Chapter 33 #3
He knows it’s unfair. He knows it’s untrue, but before he can take his words back, Heather has checked the police no longer need her this afternoon and, within five minutes, she is gone.
‘Where’s Heather?’
Brianna’s full of questions once the crash site is cleared and they’ve arranged for the car to be towed away. Lorraine has already left.
‘She had to go. Something about getting back to Georgia.’ His voice comes out as almost a growl.
It’s just a small white lie.
Brianna shrugs.
‘Figures.’
They move together to the side of the car and lean against a fence.
‘I just can’t get my head round all of this, Bee,’ he says.
‘One minute you’re working in Edinburgh, preparing for your exams and the next, this.
’ He indicates the mangled lorry, the tyre tracks leaving the road and Brianna’s dishevelled appearance.
‘And you went to see – that boy.’ He still can’t bring himself to say the kid’s name.
Calling him “the boy” keeps him as a dispassionate, inanimate killer of wives and mothers.
‘Leon, dad. His name’s Leon,’ Brianna says. Just like her aunt.
Scott shakes the sound away. Hearing the young man's name solidifies him and implies a life with thoughts and feeling and dreams and aspirations. A little like his own life before.
‘How could you do it when you knew I expressly forbade it?’
Brianna pulls the foil blanket from around her shoulders and scrunches it into a ball in her hand.
‘Well, at least he wants to talk about what happened. He wants to say how sorry he is. He’s getting out soon, and can’t imagine moving on with his life without apologising to us direct.
’ Brianna’s eyes are a hard, forensic assessment.
‘The people I’ve met at university, Dad, they’ve helped me see things in a different light.
Particularly Georgia and Trey. We all want to fill the unexplained holes in our lives. ’
‘Like what?’
‘Like knowing what happened to Mum and seeing Aunt Lorraine for me. Like knowing why her dad left for Georgia. And Trey’s mum’s been super secretive about her own student days in St Andrews.
She evades all Trey’s questions about it other than to talk about the friends she made.
We’ve all got these questions, and our parents aren’t giving us any answers.
So, we’re looking for answers on our own.
Because I’ve never understood, you know … ’
‘Understood what?’ Although he thinks he knows what’s coming, he can’t help but play it dumb.
‘I’ve never understood why you moved us away and stopped me being in touch with my auntie for so long, and why you refused to meet Leon or even talk about the accident. Or what we’re both feeling about Mum.’
‘There’s a—’
Even now, he finds it impossible to find the words.
‘My theory is you moved us away from our home where I knew people and had friends and was settled in school because you couldn’t stand seeing Leon’s parents every day around town. Or even seeing Aunt Lorraine because, as Mum’s twin, she looks identical to her.’
He looks away, swallowing hard.
‘I think I understand it better now,’ she continues. ‘Seeing familiar people when Mum wasn’t alive any longer hurt you. The thing is, it helped me. Aunt Lorraine offered me the love and support and mothering I needed when Mum died, but you just whisked us off.’
It’s like being punched in the gut. All the air has left Scott’s lungs.
‘You took me away from Mum’s grave. I know these were things you needed to do for you. But what about me? I was a kid. I didn’t get any say in the matter.’
Brianna inhales and inspects a broken fingernail before returning her gaze to him.
‘You were meant to be driving that night, weren’t you?’
The sob catches at the back of Scott’s throat, rendering him speechless. He manages to nod.
‘Aunt Lorraine says that’s why you needed to leave.
So, you wouldn’t be surrounded by all those ghosts or enduring the haunted looks in people’s eyes.
She says you’ve spent the past seven years shutting yourself off from the world and from other people.
That’s why you’re so mean to Heather. That’s why you go off on these grand adventures.
If you’re busy fighting for survival, you don’t have time to think about the other things. ’
Scott feels the fight dissipate from his body.
‘That’s what she says, is it?’
Brianna nods.
‘Pretty much. She says you’ve found the perfect person, but you’re too proud and scared to let her get close enough.’
‘Quite a psychologist, your auntie,’ he says wryly.
The breakdown truck arrives and provides Scott with a welcome relief from the confrontation with his daughter and her abundance of home truths.
‘I need to get back to Edinburgh,’ she says, once her mangled car is dispatched to the nearest garage for repairs. She glances at her phone. ‘There’s a train in half an hour.’
The breakdown truck driver drops them off near the train station, allowing Brianna to return to the place she now refers to as ‘home’ and leaving him, aimless and alone, in the town he’s pathologically avoided for the past seven and a half years.