Page 52 of The Shape of Your Heart
‘So you’ve all been discussing me?’ I sit back. ‘Look, I know you mean well. But I’m perfectly happy where I am.’
My mother is silent for a moment. ‘The thing is… Don’t you want a home of your own? And a job? I know you have the bookshop, but wouldn’t you like something a little more challenging? You know what it’s like around here. Nothing happens.’
‘As it happens, I have been offered another job,’ I say loftily. ‘Quite an interesting one. I’ll tell you more about it once it’s confirmed.’
* * *
‘They all gossip about me,’ I tell Tanith when I get to the pub. ‘Not in a horrible way, because they care – just in athey know best for mekind of way.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Tell me about it. Every frigging day, my mother has something to say about the boys. I’m either too strict or too soft, I feed them the wrong food, I let them watch too much TV…’
‘If I win the lottery, I’ll buy you a house,’ I reassure her.
‘Thanks, Cal. But that’s not bloody likely though, is it?’ She glances towards the bar. ‘Shall I get us another?’
When she comes back, I have an idea to run past her. ‘Early next year, I’m going away for a while. If you want, you can house-sit for me.’
‘Really?’ Her eyes widen. ‘Where are you going?’
I tell her about the walk and the reasons I’m going. ‘I’ll probably be away about five or six weeks. On one condition, though – you’ll have to look after the garden.’
‘Anything,’ she says immediately. ‘Six weeks away would be utter bliss.’
‘That’s sorted, then.’ I pause for a moment. ‘There’s something else, too. You know, I miss Liam. I’ll always miss him.’ My voice wavers. ‘But it really does feel like something’s changing – like I’m less stuck, is probably the best way of describing it.’
‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’ Tanith sounds sympathetic. ‘If you’re slaying the demon that guilt is?’
‘Weird, isn’t it? You get so used to living with guilt, that when it starts to fade, you feel guilty about that, too.’
‘It’s a pointless emotion,’ Tanith says sternly. ‘But I think you’ve worked it out. It isn’t wrong to want to live. Just a bloody shame it takes us such a long time to get there. But love makes fools of us,’ she says savagely. ‘Complete bloody useless, simpering fools. God, I hated myself when I lost my husband.’
‘That day…’ I think of the day Liam died. ‘It was a coinciding of so many variables that meant the crash happened. I’ve thought so many times that if Liam had left the house earlier – or later, or if the other car had been driving just a little slower, or even if we hadn’t been getting married.’ I gaze at Tanith. ‘If any one of those things had been different, Liam would probably still be alive.’
‘You can’t think like that.’ Tanith shakes her head. ‘I mean, given the traffic, pollution, the crap we put into our bodies, it’s more of a miracle that any of us survive. If his time was up, it would have happened one way or another.’
I stare at her as though she’s mad. ‘Tanith. We’re talking about an accident.’
‘I know.’ Picking up her glass, she sips her wine. ‘But think about the bigger picture for a moment. Our lives are everything to each one of us. But in the context of the timeline of the planet… Unless we do something remarkable, we don’t make any significant difference to anything – at least, most of us don’t.’ She shrugs. ‘Our lives are soon forgotten about.’
I frown. ‘That’s a little bleak. Don’t you like your life?’
Tanith pauses. ‘Of course I do. I bloody love it. I love my kids even more. But if you believe – as I do – that before we come to earth, we choose our lives, beyond the day-to-day stuff, it’s about experiencing what needs to happen in order for us to fulfil what we came here for. I don’t know – but maybe Liam had achieved what he’d set out to.’
But she’s got it wrong. ‘Liam had plans. He wasn’t done. It’s just so sad he ran out of time.’
She frowns. ‘In one way, of course it is. There’s another possibility.’ Tanith looks at me.
‘What’s that?’
‘He gave you what you needed,’ she says quietly. ‘Because of him, you know what love is. And I know it’s been really tough, but losing him and everything else that’s happened this last year, has made you the person who you are now.’
But it’s too much for me. ‘That’s fine if you believe that we live a number of lifetimes. Personally, I don’t. We’re born, we live, we die. That’s it. There isn’t anything else after that.’
Tanith looks outraged. ‘Now who’s being bleak?’
I stand my ground. ‘Actually, I’m being a realist. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve sat at Liam’s grave and asked for a sign?’
Tanith sounds interested. ‘And did you get one?’
