Page 47 of You Only Live Once
I sat down heavily on the kitchen chair. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He’s your dog. At least, he should be.’
I looked at Jack, looked at the dog then looked back at Jack. ‘Did I not eat enough at lunchtime today? Am I hallucinating?’
‘Look.’ Jack came and crouched down in front of me. The dog followed him and sat obediently beside him. ‘He’s a great dog and would be company for you. It could help you get back in out into the world. You said you enjoyed doing those walks and what better excuse could there be to have a dog to take on those walks? He’d be company and it forces you out.’
‘You said he ate the furniture!’
‘That was just one time.’
‘One time is enough!’
‘It was a long time ago and he was bored. They weren’t treating him right. You would. You’ve got a beautiful big garden for him to run around in and you’d walk him. He’d be in heaven here, and I think it would do you good.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’
I stood up, pushing Jack out of the way, doing my best to hold my temper. ‘I mean no. I don’t want a dog, and I don’t want people making decisions about what they think is best for me without even consulting me. I’m not a child.’
‘Nobody said you were a child, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to help you.’
‘I don’t need help.’
‘Everybody needs help at one time or another. And you said you enjoyed going out on the walks, but since that stupid article hit the papers, you’ve shut yourself away again.’
‘It’s nothing to do with that,’ I snapped, feeling the colour rise from my chest as it always did when I tried to tell a fib.
Jack rested back against the door, watching me, and I felt as if he could see straight through me.
‘It’s not. Look, I’m happy to have you here and it’s been working fine until now, but you can’t go around making decisions for me, thinking you know what’s right for me when you barely know me at all.’
‘I know you better than you think I do, not that you make that easy for anybody.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you’ve shut yourself away since your husband died and you locked up your heart as well. There are good people out there and all they want to do is help you.’
‘I don’t need help,’ I repeated.
‘Right. So you’re just going to sit here on your own, year after year, wasting the life that was spared that day?’ He snatched the cap off his head as he spoke. His voice had risen in volume now and his eyes had darkened in anger.
‘If I choose to do that, that’s my decision. It’s got nothing to do with you and you have absolutely no say in it.’
‘Do you think this is how your husband would want you to live?’
‘Don’t you dare bring my husband into this! You don’t know anything about him.’
‘I know that if he loved you, which he obviously did, he wouldn’t want you to be living like this. He’d want you to enjoy the life that you got to keep.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t want to keep it!’ I spat back at him. ‘Did you ever think of that? Did you ever think that I wish day after day, night after night, that I’d stayed at that table so I didn’t have to experience all this pain, or live like this? I found the person for me and then the world took him away. What was the point of it all? What was the point of all that happiness if it was just going to be snatched away? It would have been better for everybody if I’d just stayed at that table with him instead.’
‘Don’t say that.’ Jack’s voice was soft now and he made to take a couple of steps towards me, but I kept the distance by moving backwards. He stopped, getting the message.
‘You wouldn’t understand. You couldn’t.’
‘You’re right, and I don’t pretend to. But you deserve to live, Lily. None of that was your fault.’
