Page 95 of Still Me
Lily hugged me hard, then ran from the front step. I watched her go and envied the robustness of the young.
20
From: [email protected]
Great picture, Treen! Really lovely. I liked it almost as much as the four you sent yesterday. No, my favorite is still the one you sent Tuesday. The three of you at the park. Yes, Eddie has got really nice eyes. You definitely look happy. I’m really glad.
Re your other point: I do think it might be a little early to frame one and send it to Mum and Dad but, hey, you know best.
Love to Thommo,
Lx
PS I’m fine. Thanks for asking.
I arrived back in the kind of New York blizzard that you see on the news, where only the tops of cars are visible and children sledge down normally traffic-filled streets and even the weather forecasters can’t quite hide their childish glee. The wide avenues were clear, forced into compliance by the mayor, the city’s huge snowplows chugging dutifully up and down the major thoroughfares like gigantic beasts of burden.
I might normally have been thrilled to see snow like that, but my personal weather front was gray and damp, and it hung over me like a chill weight, sucking the joy from any situation.
I had never had my heart broken before, at least not by someoneliving. I had walked away from Patrick knowing deep down that, for both of us, our relationship had become a habit, a pair of shoes you might not really love but wore because you couldn’t be bothered to get new ones. When Will had died I had thought I would never feel anything again.
It turned out there was little comfort to be had in knowing the person you’d loved and lost was still breathing. My brain, sadistic organ that it was, insisted on returning to Sam again and again throughout my day. What was he doing now? What was he thinking? Was he with her? Did he regret what had passed between us? Had he thought of me at all? I had a dozen silent arguments with him a day, some of which I even won. My rational self would butt in, telling me there was no point in thinking about him. What was done was done. I had returned to a different continent. Our futures lay thousands of miles apart.
And then, occasionally, a slightly manic self would intervene with a kind of forced optimism—I could be whoever I wanted! I was tied to nobody! I could go anywhere in the world without feeling conflicted!These three selves could jostle for space in my mind over a few minutes, and frequently did. It was a kind of schizophrenic existence and completely exhausting.
I drowned them. I ran with George and Agnes at dawn, not slowing when my chest hurt and my shins felt like hot pokers. I whizzed around the apartment, anticipating Agnes’s needs, offering to help Michael when he looked particularly overworked, peeling potatoes alongside Ilaria and ignoring her when she harrumphed. I even offered to help Ashok shovel snow off the walkway—anything to stop me having to sit and contemplate my own life. He pulled a face and told me not to be a crazy person: did I want to see him out of a job?
Josh texted me on my third day home, while Agnes was holding up individual shoes in a children’s shop and talking in Polish to her mother on the phone, apparently trying to work out which size she should be purchasing and whether her sister would approve. I felt my phone vibrate and looked down.
—Hey, Louisa Clark The First. Long time no hear. Hope you had a good Christmas. Want to grab a coffee sometime?
I stared. I had no reason not to, but somehow it felt wrong. I was too raw, my senses still full of a man three thousand miles away.
—Hey Josh. Bit busy right now (Agnes runs me off my feet!) but maybe sometime soon. Hope you’re well. L x
He didn’t respond and I felt strangely bad about it.
Garry loaded Agnes’s shopping into the car and then her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her bag and stared at it. She looked out of the window for a moment, then at me. “I forgot I had an art lesson. We have to go to East Williamsburg.”
It was patently a lie. I had a sudden memory of the awful Thanksgiving lunch, with all its revelations, and tried not to let it show on my face. “I’ll cancel the piano lesson, then,” I said evenly.
“Yes. Garry, I have art lesson. I forgot.”
Without a word, Garry pulled the limo onto the road.
—
Garry and I sat in silence in the car park, the engine running quietly to protect us from the chill outside. I felt quietly furious with Agnes for choosing this afternoon for one of her “art lessons” as it meant I was left alone with my thoughts, a bunch of unwelcome houseguests who refused to leave. I put my earphones in and played myself some cheerful music. I used my iPad to organize the rest of Agnes’s week. I played three online Scrabble moves with Mum. I answered an e-mail from Treena, asking whether I thought she should take Eddie to a work dinner or if it was too soon. (I thought she should probably just get on with it.) I gazed outside at the glowering, snow-laden sky and wondered if more was going to fall. Garry watched a comedy show on his tablet, snorting alongside the canned laughter, his chin resting on his chest.
“Fancy a coffee?” I said, when I had run out of nails to chew. “She’s going to be ages, isn’t she?”
“Nah. My doctor tells me I got to cut down on the doughnuts. And you know what happens if we go to the good doughnut place.”
I picked at a loose thread on my trousers. “Want to play I Spy?”
“Are you kidding me?”
