Page 59 of The Art of Loving You

I closed my eyes.

If you’re here, Jack, show yourself to me. Give me a sign.

Three slow taps to the door.

My aching heart stuttered.

And then, ‘Libby?’ My sister’s voice, the knocks faster this time. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ll be down in a second, Alice. I’m fine.’

But I wasn’t. I could no longer meet my own eyes in the mirror.

I wassucha fool.

Muted voices greeted me when I reached the bottom stair. Snatches of conversation drifting from the snug.

‘She’s not herself …’

‘Counselling …’

‘Some sort of support group …’

‘I’m fine,’ I said with force as I entered the room. I sat heavily in the chair –thechair I thought I saw Jack in – drawing a cushion on my lap and hugging it close to me.

‘We’re worried, Libby. You haven’t seemed quite right since—’

‘You don’t know how it feels to lose someone—’

‘My parents,’ Mum cut me off. ‘I lost both of my parents.’ There was a wobble to her voice. ‘And Idoknow it’s different losing a life partner. Gail Everett – pink meringue Gail—’

‘Shut up.’ The words slithered from my mouth; my voice was calm but cold as metal. I couldn’t stand it any more. I was feeling so much pain I didn’t know what to do with it. Mum’s obvious distress should have been a sticking plaster over my mouth, but it wasn’t. ‘We’re sick of hearing it. Sick of hearing all about your concern for your bloody customers. You know more about their lives than you do about ours. We know more about them than we do about you.’I swallowed hard. ‘You care more about them than you do about us.’ The accusation rushed from me almost before I was sure I wanted to make it.

‘Libby! Of course I don’t!’

‘You trivialise everything me and Alice go through.’ I couldn’t stop myself, even though it wasn’t really her that I was angry at.

‘That isn’t true—’

‘Comparing our experiences to complete strangers—’

‘Enough!’ Alice’s face drained of colour. She placed her hands either side of her small bump as though she could shield her baby’s ears from the shouting. Shame silenced me. Whatever the first impression was that my niece or nephew formed of me, whenever that might be, I didn’t want it to be this. Years of pent-up anger and frustration spewing out onto these dusty wooden floorboards that creaked with a lifetime of memories from those that had trodden them before us.

Norma.

Sid.

He’d be so sad if he heard me and Mum arguing like this.

‘I’m sorry.’ It was only partly true. The timing was terrible but this dark cloud had always hung over my childhood, jammed full of strangers whose names were uttered in our home far more frequently than mine or my sister’s. It was inevitable that one day it would burst.

‘I’m sorry that I’ve ever made you feel that you girls aren’t enough for me when … when it’s the other way around. It’s me who isn’t enough for you.’ A tear trickled down Mum’s cheek.

‘What … what do you mean?’ I fought against a sudden punch of emotion and stood and crossed the room. I had made my mother cry. Quickly, I took her hand. Alice scooched in closer.

‘It’s a bit like when apple Danish Alan Watkins said—’

‘Mum.’ If she was going to rewrite the script of our childhood, she needed to do it from her own point of view. ‘Tell us whatyoufeel.’

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