Page 112 of The Truth About You and Me
Riz
I close the letter, reeling.
Kingston talks through the next steps and I follow him out, closing the door behind him, and stand still outside this empty house waiting to be filled.
I walk back to my flat, my mind full of all the things I’ve seen, that I have been told, her words and the vast empty rooms that I had seen through her eyes brimming with laughter and music and friends and love. How can I own a house like that and do it justice? Do Riz justice? I slide the key in the door and look around at my small space crammed with souvenirs and pictures of places I’ve never been to; to the bookshelf filled with DVDs of fake lives that I’ve fake-lived from in front of a screen.
None of this is real.
Not one part of this house reveals my life. My memories. My experiences. My home is a set, a carefully choreographed collection of things to make it look like a home when in reality none of it belongs to me.
I bend down and pick up the pile of bills and flyers. My hand stops shuffling and I stare at the postcard in my hand. It’s Ferris Bueller, lying back in a white T-shirt with the slogan talking about life moving by quickly, advising you to look around before you miss it.
I turn the card over – today’s date and time for the opening of Jack’s shop. How long has this been sitting on the hall floor?
Every part of me wants to go, to walk into his shop and hold him in my arms. But I can’t. Too many people. Too many thoughts, memories and emotions that don’t belong to me. Even with the progress I’ve been making with Phillip, I know I can’t do it. And it’ll hurt too much to say goodbye to Jack again.
I drop the card.
And fall to my knees.
Find the key. Open the door, Maggie love.
I look down at my open palms, to the hands that have read and stolen people’s most private thoughts and emotions.
Take all of those holes and cracks that are holding you back… and find a way to mend them.
I look down to the creases and lines branching across my palms, my own life etched out in front of me… waiting.
I take a deep breath. Focus on my ability. Just as I did when I tried to help Jack find the answers he needed. It’s time for me to stop listening to the thoughts around me. I need to turn up the volume, to feel, to see, and to listen to myself.
I wrap my hands around my body. My movements intentional. My focus sharp.
My mind centres. I listen to the sound of my breath, the low steady beat of my heart inside my chest, the way my skin feels beneath my fingers: soft, cool, taut.
I close my eyes.
I picture my hand reaching for the dial. And slowly, while I concentrate on my breathing, I turn up the volume higher, past two, three, four, taking my time until the dial reaches ten in the hope that’s enough to hear the echoes of memories that have been buried for so long.
I lived in a small house.
There was a path.
A cherry blossom tree.
An image comes… blurry at first, but becoming sharper the more I listen, the more I take myself inside my own mind. I walk along the path that leads to a small cottage with the cherry blossom tree outside. The key is heavy in my pocket; my fingers lock around it. I hear the clunk as I slide it in the keyhole, the click of the mechanism as the door swings open.
Flashes of a little girl, ofme, of something I’ve pushed down inside for so long, bursts free from somewhere deep within me.
I’m sitting on a knee, a story about an enchanted wood is being read. I look at the woman.
Mummy.
Her face rips through my emotions, long curly hair, green eyes gleaming up at me. She passes me a cuddly toy in the shape of a fish.
What shall we call him?
Her voice. The cadence of her words, a soft accent, a Cornish burr.
