Saving April

by Sarah A. Denzil

  Whatever they gave to keep me calm wasn’t very strong, because I can already feel the spreading tightness in my chest as we make our way through the hospital carpark. I know what’s coming next. I know what I’m expected to do.

  “I don’t know if I can.” I take a deep breath and slow down.

  James puts a hand on my arm. “It’s a ten minute drive. It’s me, Han. You know I’m a good driver. I’ll take it steady, and you can sit and close your eyes the entire time. Ten minutes, that’s all.”

  Ten minutes. I can get through ten minutes.

  I don’t know the make of James’s car. I never remember the badges anymore, they all blur into one. When I’m walking down the street, I stare straight ahead. I never look at the road, because I know how mundane the road was where my daughter died. I know it could have been any street at any time. That’s how it works.

  He has to open the door for me, but I pull on my seat belt. I run my finger over the dashboard, feeling the grooves. The smell of the car is pleasant for a moment, and a happy memory flashes in my mind, one where Emma is laughing in the back seat. Stu is driving, but he glances in the rearview mirror to smile at her. I’m smiling at Stu, enjoying him being a good dad. Then I hear the smash of glass ringing in my ears and that hard knot in my chest comes back.

  “Deep breaths, Han,” James slams his door and pulls on his seatbelt. “You can close your eyes if you like.”

  “If I close my eyes I’ll see it again.”

  James’s purses his lips and lets out a small sigh, whether it’s of frustration or disapproval, I’m not sure. James is a straight-up guy. He keeps moving so that he doesn’t have to think or feel. Everything has been in an orderly fashion for him. He got his GCSE’s, then an apprenticeship, then a job at a warehouse, then a fiancé, then a manager’s job, then a wife, then a kid, and so on. If anything bad happens to him—like the death of our parents, six months apart, both heart attacks from a bad lifestyle—he focusses on the practical side. He organises the funeral, arranges the will. He did the same for Stu and Emma’s deaths. He got to work on all the legalities so I had time to grieve. But now he thinks my grieving time is over and I should be moving on. I should have moved on a long time ago. He would have.

  I’m the emotion to his practical side. I was the one who acted out after our parent’s divorce. James focussed on his apprenticeship. I was the one who screamed bloody murder when our parents were taken too soon. I’m not made of the same stuff as him. Somehow all the logic went into James and all emotion poured into me. No matter how hard I try to stay in control, that emotion flows out until I’m a nervous wreck.

  I flinch when the ignition starts. I suck in a breath when the car begins to move. James bites his lower lip, clearly annoyed with me, probably rolling his eyes in his mind and wondering why the hell I overreact to everything.

  A wave of nausea washes over me as James drives out of the car park. My left leg begins to shake, and I have to take long, slow breaths to try and calm my heart.

  “Are you all right?” James asks.

  I nod. I can get through this. I could take my eyes off the road, but I don’t let myself. I have to face up to it. I have to watch the cars through the glass and realise that 99% of people get to where they’re going safe and sound without a collision.

  “You’re doing well, Hannah.” James actually sounds impressed, which is a rarity.

  The rest of the time goes so slowly that I find myself counting down the seconds. If I’ve made it sixty seconds, I can make the next ninety seconds. If I stay here in my seat without freaking out for two minutes, I can make the next three minutes. For some reason, the last ten seconds are the hardest. That’s when I end up staring across at the Masons’ house.

  “Is that them?” James asks.

  “Yeah, that’s them.”

  “The house seems normal enough.”

  “Something is going on behind those closed doors. I just know it is.”

  “You have to let this go,” he says it in a firm but soft way.

  “I know,” I say. And it almost feels like I mean it. At least, it seems to be enough to persuade James, because his shoulders drop, and his face relaxes.

  Edith’s curtains aren’t the only ones twitching when I leave the car. It takes me a couple of attempts to get out of the car. James has low seats, and my legs have lost their strength. He shuts the door for me and I pass him my keys so he can open the house. I can’t help but glance at number 72. Matt and Laura stand in the window with frowns on their faces. April is in her room upstairs. She smiles down to me.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” James says.

  He opens the living room window before going into the kitchen. The house smells of stale whiskey. Or that could just be me. As I scan the room, it dawns on me that this house isn’t as safe as I think it is. It isn’t a haven, it’s my jail. I’ve been punishing myself over the last few years because I didn’t believe that I deserved to live. It wasn’t losing Stuart and Emma that ruined my life, it was what came after. I allowed myself to shrink. Like a tortoise disappearing into its shell, I confined myself to this house so that I didn’t have to face the world.

  “Cuppa?” James holds out the mug, and I realise I’ve been standing staring at the walls while James has made the tea.

  I take the mug by the handle and sip the hot liquid. “Stuart bought me this mug. I always put it at the back of the cupboard so I don’t see it every day.”

  “Sorry, I saw it and I remembered that it used to be your favourite. I thought it might bring you some comfort.”

  “It does, actually. I didn’t think it would, but you’re right.”

  “Hannah, why didn’t you call me? When things started getting on top of you, all you had to do was call me and I would come to check you’re all right. You know that. I’m only an hour away.”

  I can’t think of any answer that’s both the truth and valid. “I stopped looking outward.”

  “I can see that. You don’t leave this place very often, do you? Have you even got any friends?” James sighs. “I thought by giving you some space that you would go out there and start to move on. You were leaning on me so much after the funeral that I thought it would help. But I went away for too long, didn’t I? I…” He stops talking and takes a gulp of tea before wincing at the heat.

  James settles onto the sofa, but I stand. I don’t want to touch anything in this house anymore. For the first time I see my furniture with fresh eyes. These are the things with which I’ve surrounded myself during my self-imposed house arrest. That coffee table is from a fake life. That chair is a lie. Those ornaments are symbols of this phoney life I’ve constructed. All of it reminds me of the crippling anxiety I’ve developed through sheer will to be punished. This is all a product of my guilt. Finally, I realise it. My guilt isn’t an emotion, it’s a living, breathing thing, suffocating me until I’m a husk.

  “You had a life to live,” I say. “I don’t blame you, you know. I wasn’t good company. I frightened your kids with my constant crying, and poor Jill didn’t quite know what to do with me.”

  “I have more to apologise for,” James says. “I should have done more when we were children. When it was bad… when they were fighting and—”

  “Let’s not talk about that.” I move over to the sofa. I want to be close to my brother. “I want to know how you are. How are the children?”

  Two hours later, after James has been to the shop and bought me food, and after he’s showed me all the good TV shows I’ve been missing while I’ve been obsessed with the Masons, James leaves. For the first time in a long while, my house feels empty after he’s gone. For so long now I’ve felt nothing but uncomfortable with anyone else in my space, but now I just want him back so we can carry on talking. I don’t want to stop. I’m tempted to ring up a PPI claim salesman and talk his ear off for an hour. Instead, I check all my doors and windows are locked, then I go upstairs, and get in the bath.

  I know I should be w
orried about my stay in jail and the trip to the hospital, but I’m not. I’m even glad it happened. I lived through it. I made it out of the house for a night. I travelled in a car, and I talked to a whole range of people. None of those things killed me. I survived.

  After my bath, I make a hot chocolate, slip into pyjamas, pull the curtains shut, and open the photo albums I’d kept hidden away in a box. The first picture almost takes my breath away. I’m tempted to close the album, put it back inside its box, Sellotape it shut, and hide it under the bed out of sight, like a spider left under a glass for someone else to deal with. But I don’t. I run my finger over the picture instead, imagining what her soft skin really felt like when she was alive. The photograph is of a smiling man holding a chubby baby. Emma was three months when this picture was taken, and her cheeks had reached that chubby cuteness that all babies should have.

  I close my eyes and remember her smell. It comes to me so fast and so vivid that I can hardly believe it. Sweetness and warmth, not unlike my hot cocoa, but with a tinge of baby sick. Maybe one day I will forget that smell. That day will hurt, but I will live through it. Knowing that feels very strange.

  Each page is a beautiful torture. More than once, I have to close my eyes and concentrate on my breathing. But if I can get through one picture, I can get through the next, and before I know it, I’ve been through all of my photo albums, and I have cherished every memory.

  I close the last page, wipe tears from my eyes and stand up to take my empty mug through to the kitchen. I chose the mug Stuart bought me on purpose this time. It’s only a silly one with my name on the side. He bought it as a stocking filler and put “love Emma” on the tag. It was our first Christmas with Emma and every present felt special. I rinse out the mug, promising myself that I will fix the tap this time. I walk back into the living room to pack the photo albums away. It’s then that I notice the envelope on the doormat.

  Even though I use the back door for coming and going, I’ve not got round to moving the letter box. The post is still delivered through the front door, which always gets my pulse racing if I’m sat on the sofa. There’s a boot print over the envelope, so I know this was delivered before James brought me home. But there’s no stamp, which is odd. I bend down and retrieve the letter. The address is handwritten in a loose style, covering most of the cream envelope. Whoever delivered this did so by hand. They’ve been at my house.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Laura

  “How could you?” I want to throw the glass at him. If it hadn’t cost me so much money, I’d throw the laptop at him, too. Instead, I carry on scrolling through all the messages instead. Some of them make me sick. “They’re barely legal, Matt. It’s disgusting. You’re a pig.” I gulp down the rest of the wine, trying to build up the courage to scroll through more of them. I’m not sure I can, or that I want to. “How could you?”

  “Oh shut up. Why don’t you just go to work like always? Just leave me here, your domestic slave to do all the shit you don’t want to do.”

  I’m on my feet so fast that the laptop slides onto the carpet, landing with a thud. “I work so we have money. I provide for us. You don’t mind spending it, do you? I bet you take your whores out for dinner with all this money I’m earning. What is it, Matt? A little afternoon delight while I’m at work?”

  Matt shakes his head. “You’ve been poisoned by that bitch across the road. It’s flirtation, that’s all it is. These students, they have bags of cash from their rich mummies and daddies. All I’m trying to do is charm them so they’ll hire me. I’m trying to get work so I can pay my way. Do you think I enjoy living off your handouts? No fucking way.”

  “You should have thought about that before you quit your job.” I walk across the room, staring at Hannah’s house. The place is empty after her arrest. I hope she never comes back. I never want to see her face again. As it is, I’ll forever remember her bloodshot eyes as she attacked my husband. I’ll never forget the absolute hatred she exuded when accusing him of hurting April.

  “You supported me, Laura. Don’t try to pretend you didn’t. You said that we would get by and that you wanted me to be happy.”

  “That was before I found out what makes you happy is sleeping with women fifteen years younger.”

  “I haven’t slept with anyone.” Matt leans back against the sofa and runs his hands through his hair. He laughs. “It’s not like I’ve even been sleeping with you.”

  I make a disgusted noise. “You’re a cliché. Poor Matt, whose wife is so knackered when she gets back from work that she doesn’t put out anymore. Poor sex deprived Matt, who has to hit on eighteen-year-olds to get his fix. You’re disgusting. Look at you. You’re ridiculous. You’re thirty-eight and you’re wearing a V-neck T-shirt. You think those muscles make you more attractive, but you’re repulsive.”

  “At least I haven’t let myself go. At least I care about how I look—”

  “Shut up. Liar! Just shut up.”

  The room goes silent. I move away from the window, pick up the laptop and place it on the armchair.

  “We need to stop arguing,” I say.

  “We’ll stop arguing when you stop believing the mentally ill woman across the street,” Matt says bitterly.

  “No,” I say, letting out a heavy sigh. “We need to stop arguing for April. Don’t you see? This isn’t about us. It’s about her.”

  Matt’s eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hannah

  I stare at the unopened letter in my hands. There’s the sound of a door slamming, and I can’t help but stare out of the window. Matt Mason opens his car door, slings a bag into the passenger seat, then gets in and drives away. I stand there open mouthed. Is this it? Has Laura thrown him out? This means that I’ve won. I’ve actually won against him.

  The door to number 72 opens again, but this time it’s Laura. She strides across the street, hugging her body, wrapped in a thick cardigan despite the warm weather. I step away from the window and close the curtains. The unopened letter gets shoved into my pocket without thinking. When Laura knocks on the door, my muscles clench.

  “I need to talk to you,” Laura says. “It’s important.” The letter box opens, and one eye appears through the gap. “I need to talk to you about Matt, and about April. Come on, Hannah, I’m not mad at you anymore. I need to find out what’s been going on.”

  “I can’t. The police have told me to stay away from you. I can’t be seen talking to you.”

  “Then let me in before anyone notices. Please, this is about April. I need to know my daughter is safe.”

  I think of my promise to James. He’ll be so mad at me when he finds out. But then I’ve been disappointing James for a long time. I let out a long breath before opening the door.

  “I have to be quick, I left April alone,” she says.

  “I thought you didn’t believe me.” I shut the door and move into the centre of the room so we’re not too close.

  Laura sinks into the sofa. Her legs almost fold in on themselves. The Laura I first met is almost completely gone. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. The police say you have issues and that you’ve become obsessed with us, but I look at you and I’m not sure that’s true. You were so nice to me when I came to yours. Why did you keep everything to yourself? You could have told me.”

  “I was going to. But it’s not something you blurt out. At first I thought you knew about the police and were trying to figure out if it was me who called. But then I realised you didn’t even know, and I wanted to say, but you left really quickly.”

  “Tell me everything,” Laura says. Her red-ringed eyes are open wide, and slightly wild.

  I sit down in the chair nearest the window and I tell Laura everything, from April’s sign, to Edith’s observations, even what I saw in the pub. I tell her about April appearing in my garden, and the sock-puppet Facebook accounts.

  “My God.” Laura places a hand on her mouth. “How h
ave I missed all this?”

  “Do you think Matt is hurting April?” I ask. It makes me feel nauseous asking a wife that question.

  Laura is still for what feels like a long time. “I’ve been asking myself that question all day. A few months ago, I would have laughed it away. But Matt has become so angry recently. He’s like a different person.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t think him capable of cheating a few months ago.”

  “Well, he’s gone now. You’re safe, and April is safe.”

  But Laura’s eyes are glazed over and she’s staring at a spot on the wall, barely even acknowledging my existence. “We adopted her, you know. We’d been trying for a baby of our own, but it wasn’t happening. She was eight at the time. We met with her a few times before the adoption, and she was such a beautiful little girl. I fell in love with her straight away, but Matt was harder to convince. Then, one afternoon, we sat with her in the playroom of the foster home she was staying in, and Matt read her a story. It was like falling in love with him all over again. He was so gentle and kind with her.” Laura wipes away a tear and I pass her some tissues. “She really warmed to him. She’d smile as soon as he walked into a room. We’d not been getting on too well for a while. Matt was unhappy at work. He’d missed out on a promotion and he was getting frustrated with being passed over so often. April was the missing piece to make us whole again, and for a while, it really worked.

  “She made me happy to come home again. I’d look forward to making her dinner, brushing her hair. But she was so quiet when we first adopted her. She wasn’t like other eight- year-old girls. She didn’t love Barbies and have sleepovers. She wasn’t interested in clothes or nail polish. As the months—and then years—went on, I found it harder and harder to talk to her. But Matt was always so great with her. He made her laugh. They played video games together and cooked together. For some reason, she never bonded with me. I’ve always loved her like she’s my own, but sometimes I would look at April, and I would feel like she didn’t feel the same way. I was always Laura to her. It took me years to get her to call me Mum.