Page 100 of We All Live Here
I’m going to ask one thing: whatever you think of me, please don’t end your relationship with Bill. He had nothing to do with any of it, and he’s going through a rough time just now, and could really do with a friend. Your friendship especially.
I’m so sorry again.
Lila x
It has taken Lila all day to write this letter. She has sat staring at her pen, working and reworking the words, and every one of them still feels inadequate. It feels like the world is full of people betraying each other, or doing each other wrong, and when she finally commits the words to paper, she does so wanting to feel like she is not one of those people. That she can at least own her faults, and shoddy behavior, and apologize for them. She tries not to think about the other reason: that she is still haunted by the way Jensen looked at her, the way she feels his absence all the time. The proprietorial way in which his new girlfriend took his arm and steered him firmly away from her. She feels like the dumbest person in the universe, not because Gabriel fooled her, but because she had been too stupid to see what was right in front of her: this kind, funny, honest man, who had looked at her as if she was something great, and touched her as if she was revered. She keeps remembering the way it had been impossible to be anyone but herself when she was with him. The way he had made her laugh. The deep-rooted sense she had when he was around that everything was basically okay. What had she been thinking?
The wind has picked up during the day, and Lila walks to the postbox with her hair whipping around her face. The rain spits meanly from an angle that feels almost horizontal, and she puts her head down, feeling it reflects her mood. Now, without the distraction of her stupid, misguided infatuation, she is left with nothing but the knowledge of what she has done to a good man, and what she has thrown away.
She had read the letter to Eleanor before she sent it, and Eleanor had murmured,Good,good, in the way that a teacher might approve of a satisfactory piece of work. But a thought keeps nagging at her: why should Jensen trust her words when she has found it so easy to wound him with them before? Gabriel had found it easy to give her the words he thought she wanted—but they had been meaningless at best, misleading atworst. And this is the real reason she took so long to write a simple letter: she is no longer sure she trusts words either. They have become febrile, potentially inflammatory things. All that really matters is how someone makes you feel, and she has made Jensen feel terrible.
Dan had texted the previous evening saying that Marja had been admitted to hospital and he wouldn’t be able to take the girls for the foreseeable. It was a bald text, with no detail, and Lila had sighed inwardly, realizing that this was just another example of how his first family was going to come second from now on. She will tell the girls that he is very busy at work. There is no point in them knowing the degree to which he no longer makes them a priority. She will protect them from that as far as she is able.
She puts the letter into the postbox, and turns to go home, Truant hunched at her heels. He does not like wet weather, and casts baleful glances from the end of the lead. “I know, sweetie,” she murmurs to him, pulling up her collar. “You and me both.” Gabriel, Dan, Gene. So much effort involved in clearing up the damage that their fragile egos have wrought.
There is something exhilarating about the wind, though, she realizes, as she keeps walking: a harbinger of change, or energy. Lila lifts her face to it, feeling her cheeks tingle, watching the leaves chase each other in circles, the umbrellas of passersby turning themselves inside out. She thinks suddenly of what she had said to Gabriel outside the pub, the woman’s face when she had called her “Gorgeousa.” She lets out an involuntary giggle. Eleanor had hooted at that story.
A plastic bin skitters across the pavement in front of her, and she and Truant pause to let it pass. She will make her way through this particular storm. She has been through worse. She will persuade Bill to come home. She will find another way to earn some money and a cheaper place for them to live. She will survive, as she has always done. If these few months have reinforced one thing, it is the knowledge that the onlyperson you can truly rely on is yourself. Lila straightens her shoulders, takes a deep breath and, with renewed determination in her stride, heads toward home.
•••
The girls areoddly peaceful that evening. Perhaps the storm raging outside makes their little home feel cozier, or perhaps they’d just had a reasonable enough day not to bring the usual complaints and cries of unfairness home with them. Celie, who seems relieved that she doesn’t have to go to Dan’s for the foreseeable, is working on some kind of cartoon drawing. She covers it with her arm when Lila brings a mug of cocoa to her room, then pulls it back almost reluctantly and says it’s for Animation Club. Lila peers at the intricate line drawings and wants to punch the air with joy, but nods and says with a carefully calibrated level of approval that they look great, and tries not to be so enthusiastic that her daughter immediately changes her mind about them.
Violet is downstairs watching old episodes ofStar Squadron Zeroon YouTube. She has devoured a whole three seasons now, and Lila observes her from the corner of her eye while she cooks, hoping she’s watching because she enjoys the show and not just because she misses her grandfather. Lila has not been in touch with Gene since he left. What’s the point? She knows how this game goes—he will say sorry, charm the girls, worm his way back into the house for as long as it suits him, then up and leave again. They’re all better off without him. She cooks a roast chicken with mashed potatoes—the girls’ favorite—perhaps to reinforce the idea that they don’t need anyone else around to lead a good life. They eat companionably round the table, listening to the rain spatter on the windows, and Celie manages to last at least half an hour before she gets up and retreats to her room.
Lila is just finishing the washing-up when the call comes. It’s a number she doesn’t recognize, and at first she stares at her phone screen,debating whether or not to pick up. “Hello?” she says, peeling off her rubber gloves.
Penelope’s voice is breathless. “Oh, Lila. Thank goodness. You need to come to the hospital as quickly as you can. It’s Bill.”
•••
Lila lurches herway around the house, trying to gather bag, keys, a coat, tailed by Truant, who has picked up the shift in atmosphere and is now clearly convinced of imminent apocalypse. She manages to get everything together, knocks on Celie’s door and opens it. Celie is still absorbed in her drawing and looks up as if she’s been pulled from a trance.
“I—I’ve got to pop out for a bit. Can you mind Violet?”
“Why? Where are you going?”
She doesn’t want to tell her daughter. She doesn’t want to convey any of what she had heard in Penelope’s voice—that undertow of dread and fear. A suspected heart attack, Penelope had said, a sob in her voice. She had gone round because he hadn’t answered his phone all afternoon and found him. The ambulance had taken so long, too long, to get there.
“I just—”
“Mum.” Celie is staring at her.
“It’s Bill. He’s not well. Penelope has gone with him to hospital. I didn’t want to worry you.”
She sees the fear in Celie’s face. “Penelope is with him. But I need to be there too.”
“Okay,” she says. “You go. Call me when you get there.”
There is something about her daughter’s bravery, the immediate resolve in her expression, even while her eyes are wide with anxiety, that makes Lila’s heart swell. She steps forward and gives Celie a swift, heartfelt hug, breathing in the scent of her hair, feeling her daughter’s hands link briefly around her waist.
“And tell him I love him.”
“I will. Of course I will. The moment I know anything I’ll call you. Will you be okay by yourself?”
Celie pulls back. “Mum. I’m sixteen.”
“I know. Just don’t answer the door. To anyone. If there’s a power cut, the fuse box is under the stairs. Call me and I’ll talk you through it. Or if it’s the whole street you’ll have to check online. Oh, and there are candles in the box under the sink. And don’t use the oven or light anything with a naked—”
