”
“And if she didn’t? What would your answer be?”
“Still no.”
“Why?”
I shrug.
“It’s not too soon, Joel. It may only be a year, but let’s face it, you’ve not been happy for much longer than that,” he states, knowing more than anyone the life I had before. “I know it’s still tough. I know it can’t be easy. But maybe you need to start thinking about moving forward and accept Sophia’s gone.”
“I have accepted that,” I grit out. “I accept that each night when I get in an empty bed. I’ve sorted through her things because she’s never again going to use them. I get that my wife has gone, Daniel. It’s just the thought of dating again fucking terrifies me.”
Silence hits for a moment and I knock back the rest of my beer, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.
“When Stacy left me, I was suddenly a single father with no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t see a future without her, and I certainly couldn’t see a future with a child. However, as time progressed, I slowly made changes in my life that enabled me to move forward without her. In my heart, no matter what she’s done, a small part of me will always care for her because she’s Teddy’s mother. But I’m now open to finding someone I want to spend my life with. Be happy with.” He pauses. “Going to dinner with a woman doesn’t mean you have to have a relationship with them. Nor is it wrong on any level should you actually want that. What it will do is get you back out there and on the road to a new future. Otherwise, you’ll turn into a grumpy old shit in that big fucking house. ”
I huff out a laugh.
“You need to be happy, man. And you need to find that special someone.”
I glance in the direction of where Edith has just left.
She has always been that special someone for me. She weaved her way into my heart before I even realised, but I’d buried that feeling because she was too young and I’d believed she deserved better.
My life with Sophia hadn’t always been bad. In the beginning I’d genuinely loved her. We were together for four years before we got married and I’d have walked to the ends of the earth for her if she had asked me to, but it was at the start of those five years of marriage that everything changed.
I can’t remember the last time I was happy.
I have my whole life ahead of me to find the happiness that was lacking in my marriage, but the thought of looking for it makes the remorse twist even more.
Because if it weren’t for me, she’d still be here.