Page 69 of If I Could Say Goodbye
‘I don’t know,’ I reply honestly. ‘As long as it takes for . . . Grandpa to get better.’
‘Will the doctors help, um, him?’
I swallow and nod. ‘They will and then, once Grandpa has had some time to heal, I’ll be able to come home.’
‘And will he be fixed? Will he, you know, be normal again?’ Her question pulls my body straight, makes my heart speed up. I start to open my mouth, but no sound comes out.
‘Grandpa will be better before we know it. Right, we’d better get going or all the good seats will be gone.’
Hailey pushes her glasses up her nose and nods at Ed. Her arms link behind my neck and she gives me a nose-to-nose kiss. ‘Bye, Mummy.’
‘Bye, pudding.’ I kiss her on the head.
Oscar is still in his Batman pose by the door. ‘I’m Batman,’ he reiterates, then runs from the room.
‘Say bye to Mummy!’ Ed shouts after him.
‘Bye!’ His voice chases after him, Hailey following. She gives me a concerned smile and leaves the room. I stand and tuck my hands into my back pockets. Ed rubs the tops of my arms, leaning in and touching his forehead against mine.
‘I love you.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow after I drop the kids off. The doctor’s appointment is at ten.’ He pulls me towards his chest, pushes a kiss onto my scalp, and leaves the room.
When I wake, I’m disorientated. Red coat, red boots, emerald ring and then, this time, Hailey’s face: eyes wide, skin pale.
I should have died.
The words inside are deeper. I close my eyes and picture the capital ‘I’: it looks more determined than yesterday, more elaborately looped. The sentence is becoming stronger . . . and more beautiful.
I sit up and pull my phone towards me. Outside, the clouds have covered the sun and rain has begun to tap against the window. There are messages from Ed, photos on WhatsApp of him and the kids in the cinema and another of him holding a burnt piece of toast with a confused look on his face. I smile and reply that I miss him.
My parents are in the kitchen. Dad is stirring instant gravy in a glass jug and Mum is setting the table.
‘Pie and chips OK, love?’ Mum asks.
‘I’m not really hungry, I think I might—’
‘Sit down, Jennifer.’ As usual, Dad’s voice is insistent but somehow not confrontational, and I do as he says.
I wait until the dinner is plated before I try to make small talk. ‘They say the weather is taking a turn for the worse.’ I concentrate on chasing the gravy around the plate with a chip.
‘We don’t want to talk about the weather,’ Mum says calmly. ‘We want to talk about you. Now—’
Dad reaches for the salt, which Mum takes from him with a shake of her head; he sighs in response.
‘Start from the beginning. When did you first start seeing Kerry?’
I push my plate away and stare at the pattern beneath the track I have made in the gravy. It’s blue and depicts a horse and carriage and a woman wearing a bonnet. ‘I don’t know. At first I thought they were just memories, you know? But then somewhere along the line they stopped being memories and started being . . . Kerry. When she first died, I kept talking to her, I couldn’t see her then, but I just wanted to know she was . . . OK. Even though she is dead. Crazy, right?’
‘No, love. We’ve all done that. I asked her to move the curtain.’ Mum cuts into her pastry. ‘That’s what you do when you’re grieving.’
‘Did she?’ I ask. My eyes are focused on the woman in the bonnet but I raise my eyes in time to see the look that passes between them.
‘No.’
‘I see her move things.’ I look up to where Kerry is stealing a chip from my plate and dipping it into the gravy. I watch as the gravy swirls around it; I watch as a drip falls from the end as it disappears into her mouth with a grin.
