Fragile Like Us

by Sara Barnard

  “It’s me,” I said, keeping my voice quiet so the woman wouldn’t hear. “But take your time, okay?”

  I heard a noise like a suppressed sob, but she gave no other indication that she’d heard me, or that she even knew I was there.

  “Caddy?” I jumped, turning my head to see Rosie’s mum, Shell, standing behind me. She was holding two shopping bags and she looked confused and worried. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  The woman on the bench leaned forward slightly and said, directing the question to Shell, “Is everything okay here?” She had an American accent and an imposing voice. Perhaps it was unintentional, but the question sounded almost accusing.

  “Everything’s fine,” Shell said, which was ridiculous. There were times when being polite was just not worth it, and this was one of them. Everything was clearly not fine. She should have just said, No, it’s not okay, but that doesn’t make it any of your business.

  “Should I call someone?” the woman persisted.

  This was such a bizarre thing to say that I couldn’t stop myself. “Like who?”

  “Caddy,” Shell said, reproach in her voice. To the woman she said, with the same polite tone she’d used before, “Thank you for your concern, but this is a personal matter.”

  I saw Suzanne’s whole body tense up further, her elbows crushing against her ears. Her hand seemed to spasm slightly and without thinking I reached up and took hold of it. Her fingers clamped down around mine almost instantly, squeezing tight. I heard her exhale a shaky, gasping breath.

  “One time,” I said in the most normal voice I could manage, “when me and Roz were about seven, my parents went through a phase where they wanted to keep chickens. In the garden, you know? Rosie thought this was really cruel, because we were taking their eggs away to eat, and if we didn’t eat them they’d become chicks. She thought she’d save one, so she took one out of the chicken coop before my dad could get it and put it in our airing cupboard so it would keep warm. But then of course she went home and forgot all about it. Problem is, we didn’t really use our airing cupboard that much, so God knows how long it was in there, but my dad eventually found it one morning before work, and he carries it into the kitchen, going to my mum, ‘Do you know anything about this egg?’ and then it pretty much exploded all over his suit.”

  I heard a snuffle of something like laughter from behind Suzanne’s arms.

  “One day I’ll tell you about the time we tried to make a slide on the stairs out of a piece of tarpaulin and a bit of dish soap and vegetable oil.” I said.

  “Oh, God,” Shell said drily. “I’d forgotten about that.”

  Suzanne’s elbows parted slightly and she peeked out at me. I put on my very best encouraging, this-is-a-safe-space smile and said, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she whispered.

  Shell moved around me and sat herself down on the bench next to Suzanne, putting an arm around her shoulders and squeezing. I saw Suzanne stiffen slightly, but she let herself be hugged.

  “Shall I take you home?” Shell suggested in a quiet, kind voice.

  Suzanne’s fingers were bunched up inside her sleeves. She brought her fist to her mouth and bit down on her knuckles. “I’m not allowed to be at home by myself.” Her face, which had steadied itself, crumpled again. “And Sarah’s at work.”

  Shell looked worried. “If you give me her number, I’ll give her a call and explain the situation.”

  A look of panic passed over Suzanne’s face. She looked seconds away from retreating back into herself. “But she’s at work,” she managed.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said suddenly, surprising all three of us. “Then you won’t be on your own in the flat.” I thought of Rosie, probably still queuing for popcorn, wondering if she’d be mad at me for leaving her there with everyone else with no warning.

  Shell looked at me for a moment, an unreadable expression on her face. Then she turned to Suzanne. “How about that?”

  Suzanne scrunched the end of her sleeves between her fingertips, her eyes scanning my face. “Are you sure?” There was something childlike about her voice. A reluctant, cautious hope.

  “I’m positive,” I said.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until Suzanne shut her front door that I realized the two of us had never actually been alone together, unless you counted the confrontation outside the diner, which I tried not to. What did we have to talk about? Rosie was our mutual friend, and without her there to act as a buffer, were we really anything more than strangers? Rosie’s response to my text—“Sz had a panic attack, going to hers with her. Explain later? Sorry!”—had been a surprised but pleasant: “Okay! No worries, hope she’s okay? Call me later x.”

  “Thanks for coming back with me,” Suzanne said softly, dropping her bag on the floor and walking into the kitchen.

  “Oh, that’s okay.” I could hear the awkwardness in my voice and it embarrassed me, but being aware of it didn’t make it any easier. “Um. Have you ever had a panic attack before?”

  Stupid, idiotic, stupid question.

  “Yes,” Suzanne replied, as if it had been appropriate for me to ask. “I usually handle them better than that. But it was . . .” Her voice gave out and she let out a breath. “It was a shock. Seeing my dad.”

  “Yeah,” I said. Still the awkwardness. “I guess it would . . . yeah . . . be a shock.”

  “How did you know that that was what it was?” she asked, taking a couple of glasses from a cupboard and turning on the tap. She filled them both and handed one to me.

  “Oh, Tarin used to have them,” I said, taking the glass even though I wasn’t thirsty. “You know she’s bipolar, right?”

  Suzanne shook her head. “I didn’t know they were part of that.”

  “They aren’t always, but she used to have quite bad ones sometimes, and her doctor said it was all related.” I glanced at the clock, wondering what time Sarah finished work. “How come you’re not allowed to be in by yourself?”

  Suzanne looked at me for a long moment, her eyes just slightly squinting. If the earlier devastation wasn’t still painted across her face in tear-stained blotches, I’d have thought she was amused.

  “Sarah doesn’t think it’s safe,” she said finally.

  “Oh,” I said, none the wiser.

  We were silent for a while, both of us sipping from our glasses. I was frantically trying to think of something to say, any way to plug the silence with something other than either a comment on the fact that it was raining or a seriously heavy question about her dad.

  Finally Suzanne let out a shaky laugh. “You know, I just realized I’ve only cried twice outside of this house since I moved here, and both times it’s been in front of you.”

  I smiled, unsure if this was the right response.

  “I hate crying in front of people,” she added, unnecessarily.

  “I don’t think anyone likes it,” I offered.

  “Some people do. I had a friend who used to turn on the tears for attention. It was really annoying.” She rolled the bottom of her glass against the tabletop. “But it’s pathetic, crying like that. Like you can’t control your emotions. It’s so weak.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with showing weakness sometimes,” I said.

  Suzanne made a face. “You only say that because anytime you’ve shown weakness people have responded with love.”

  I tried not to let the annoyance I felt show on my face. “You don’t actually know if that’s true.”

  “Oh, it is,” she said, matter-of-factly, almost dismissively. “I can tell.”

  “You hardly know me.” I tried to say this in a lighthearted voice, but even to my own ears I sounded defensive and trite.

  Suzanne looked at me, a strange half smile on her face. The openness of the vulnerability that had come with breaking down in front of someone had gone. She was unreadable again.

  “I don’t need to know you to know that,” she said. “It’s not a bad thing. You should be plea
sed.”

  I had no idea if she was trying to goad me, or if she really did think that way. Maybe it was both. I tried to think of how to respond, but before I could speak she spoke again.

  “My dad hated it when I cried.” She ran her finger around the rim of her empty glass, her eyes fixed on it. “It made him so mad. So I’d try to stop myself, but . . . sometimes you can’t.”

  And then of course there was nothing I could say.

  * * *

  Eventually Suzanne got restless sitting in the kitchen and we went to the cocoon of her room, where she wrapped herself in an afghan on top of the bed and hunched her chin down into her chest, looking at me as if expecting me to speak. The lack of other places to sit in her room made me perch on the end of her bed, half sitting on my shins. It still felt awkward between us, and I wasn’t sure if she even really wanted me there. But it would have felt more weird to not have followed her, like I was her babysitter or something.

  “Are you and Tarin really close?” Suzanne asked, surprising me.

  “Sure,” I said. “I mean, eight-years-apart kind of close.”

  “I wish I had a sister. I always used to think it must be the best thing. Like having a best friend genetically hardwired to love you.”

  I had to laugh. “Best friends love you without any genetic wiring.”

  “Not in the same way though, right? And it’s different with sisters than brothers?” She was earnest, like my answer really mattered. “I mean, Brian is, like, my favorite person in the world, but he’s always my brother, not my friend. Sisters are both.”

  “I think you can get friends who are like sisters,” I said, thinking of Rosie. “And sisters who are like friends. Maybe if Tarin and I were closer in age we’d be more like friends. But she’s definitely a sister first.” I thought about it. “Maybe you and Brian wouldn’t have been as close if you’d had a sister.”

  Her shoulders moved under the afghan. “Probably not.”

  “He’s at Cardiff, right?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  “Where does he go when it’s not term time?” I’d meant to broach the subject more innocuously, but it came out about as subtle as a plank.

  “Home,” she said. Poker-faced.

  “Is it . . . ? I mean . . . how is it there for him?”

  “My dad never hit him, if that’s what you mean.” Her voice was resigned, as if she’d expected this conversation. “That was just for me.” She turned slightly, sliding her fingers under an old Lego advert, and pulled out a photo that had been hidden from view. “Here’s us,” she said, handing it to me.

  I recognized Suzanne, looking maybe three years younger, first. Then Brian, from the photos on the mirror, and finally her father, from earlier. He, Brian and a woman—presumably Suzanne’s mother—were standing by a Christmas tree, all smiles. Brian was leaning slightly as if to squat closer to Suzanne, who was sitting at their feet, arms hugging her knees. She was smiling too, but it was close-lipped.

  “See how you could just cut off the bottom of the picture and it would be perfect?” she asked me. “I kind of love that picture because it’s so horrible but so accurate. The three of them, then me.”

  “You still said us,” I pointed out. She looked confused. “Just now. You said, ‘Here’s us.’ ”

  A look of intense sadness passed over her face, and she turned quickly away from me again without answering, putting her fingers up to touch a piece of sheet music that was taped to the wall.

  My shins were starting to hurt, so I rearranged myself, stretching out across the lower half of the bed.

  “Did you see how he looked at me?” Suzanne murmured, still looking at the notes on the wall, her voice so quiet it almost didn’t reach me. “Nothing’s changed. I’m still . . .” I heard her pause, then sigh. “Just me.”

  “How come he was here?” I wasn’t sure if I should ask, but couldn’t quite help myself. “Did you know he would be?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “God, no. I can’t . . .” She stopped, breathed in sharply, then continued. “I don’t know why he was here, or why I didn’t know he would be. I guess it must be a conference weekend. He used to have those a lot, all over the country, for work, you know?” She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and let out a sigh. “God, I can’t get over how he looked at me.”

  “Did you think things would have changed?” I asked carefully.

  “Not really. But you always hope, you know?”

  I absolutely did not know. Thank God.

  “Was that why you moved here? So things would change?”

  “No. We moved here because I’d have died otherwise.” She said this bluntly, still not looking at me. “It would have been a bonus if things had changed, if he’d had this amazing change of heart and stopped treating me like I was the cause of all the problems in his life.” She closed her eyes briefly, shook her head slightly, and sighed. “But then again, ‘Penny Lane’ is his favorite Beatles song, and I went and put the sheet music up on my wall. So maybe I’m just as fucked up as he is.”

  “You don’t seem very fucked up,” I said, trying to be reassuring, assuming that was my role in this conversation.

  To my surprise she laughed. “Oh my God. Thank you! Can you write that down so I can put it on my wall?”

  I couldn’t tell if she was being serious or making fun of me. Was I being ridiculous? How could I tell? I wished Rosie was here. Even when she was at her most prickly, talking to her was easy.

  I was still trying to figure out how to arrange my face when Suzanne thrust a Post-it pad and a pen at me. She was serious.

  I hesitated, then began to write, deciding as I did so to stop trying to fish for clues about her past and settle on a safe topic. I landed on, “What’s your favorite Beatles song?”

  “ ‘Here Comes the Sun,’ ” she said without hesitation. “But ‘Across the Universe’ and ‘Blackbird’ are high up too. What about you?”

  “ ‘Let It Be,’ ” I said, more because it was the first song that came to mind rather than because it was actually true.

  She looked almost disappointed. “Really? Everyone says ‘Let It Be.’ ”

  “Only the people who don’t say ‘Here Comes the Sun.’ ”

  “Touché.” Suzanne’s whole face broke into a grin and she looked animated for the first time since we’d left the cinema. I mentally pocketed this nugget for future reference. If in doubt, talk about the Beatles.

  She fixed the Post-it note to her wall, close to the sheet music for “Penny Lane.” She was still smiling.

  “I’m flattered I’m going to be on your wall,” I said, looking at the jumble of her life spread across the room, which now, however inexplicably, included me.

  Before Suzanne could respond, there was the sound of the front door opening and closing and then footsteps across the hall.

  “Suzie?”

  “We’re in here,” Suzanne called.

  Sarah’s face appeared around the door. Her hair was wet and she looked anxious. “How are you?” She came into the room and leaned her head slightly to shake droplets from her hair.

  “You heard?” Suzanne asked, avoiding the question. There was something in her voice I couldn’t translate.

  “Your dad called your mother, and she called me.” Sarah glanced at me, and even though she smiled I could see the tension in her face. “Hello, Caddy.”

  “I should probably go home,” I said, realizing that Sarah probably wanted to talk to Suzanne without me in the way.

  “I’ll drive you,” Sarah offered.

  “Oh, that’s okay,” I said automatically. “It’s not far.”

  “But it’s pouring,” Sarah protested, pointing at her own wet hair. “I can’t have you walking home in the rain.”

  “Why don’t you stay for dinner?” Suzanne suggested. “Maybe it’ll have stopped raining later.”

  “I’m sure Caddy needs to be getting home,” Sarah said pointedly.


  Suzanne ignored this and fixed me with a surprisingly hopeful look. “Stay for dinner?”

  I thought of the way she’d squeezed my hand on the bench, like I was the last tether on a sinking ship. My handwriting on a piece of yellow paper on her wall.

  I stayed for dinner.

  * * *

  There were two open houses that week at Esther’s, so I was too busy to see either Rosie or Suzanne until the following weekend. The open evenings fell on the Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and were the stressful highlight of the Esther’s calendar. Everyone in year eleven was expected to be there, polished and preened to perfection. Kesh and I were tasked with looking after a group of year nines, loud and awkward, in the English block.

  When I got home that evening, exhausted and dry-mouthed from all the talking, I opened Facebook to see a long conversation underway between Suzanne and Rosie. They were making plans for the weekend. Rosie wanted to go somewhere; Suzanne wanted to stay put. I read through the messages until I was up-to-date and back down to earth, away from the Esther’s bubble. They’d agreed to go out on Friday—a friend from school’s birthday party, to which I was clearly (thankfully) not invited—and then stay in on Saturday evening. Suzanne suggested baking at her house, because that way Sarah could go out for the evening without worrying. The idea of baking on a Saturday evening was so unexpected it was almost charming.

  This was the point when they stopped jabbering at each other and resorted to variants of “Caddy? Are you in? CADDY!” until I typed my agreement, beaming to myself alone in my room.

  10

  WHEN I GOT TO SUZANNE’S on Saturday, Rosie was already there, and the two of them were huddled together at the kitchen table, poring over the cookbook.

  “You’ve got everything you need, Suzie?” Sarah asked for what can’t have been the first time, judging by the look on Suzanne’s face. It was weird to hear her be called Suzie. It just didn’t fit right.

  “Yes, we have everything we need,” Suzanne confirmed. She smiled at me and said, in a much brighter voice, “Hey! Ready to bake?”