Chapter 7 #3
‘I’ll get it!’ Jacob jumped to his feet, disappearing into the kitchen in search of a towel and a much-needed breather from the tension-filled room.
‘Mum doesn’t know,’ I confessed, in a please don’t tell her kind of voice as I completed yet another lap around the coffee table.
‘Obviously I won’t tell her,’ Alice snorted, in answer to my unspoken plea, her tone uncharacteristically flustered. ‘She’s already worried enough about you as it is, without throwing this into the mix.’
Guilt knotted my stomach, tugging at my heartstrings. I watched Alice pick at the skin around her thumb, her anxious tic that was normally reserved for the morning of exams or the day Taylor Swift tickets were released.
‘Have you been to Joe’s exhibition yet?’
I paused my pacing, her question throwing me off guard. What did that have to do with anything?
‘I thought as much,’ Alice continued, without even waiting for my answer.
‘Jacob and I went the other week,’ she admitted, her eyes briefly flitting to her lap as though trying to hide her own sadness from me.
‘It was—’ she let out a breath, a full kaleidoscope of emotion flashing across her face, unzipping a slow smile from one corner of her mouth to the other, ‘—you should go, Jenny. I think it would really help you.’
‘Err, Jenny, what is this?’ Jacob’s voice floated through from the kitchen.
‘Just help yourself to anything that’s in the fridge,’ I called back, grateful for the change in conversation. ‘I think there’s a batch of Mum’s sausage rolls in the tin on top of the—’
‘One step ahead of you, sister.’ Jacob appeared in the doorway, battered McVitie’s tin wedged firmly under one arm. ‘But I was talking about this.’
I stopped pacing and eyed the crumpled rectangle of paper Jacob was waving about with his non-sausage-roll-filled hand.
It had caught me off guard the other night, stuck smack bang in the middle of the fridge door between Mum’s Venice and Mallorca holiday magnets, demanding my attention when all I wanted was some milk.
The insurance cheque. I’d crumpled it into a tiny ball, throwing it in the bin in the hope I’d never have to see it again. Clearly the universe had other ideas.
‘It’s nothing.’
Jacob guffawed. ‘I wouldn’t call ￡100,000 nothing.’
Alice’s head snapped up from her phone and she skipped over towards Jacob, plucking the cheque straight out of his hands.
‘Hey!’
‘Jenny, what the fuck is this?’ Alice gawped, her eyes boggling as they took in all the zeros.
I fidgeted awkwardly with the hem of Joe’s t-shirt. ‘It’s Joe’s insurance payout,’ I mumbled, ashamed to admit that I’d financially benefitted from Joe’s death.
‘Why is it all crumpled? And what is that smell?’ Alice’s nose scrunched with revulsion as she inspected the piece of paper dangling between her thumb and forefinger, intent on touching as little of the soiled cheque as humanly possible.
I shrugged noncommittally. ‘I just haven’t got round to cashing it yet.’ Telling them I’d literally thrown ￡100,000 in the bin probably wouldn’t help with the whole proving-I-wasn’t-crazy argument.
‘ Yet . So, you are going to cash it, then?’ Alice asked, her eyes narrowed.
‘Yes.’
No.
‘It’s ￡100,000, Jenny!’ Jacob spluttered, about as unconvinced by my lie as I was.
‘Yes, thank you, Jacob!’ I yelled, a little louder than intended. ‘Thank you for reminding me just how much Joe’s life is apparently worth, because that’s all I think about when I look at that damn cheque.’
I shovelled a giant spoonful of ice cream into my mouth, hoping the brain freeze would distract from the crushing weight in my chest, then threw myself down on the sofa, burying my face in a cushion.
I felt the sofa dip to my left as Alice sat next to me, and then substantially more on my right when Jacob joined her.
‘Jenny, don’t you think that the visions and the not cashing the cheque are just ways for you to avoid acknowledging that Joe’s gone?’
My fingers tightened their grip on the cushion. Alice was annoyingly right as per usual, saying the very thing I refused to admit to myself.
‘That money doesn’t represent what Joe’s life was worth, Jenny, it doesn’t even come close,’ Jacob sniffed, his voice shaky with emotion. ‘But it does represent Joe’s desire for you to live your life. You know that’s what he’d want, right? What we all want.’
My insides felt gooey, like the room-temperature tub of ice cream perspiring on the coffee table.
‘I’m scared,’ I mumbled incoherently into the cushion.
‘Scared of what?’ Alice pressed gently. I knew what she was doing. She was prising open the lid that I’d duct-taped closed, encouraging me to confront everything I was feeling head on for once – and now that lid was ajar, there was no stopping the words as they tumbled out.
‘ Everything! I’m scared to move on. But I’m also scared of being left behind.
Of talking about Joe. Of not talking about Joe.
Of forgetting things. Of waking up and Joe not being the very first thing I think about in the morning.
Of what my life will be like without him in it.
I’m afraid of never feeling happy again.
And I’m scared that, if by some miracle I do, if that makes me a terrible person. ’
‘You’re right, it will be scary,’ Alice said matter-of-factly. ‘And hard. And painful as hell. And there’ll be so many days when you’ll want to give up.’
‘Is this supposed to be a pep talk, because it’s really shit,’ I sniffed.
‘So shit,’ Jacob agreed, shaking his head in disbelief at his sister. Alice ignored him.
‘But we’re going to be here with you every step of the way until eventually there’ll come a day when you wake up and feel slightly better than the day before.
And I promise you that day will come. And that you’ll have another.
And another. But you’re never going to be able to move forward, Jenny, if you’re still living in the past.’
A tear slid down my face. I couldn’t speak. Instead, I leaned my head against Alice’s shoulder, squeezing Jacob’s hand so hard I saw him wince.
How, though?
How do you let go of the love of your life?