Page 84 of If I Could Say Goodbye
Oscar’s head is lying heavily to the right as we pull up outside Nessa’s, gentle snores escaping his tomato-sauce-stained face.
‘Wait here,’ I say to Hailey. ‘I’ll only be a minute.’ I release the belt buckle and jog up to the front door, checking the car over my shoulder as I do. Hailey waves at me. My hand waves back.
There is no answer.
I walk to the side gate where I can hear the radio playing. Pushing open the gate, I step into the garden, where I see two naked women embracing.
This is going to sound odd, but for a moment, I wonder who the women are. It’s a moment that stretches and snaps into reality in the time it has taken me to take a breath. By the time that breath has exhaled, I have worked out that the naked woman being held by another naked woman is my wife.
Sammy is lying on the bench. I reach for it, hold it tightly and leave the garden.
Oscar is still sleeping; Hailey is playing on her tablet as I start the engine: inside this car, the world is the same as it was a few moments ago.
But the wife that I’m trying to hold on to is slipping further away. Should I carry on holding on, or just let her go?
Chapter Fifty-Four
Jennifer
I wake in my old bedroom. I have a vague memory of Nessa opening us wine, of climbing out of the pool, of a feeling close to drowning as I started to cry. Nessa brought me home: a taxi ride, a conversation with my parents, Nessa murmuring something about me breaking down, a feeling of drowning and of fear . . . I was so scared of losing Kerry again.
My body is slick with sweat. It’s late evening; I can hear birds singing and the rumble of voices beneath me. The panic I felt earlier still sits heavily in my chest.
Kerry is sitting at my old desk, writing in one of her notebooks.‘Hey sleepy head,’ she says, smiling at me.
‘Hey.’ My voice is hoarse and I reach for the bottle of water beside the bed.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘How am I feeling? I’m talking to myself after having a breakdown after dancing naked to the ‘Macarena’ . . . How do you think I am?’
Mum knocks on the door and closes it quietly behind her, sitting down on the bed next to me. ‘Would you like a drink?’
I shake my head.
‘Something to eat?’
I shake my head again.
She brushes back my hair and cups my face. ‘When I first brought you home, I couldn’t stop looking at you. You had a scratch down your cheek.’ Her finger follows the ghost of the memory, outlining an invisible scar. ‘I couldn’t believe how lucky I was, that I had been given this perfect little person to look after. I wanted to protect you, I wanted to stop the world from ever harming you again.’ She wraps her arm around my shoulders. ‘You have to let her go, Jen, you have to let her go.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. But her being here is destroying you.’
‘Have you told Ed about . . . earlier?’
‘We haven’t been able to get hold of him, his phone is off.’
‘Don’t tell him.’
‘Jen, you need to let him help you, he—’
‘OK, but not yet? Please?’ I think of the way he had looked at me at The Nook. I can’t bear for him to look that way at me again. ‘He thinks I’m getting better, Mum, please, he’s got enough to think about looking after the kids.’
‘So what are we going to do with you?’ She rubs the tops of my arms and tries to smile away the catch in her voice.
‘Well, I could start with having a shower and one of your loaded jacket potatoes . . . that might be a start?’
