by Holly Miller
I’ve added the dessert spoon from the restaurant to my small collection of memories, the things that will forever remind me of us. The hotel shampoo from Hugo’s wedding. The collar from the abandoned dog Joel saved, that bravely pulled through in the end. The tractor T-shirt’s in there too, because I can no longer bear to wear it, and the note Joel wrote urging me to apply for the job at Waterfen. Jewelry he’s given me, the glasses and carafe from Christmas the year before last. A bittersweet medley of our time together, short as it was. A story only half told.
76.
Joel—eleven months after
You’re a natural.”
“You think?”
“Look at the way he’s gazing at you,” Tamsin says. “Sure you don’t fancy moving in, letting us sleep for six months? We’ll pay.”
I smile, bounce Harry up and down on my knee. Miraculously, he’s stopped yelling, though we definitely can’t relax yet. He’s not exactly gazing. I’d say he’s scrutinizing my face while considering his next move. Master tacticians, babies.
“Actually, Joel, I do need your help with something. Non-child-care-related.”
“Go for it.”
“It’s to do with the other day. When you called and told me not to get on the tube.”
I saw the tube station in a dream, only a few hours ahead of time. A massive stampede, blind panic, screaming. I couldn’t make out the station, but I did know Tamsin was due to visit an old uni friend in London that day with Amber and Harry. (I had no idea at that point why the stampede started, or how. Had nothing at all I could bother TfL with.)
“Oh, that.” I bounce Harry up and down again, talk directly at him. Pull a series of astonished expressions, like people do when they’re playing for time.
“Yeah, that. You see, I’m a bit confused.”
“About what?”
“About how you could possibly have known. You rang me hours before it happened.” The thing was covered widely on the news, took over social media for most of the day.
A trapped-wing flutter inside my chest. “I told you. It was just a feeling.”
“Come on, Joel.”
I remember what Callie said to me on Boxing Day nearly two years ago. About my visions being a gift. And her words as she was leaving the restaurant.
Just . . . trust people to love you, Joel.
I glance at my sister. She looks pretty no-nonsense today (hair pulled back, khaki dress, kick-ass boots), but old habits die hard. Years of keeping the words in, burying my secrets.
“I’m going to tell you something now,” she says.
I swallow, uneasy. Isn’t that my line? “Okay.”
“Remember when I was here last year, and I told you I was pregnant? Just before I left, I went to use the loo.”
I raise my eyebrows at Harry again. Say nothing.
“Well, when I came out you guys were in the hallway, and I heard Callie saying to you, A brother for Amber. And Harry’s just perfect.”
I stare at the blue-eyed culprit in front of me. Come on, Harry. Now’s your moment. Scream, fill your nappy. Projectile vomit if you have to. Anything.
“Anyway, I was really confused. I’d always known if I had a boy I’d want to call him Harry, but I’d never told you that.” Her gaze glides over me. “So I started to think, and add things up—your supposed paranoia, your anxiety all these years. You knowing Harry’s name and gender before I did. The tube. Your skittishness, how you were after Mum died.”
“Okay,” I say, rubbing Harry’s chubby arms with my hands. He almost looks as if he’s smiling now, the cheeky little beggar. Clearly he has zero intention of helping his favorite uncle out. “Okay.”
“I know I always tease you for being a bit . . .”
“I know.”
“. . . but you can trust me, Joel. You can tell me anything.”
I meet her eye for just a second. A few months ago, Dad and I told Tamsin and Doug about Warren. It ran a razor blade through my soul, to watch my sister cry the way she did that day. This has been one of the hardest and weirdest times of my life, filled with arguments, accusations, questions. And now here I am, about to put her love to the test all over again.
But, ultimately, I know Tamsin’s world is one of optimism. Of straight, sunlit paths; of long, sweeping bends. She refuses to believe in cliff edges and dead ends, darkened corners. She thinks anything is surmountable, and for her so far it has been. If ever I needed proof of that, it was telling her we were only half-related. Because in the end she accepted the whole thing fully and generously, let absolutely nothing between us change.
So I take a breath and then a leap. Hold my nephew close. Keep talking. “I see . . . what’s going to happen, Tam. To the people I love. In my dreams. I see the future play out, hours, days, weeks in advance.”
Harry gurgles skeptically, which is fair enough. But Tamsin’s sitting very still. She puts a hand to her mouth, eyes bright with tears.
“Please believe me,” I whisper. I didn’t realize until now how much I need her to.
“I knew it,” she says slowly. “All this time . . . I mean, I knew it, Joel.”
“How?” My voice barely grazes the air.
Her mouth gapes. She shrugs wildly, like I’ve asked her to explain why we need oxygen. “You’re never surprised. By anything. You’ve always got a subtle warning here, a casual suggestion there. You always seem to know . . . when we’ve had an argument or something’s happened. And last week, when Dad . . .”
“Yes,” I say quietly. Having dreamed about his particularly violent stomach bug (lucky me), I asked him, without thinking, over Sunday lunch how he was. Forgot he’d not actually told any of us. I brushed it off quickly, insisted he had. But I felt Tamsin watching me.
“It’s all been adding up, over the years, and then with Harry, and the tube . . .”
Harry makes a starfish with his hand, reaches for my nose. I dip my head, let his fingers touch my face.
“Is it medical?”
“Inherited,” I confess. “I got it from Warren.”
Tamsin swears on the exhale. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Joel? It’s me, for God’s sake. You could have trusted me.” I have a sense that if I weren’t holding her son, she might choose this moment to chuck something at my head.
“It’s hardly standard information, Tam. And I didn’t want to risk my relationship with you. I couldn’t have dealt with that, especially after Mum. Me and you . . . we were always so close.”
“Which is exactly why you should have told me.” Tamsin rummages in her handbag, withdraws a pack of tissues. “Joel, is this why Callie left?”
In my arms, Harry does a great impression of an earthworm angling for air. “Sort of,” I tell her, because of course I can’t give her the full story. “But it wasn’t her fault.”
We carry on talking well into the evening, until Harry makes it clear that he really would like us to wrap things up.
Tamsin hugs me hard when she leaves, assures me she’s here for me. Insists she’ll always love me. She tries to say, too, that she’s sure I can work things out with Callie.
It’s the only point in almost three hours at which I nearly lose it.
But I don’t. I wait until she leaves before I let myself break down.
* * *
• • •
It’s been nearly a year now. I knew that night in the restaurant had to be the last time we saw each other. But, somehow, I still can’t believe it actually was. That I can’t now roll over and touch her arm in bed. Kiss her on the sofa when she says something lovely. Feel a high-five in my stomach when she doubles up with laughter over a joke I’ve made.
I still give all our haunts a wide berth. I can’t risk running into her, jeopardizing my resolve. Warren’s suggested that if I’m craving a way to feel close to her, I should book myself in
to the wellness retreat she gave me a voucher for two years ago. It’s expired now, of course. But perhaps he’s right. Maybe if I went there, it would be a comfort somehow. A quiet connection to her again, like hands linking up in the dark.
But I know I’m not ready. Maybe one day I will be. But not yet.
Still, wellness comes in many forms. A couple of months back, Steve asked me to try training with him. He suggested I start with one of his odious riverside boot-camp sessions (using telling phrases like All levels and Your own pace and No judgment). After some pestering, I agreed. Because I had to do something to stop myself thinking about her.
It was the boxing drills I got the most from. Punching out my anger, swinging my fists with frustration. I’d think about the impossible waste of it all while I was punching. Why, why, why, why, why? Then, when I was done, I’d have to crouch to the floor so the person holding the pads wouldn’t see that I was close to tears.
Spotting my slightly dysfunctional preference for using my fists, Steve invited me to the gym proper. So three times a week now I’m one-on-one with my old friend, punching the whole thing out. Steve just stands there, pads raised, sturdy as steel.
It helps, a bit. Not just to unleash my anguish, but to feel I’m not alone.
77.
Callie—eleven months after
Late in the afternoon on my first full day in Lauca National Park, I’m crouched covertly low to the ground, my guide Ricardo at my side. I bumped into him last night in the lobby of my hostel, binoculars around his neck, explaining to a couple of other travelers what was so special about the park. To my dismay they quickly glazed over, but I was enthralled.
So I caught him as he was leaving, asked about the bird I was desperate to find. I could hire him as a guide the next day, he said, instantly animated. I might have to work in with a few other sightseers but, yes, he could take me to see that bird, and whatever else piqued my interest along the way. He high-fived me before he left, which would have utterly convinced me if I weren’t already sold.
The temperature’s sliding now, and even wrapped up in my coat and hat, I’m on the verge of a shiver. Though that could just be excitement, the thrill of anticipation.
We’re gazing over the boundless rocky moonscape of the altiplano, across rambling hummocks of vegetation and a theatrical skyline, the air growing earthy as it cools.
“There,” Ricardo says, lowering his binoculars so he can point. “You see?”
A gust of wind jerks my hands as I raise the binoculars Ricardo’s lent me, train my sight on the diademed sandpiper-plover perched atop a clod of earth in the cushion bog.
Finally, it departs the branches of my imagination. I’d know it anywhere—that white belly with the faint black barring. The fawn wings and black head, patched red at the back, like a blotch of rust.
After all these years.
My heart is soaring, helium-high. I am spellbound, breathing gasps of joy, my eyes laced with tears. To be looking at something so scarce, so precious—to have such a rare experience—is unmatched by anything I’ve encountered in the natural world before.
“You see it, Callie?” Ricardo says again.
“I see it,” I whisper, my voice shaking with delight. “I see it.”
“Shall I take a picture?”
I think of Dave and smile. If you ever get a picture, make sure you send it to me. “No,” I tell Ricardo, fumbling for my camera. “No, I’ll do it.”
We sit together for nearly twenty minutes, taking pictures and exchanging observations as the bird begins to move, lowering its beak to forage for bugs and grubs in the bog. My mind is buffeted by the sight of it, dwarfed beneath this towering panorama—the formidable volcanoes with their snow-dipped peaks, a crayon-blue sky where condors soar. A landscape that feels almost cosmic, extraterrestrial. I am surrounded by the vastness of nature, and I take two or three rich breaths, trying to reel in the moment like a prize.
“You okay?” Ricardo looks concerned. He’s been hypervigilant about altitude sickness, carries oxygen in the back of the 4x4.
I nod.
“Headache?”
“No, I’m fine, just . . . trying to take it all in. So I don’t forget.”
“You won’t.” Ricardo smiles, with a shrug that says Because that would be impossible.
He’s right, of course. It’s like the hot black road we took to get here was a highway to another planet—one that exists far beyond the gravity of Joel and me, and everything we’ve lost. To be here is to forget my pain, fulfill a dream.
Liam would love it, I think, this edge-of-the-world terrain with its shrill chorus of winds.
“Shall we go and get the others?” Ricardo says eventually, gesturing back at the 4x4. He means the three other travelers from my hostel, who were interested in finding the thermal springs up the road, but not my little bird.
I don’t want to leave—I could stay out here all night, shelter beneath the swathes of stars—but the thermal springs will be closing soon. “Thank you,” I tell Ricardo, “for showing me. I’ve wanted to see it for so many years.”
“If we’re quick,” he says, “we might still catch some flamingos.”
* * *
• • •
My trips out with Ricardo in the 4x4 over the next few days bring about a series of wondrous encounters—vicunas and llamas, alpacas and deer, rich scatterings of birds. Together we explore, picnicking on the toes of volcanoes, hiking up to marvel at lagoons. I am treated to yawning canyons and bright rivers, to immense picturesque plateaus, and I soak up every scrap of Ricardo’s expertise. I’ll always be grateful for the incredible things he’s shown me.
My first time beyond Europe, and my eyes are now wide open to the world.
* * *
• • •
“So where’s your next stop?”
It’s my last night here before I journey west to Arica for three days, then south to the Atacama Desert via more national parks. After that, on to Santiago for three nights before flying home, concluding my three-week trip. I’m in a bar in Putre with Aaron, another traveler from the hostel, who invited me out for a drink. I said yes because I’ve seen him around and he seems friendly enough. Plus I fancied the company.
We’ve chatted casually over the last few days. Originally from Cape Town, Aaron works in Rio but is touring South America for a few weeks by himself. Charismatic and quick, he seems interested in me, and makes me belly-laugh, but . . . he’s just a little too perfect. He’s tall and athletic, energetic and charming, all winks and cheekbones, flawless in the way that Piers seemed to be when I first met him. I prefer to see a person’s kinks, I think. You don’t get such a shock that way, when the dazzle of the early days first begins to dim.
I outline my itinerary, then ask Aaron what his plans are. He’s heading off in the opposite direction to me, across the border into Bolivia. He says I can come if I want to. And maybe if things were different—if I didn’t still feel so raw about Joel—I might consider it, do something a bit crazy.
But I know the way to get over Joel isn’t to supplant him with someone else. So I lean across and peck Aaron on the cheek, thank him for the excellent wine, wish him safe travels.
* * *
• • •
En route to Heathrow a week ago, the tsunami of memories was constant. All I could think about was leaping from the train and rushing home, telling Joel how much I still loved him. Even at the airport, I kept glancing over my shoulder, wondering if I might see him scrambling through the crowds to reach me, the way they do in films.
And once I was on the plane, for almost the whole flight to Chile, I kept asking myself what I would have done if he had turned up at the airport. Would I have succumbed to the madness of temptation, kissed him right there where I stood in the departures hall?
But finally I realized I was missing the point. Jo
el wouldn’t have turned up at the airport, because he wants us to move on. I thought back again to that last night at the restaurant, when he gripped my hand and urged me to see a better future for myself. I think for you the best is yet to come. And while I can’t yet picture a time when being without him will feel okay, I know all he ever wanted was for me to be happy. So I made a pact with myself before we touched down that in Chile, I would try to ease slowly forward. The next few weeks should be about my life and what it could look like, because as yet I honestly had no idea.
The dessert spoon from the restaurant was nestled in the bottom of my rucksack. I brought it with me as a reminder. That life—if I could yet believe it—was here to be savored and enjoyed. Sampled and tasted, as many flavors as possible.
* * *
• • •
When I get back to the hostel, I e-mail my bird photo to Liam, Fiona, and Dave—
Saw a unicorn today!
Then I sit on my bed and take a pen and postcard from my bag.
My hand is shaking slightly as I write the first word. Joel.
Despite my resolve to move on, I’ve been hit today by the strongest compulsion to tell him how I’m feeling. It came to me earlier while I was in a thermal pool, basking like a turtle in the water. I had both eyes on the raptors circling the sky when, without warning, a film reel of flashbacks began to spool through my mind. The lake at Hugo’s wedding. Joel ribbing me about wild swimming the morning after. What we snuck off and did next, on our way home.
Because we did find a field to have fun in, that day. We parked in a lay-by, rushed hand in hand along a margin of ripening wheat before tumbling together between its sun-baked tunnels, the crop like hot rope against our skin. Afterward we lay flat on our backs and stared up at the sky, where raptors wheeled above our heads.
And it’s got me thinking. How everything we did together was like a bittersweet prologue to all that I’m doing now. And it feels wrong, somehow, not to be sharing it with him. So I do. I keep hold of the pen, and I write Joel a postcard.
