by Amanda Dick
None of this was fair. We’d just been here a handful of hours ago and he seemed fine. How the hell could any of this be happening?
Maia draped her arm around my waist and practically led me up the driveway. We lingered behind Alex, like some sort of advance funeral procession. When Alex opened the front door, I expected to hear sobbing, or wailing – something. But there was nothing. It was eerie.
I followed Alex up the hallway and into the living room. That’s when my legs forgot what to do. I sagged against the doorframe, Maia’s arm still around my waist. The room was still shrouded in darkness, the curtains still drawn. It took my eyes a few seconds to focus.
I tried not to see him, but I couldn’t help it. He was sitting in his armchair, like he was taking a nap. He had his old brown chequered woollen rug over his legs, his brown leather slippers peeking out from beneath it. His mouth hung open, as if he was in mid-snore. At first glance, he actually looked peaceful.
Bridget was sitting on the floor next to him, holding his hand. I don’t think she saw us. She had her back to us, and I wondered if she’d even heard us come in.
“Mum,” Alex said gently, putting his hand on her shoulder and sitting down beside her on the floor. “Heath’s here.”
My heart was pounding. The room felt empty. Henry was gone and Bridget was a shell. I felt the weight of responsibility bearing down on me, as I’d never felt it before. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to help.
I forced myself to cross the room, and I knelt down in front of Henry’s chair. I made myself look up at him, although I didn’t want to. I didn’t want this to be the last memory I had of him. He deserved more than that. I wanted to scrub the picture out of my mind, but even at that moment, I knew it would be a long time before I’d be able to do that.
Up close like this, he looked old. Unlike in life, he looked his age. He was so still. The only time I’d known him to be this still was when he was giving me a piece of his mind. Then he would be very still, his blue eyes piercing mine. But his eyes were closed now, and he wasn’t talking. He wasn’t breathing.
I missed him already.
“He’s cold,” Bridget murmured, staring at his hand in hers. “I put a blanket on him, to try and keep him warm, but I don’t think it’s helping.”
My throat closed up so I could barely breathe. I nodded, quickly swiping away tears. I needed to stay strong for her.
I glanced over at Alex. He looked completely lost. Gone was the cocky demeanour and the general sulkiness. He looked miserable, but it was a different kind of misery. He looked back at me hopefully, like he expected me to say something that would fix this. If only I could.
I reached over to place my hand on top of Bridget’s. I could feel her trembling. She stopped stroking Henry’s hand and looked at me, but I wished she hadn’t.
Her expression was hollow, as if she was just an empty vessel. The light in her eyes was gone. She looked just like she had after Em disappeared, and the comparison made my insides shrivel up. Her eyes were dry, as if shedding tears was a pointless exercise. As if the grief was a part of her now, and she didn’t want to let go of it. That scared me. Like me, Bridget was the logical one of the family, the one endowed with the sensible gene. She was also the old soul who had it all figured out, the one who could find comfort where there was none.
But not now, not today. Today, she was broken. Today, she was suffering. And there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Memories came flooding back to me, lodging themselves in my heart like tiny splinters.
I missed my Dad every day, even now, all these years later. I was just a kid when he died, I didn’t even know him, not properly, not like a grown man came to know and appreciate the person inhabiting his father’s body.
Was it worse for Bridget, losing her Dad at her stage in life? Was it more painful, coming to know and appreciate her father for the man he was, before losing him? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I knew enough to know it must be tearing her apart inside, just as it had torn me apart. Maybe grief was just grief. No ‘better’ or ‘worse.’
“He’s gone,” she whispered, nodding, as though she knew it, but she couldn’t quite make herself believe it.
I took her in my arms and rocked her slowly from side to side, and she let me. She held onto me as if I was saving her, but I felt grossly inadequate. I wasn’t saving her. I couldn’t. She would have to feel this, just like we did, and she would have to find a way through it.
All I could do was hold her.
HENRY’S KITCHEN WAS like one of those rooms you see in museums. Unchanged since the 1950s, with no modern conveniences such as microwaves and coffee machines. Slightly dark, with café nets hanging in the windows, an old lemon yellow Formica table with chrome legs and matching chairs taking centre stage. Even though it was sizable, it was cosy in the winter, and cool in the summer. It was the heart of the home.
Yet sitting there after the doctor had left, waiting for the funeral director to come, it felt cold and empty.
Henry’s teapot, the old, dinged, aluminium one he favoured, sat on the bench. Maia had offered to make everyone tea and coffee, but there was no coffee in the house, and no one really wanted to drink tea out of his teapot without him here. It felt wrong. Not that we said that out loud. It was a chorus of ‘no thanks, I’m fine.’ Which, of course, was bullshit. We were anything but fine.
I had lost enough people in my life to know that this was the worst time. The waiting. The in-between hours. A death had occurred, but the arrangements had yet to be made. In the meantime, we were in limbo.
I remembered Vinnie and I venturing out from under the bed after Dad died, sitting outside on the back porch. We were at a loose end. Mum was inconsolable and everyone seemed to have their hands full with her. We were just kids. We didn’t know what to do with our grief, or where to put ourselves.
I felt the same way now.
Bridget was in a world of her own, and it was Alex and I that had dealt with the doctor and called the funeral director. For once, Bridget seemed incapable of anything. Maia tried to talk to her, to offer some support, but Bridget wasn’t ready for that yet. She was still processing. I could tell, I recognised the signs. It wasn’t like when Em disappeared. Things don’t happen the same way when dealing with a missing person. There are interviews, details that need to be obtained, an endless flood of questions. It all seems to happen slowly, methodically.
This felt more sudden, like a shove. A punch. A knife to the heart.
I went over and over every single thing that happened when we were here yesterday. Jesus. Yesterday seemed like a lifetime ago. He was chatty, I remember that. I wonder if he knew, somehow? Was he scared? Was it peaceful? Was it sudden?
I leant forward, grief grabbing me from behind and forcing the air out of my lungs.
I didn’t even hear Maia come into the room. She knelt down beside me and worked her way into my arms, holding me just when I thought I was going to snap from the weight of grief. She rubbed my back gently, and I closed my eyes.
At the heart of the matter, I just couldn’t imagine a world without Henry in it.
“I’m not going to ask you how you’re doing,” she murmured into my shoulder. “Seems like a stupid question.”
Yeah, it did. We sat there like that for the longest time. I didn’t want to move. I wanted the clocks to stop and the world to stop spinning until I had a chance to deal with this.
“Where’s Alex?” I mumbled.
“In the living room with Bridget.”
Alex had been incredible over the past hour. He was sober, for one thing. And he had barely left Bridget’s side. We seemed to have formed a silent truce, putting the animosity of the past few years behind us. There didn’t seem to be any point right now. Bridget needed all of us. I just hoped he was planning on sticking around, and staying sober. I couldn’t deal with him acting like an asshole, not right now.
“I should call Vinnie and Jas,”
I whispered into Maia’s hair.
“Do you want me to call them?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll do it. I’ll wait for the funeral director to get here first.”
“What are we going to do about the café?”
Oh God. The café. I hadn’t even given it a second thought. I bet Bridget hadn’t either. “I don’t know. Maybe we should just put a sign up on the door – closed due to family bereavement, or something.”
“Good idea.”
She pulled away, looking up at me with her beautiful hazel eyes, creased with concern. “You look like you could do with something strong to drink.”
I huffed out a laugh. “You’re not wrong. But it’s not even nine yet, and I don’t want to tempt Alex.”
“Good point,” she sighed. “I never even thought of that.”
I rested my hands on her shoulders, tears building behind my eyes. “The only thing I really need right now is you.”
“Well then, you’re in luck. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
I drew her into my arms again as the tears threatened to fall. I didn’t want to lose it, not yet, not while there were still things to do. The longer I could hold off feeling – anything – the better it would be for all of us.
“We need to seriously do something about finding out about your past,” I said. “We need to start the process, at least. Ask questions, research – whatever it takes.”
It kept playing on my mind, the fact that Henry might’ve died not knowing that Maia was Emily and that she was home with us finally. It wasn’t fair.
Either she was Emily, or she wasn’t. If she wasn’t, that would answer that question. Then all we had to do was find out who she was. It was a massive undertaking, and one I still wasn’t sure we could accomplish, but we didn’t have a choice. Maia needed answers, and so did we.
I heard footsteps down the hall, and Alex came up behind us, walking over to the sink. He stood at the window, peering out through the net curtains into the backyard. Maia carefully pulled away from me, sitting herself down at the table beside me instead.
“How’s your Mum?” I asked quietly.
Maia was right. Why do people even ask that? Maybe it’s because we don’t really know what else to say.
He shrugged, his back to us still.
“Do you want a cup of tea or a glass of water or something?” Maia asked, standing up. “People drink tea at times like this don’t they? Come on, give me something to do. I can’t sit around here doing nothing anymore.”
I hesitated for a moment, but she was right. It was good to keep busy. This sitting around, waiting, staring at each other, wasn’t helping.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Alex turned around and leaned back against the bench. “Alright. Can I give you a hand?”
“That’d be great,” she smiled. “I don’t know where anything is.”
Alex walked over to the kettle, checked the water level and switched it on. He looked like he was moving through quicksand. I could definitely relate. Just standing up from the table was an effort.
Maia began opening cupboards. “Where does he keep the tea?”
Keep, not kept. Like he’d just stepped out of the room, not gone forever. Here, but not here.
I pointed to the far right-hand cupboard. “In there, the second shelf.”
She opened it and brought the box of tea-leaves over to the bench. She picked up the oversized teaspoon he kept in the box. “How many of these spoons?”
“Two,” Alex said immediately.
I watched her carefully spoon two shovels of tea-leaves into the pot, just as I’d watched Henry do a million times before. I got up and grabbed mugs for the four of us out of the cupboard on the other side of the kitchen, putting them on the bench.
“Do you think Bridget would like one?” she asked.
“Make one anyway,” Alex said. “She might drink it if it’s there.”
Maia nodded, leaning against the kitchen bench and waiting for the kettle to boil. Alex and I sat down at the table again. The noise of the boiling kettle echoed through the house, and it felt wrong, out of place.
Not right, just like this whole surreal morning.
“Does it freak you out?” Alex asked, as if reading my mind. “That he’s still in the living room?”
I tried to think straight even though I was exhausted from doing nothing but thinking this past hour or so.
“No, not really,” I said, as the kettle cranked up a notch. “I mean, it’s not really him, is it.” I looked back towards the living room, where Bridget sat with Henry. “I mean, it’s his body, but you can tell he’s not in there anymore.”
I turned back around and Alex nodded, staring at his hands, clasped on the table in front of him. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”
The air seemed charged around us, as the kettle got louder and louder.
“I’ve never seen a dead body before,” he said, almost to himself.
I looked over at Maia as she wiped tears from her eyes.
“Neither have I,” I said honestly.
Alex continued to stare at his hands. “They’re gonna want to take him away. The funeral director guy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They have to.”
“She’s not gonna want them to,” he said, looking up at me.
He was right. We hadn’t been able to get Bridget to leave Henry’s side since we arrived.
“We’ll have to convince her.”
He nodded and went back to staring at his hands. The kettle whistled, then switched itself off. Maia poured the boiled water into the teapot and put the lid on, turning the pot a couple of times before leaving it to steep.
“I’m going to ask her if she wants to come through here and have a cup of tea,” she said, walking over to the door. “Maybe we can ease her away slowly, then it won’t be so much of a wrench when the time comes.”
She squeezed my shoulder as she passed, this woman of mine with the heart of gold. She’d been a rock all morning. I had no idea where I’d have been without her.
Alex sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair and leaning back on the seat. I knew he was hurting too, but he was keeping a lid on it for now. Probably for the same reason I was.
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
He looked up at me, and I was damned if I could decipher his expression. Something half-way between anxiety and heartache. It made me nervous, like I was waiting for the hammer to fall.
“The night Em disappeared, she called me.”
The words floated just beyond my reach for several seconds. When I finally grabbed hold of them, I felt sick.
“What?”
He swallowed, and it sounded like a sonic boom in the quiet kitchen. “She called me but I didn’t hear the phone. I didn’t know until the next day. There it was, just sitting there, staring at me. Missed call from Emily.”
He spoke the last few words in a voice that didn’t sound like his. His head was bowed low now, as though holding it upright was beyond his capabilities.
That was the first I’d heard of any phone call. Right through the investigation, and the endless questions, and the going over and over and over what happened that night, no one had ever mentioned anything about a phone call.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Does Latimer know? Did you tell the cops?”
“Yeah.”
What the hell did he expect me to do with this information? I went back over the night she disappeared, stirring around my memories and combining them with the facts I’d learnt since, and trying to figure out where this phone call fitted in. Had she called him to come and pick her up? Was that it? Was she looking for a lift home, trying everyone she knew? Was he the only one she called, or were there others? Why had this never come up before?
“I let her down,” he croaked, and I realised he was crying, even though his head was still bent so low
I couldn’t see his face. “She needed my help, and I wasn’t there for her.”
Was this a confession? An apology? Or something else?
“I fuckin’ hate myself,” he whispered, his shoulders shaking as silent sobs shook his body.
I wanted to comfort him, but I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say that would help. I didn’t even know if that’s what he wanted from me.
I threw caution to the wind and reached over to put my hand on his arm. It took a few moments for him to get control again, and he sniffed, wiping the back of his other hand under his nose. Then he pulled his arm away.
“I just wanted you to know,” he said, sniffing again.
I was more confused than ever. “Why?”
“Because you’re not the only one who let her down. I’ve been acting like you are because it hurts so bloody much, I didn’t know what to do with it.”
For the first time in almost five years, he was speaking a language I could understand. I understood hurt and I understood guilt. He was giving me a gift here – insight. He was opening up to me and I had the opportunity to do something right. I had the chance to make a difference. It’s what Em would’ve wanted me to do.
“You’re not going to find the answer to any of this at the bottom of a bottle,” I said carefully. “Trust me, I’ve already looked.”
He sighed, his whole body sagging as his hands sank back into his lap. It was as if his body was caving in on itself, crushed beneath the weight of devastating loss. I knew that feeling, too.
“This drinking shit’s got to stop. It’s not the answer.”
“Then what is?” he asked, looking over at me again.
I shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t know. You just put one foot in front of the other and you keep moving. Getting pissed is just hiding from it. The pain’s still there when you sober up, and by then you’ve got a shitload of other problems to deal with, on top of everything else.”
He looked tempted to believe me, but I didn’t think he was quite there yet.
“You’ve got people all around you who want to help,” I said honestly. “Just let them. You don’t have to do this by yourself. None of us have. We’re leaning on each other, all the damn time. It’s the only thing that gets us through the day sometimes.”
