by Dani Atkins
‘Come on in,’ he urged, reaching behind me to close the door. As I stepped forward, his hand brushed my back. Every hair on my arms stood up as though statically charged.
‘Can I take your coat?’ he asked, one hand already outstretched in readiness. It was too late to say, Actually, I don’t think I can stay, even though the words were screaming in my head. This whole situation felt wrong – except that it didn’t. And that was what was confusing me. I didn’t like the way I was responding to him; it didn’t feel like me.
I spent longer than necessary unwinding my scarf and trying to persuade coat buttons to go back through holes that now seemed to have mysteriously shrunk. Even my class of six-year-olds had better motor skills than this. Alex was still patiently waiting, his face wearing the mask of a polite host. But it slipped and then dissolved when he saw the bunch of flowers I’d been trying to keep out of sight beneath my arm.
‘You brought flowers.’ It was somewhere between a question and a statement.
I searched for a reply that wouldn’t involve me having to apologise for my thoughtless choice. On every trawl, I came up empty.
‘Er, yes,’ I began, the apology already in my voice.
The hand that had been waiting for my coat took the bouquet instead. His eyes were fixed on the perfect waxy petals and when he lifted them to meet my gaze, they looked suspiciously bright, but perhaps that was just a trick of the light. The first thing I’d noticed about the room was its spectacular domed skylight, designed to showcase the night sky. The wall lights were low wattage and unobtrusive, making the Stargazer Room a place where emotions could easily be hidden.
‘Lilies. How did you know?’
This wasn’t the moment to say ‘Huh?’ and all at once I didn’t need to. I shivered, and it wasn’t because the room was cold.
‘I… I, er…’
He nodded just once and the shiver made a final pass down my spine before letting me be. Lilies had been his wife’s favourite flowers. He didn’t need to say the words because I knew this was true, with a frankly disturbing certainty.
‘Hello, I’m Dee,’ said a woman with striking red hair cut into a sharply angled bob. She was slicing through the roomful of guests and heading towards us like a coastguard on a rescue mission. It wasn’t a bad analogy. Her hand was small, but the grip of her handshake was surprisingly firm.
‘Molly,’ I supplied, my voice hesitant as though for a moment I’d actually forgotten who I was.
‘You must be one of the people Lisa helped,’ she said gently.
Of its own volition, I could feel my hand going to my chest, checking that my dress was still covering my scar.
Dee’s eyes dropped and then came back up, full of understanding. ‘Let me get you something to drink,’ she said with a smile. The hand that still hadn’t released mine had moved up to my elbow and was gently guiding me towards a buffet table set up against the back wall.
‘We have red or white, or something non-alcoholic?’
‘Lemonade would be great, if you have it,’ I said, my voice scratchy. I had a feeling no amount of fizzy drink was going to alter that.
I glanced back to the other side of the reception room, where Alex was still staring at the lilies as though I’d brought a bomb to the party.
Dee followed my gaze and laid her hand briefly on my forearm. ‘He’ll be fine. He just needs a moment. Every now and then things hit him hard.’
I’d seen death up close on a number of occasions during my hospital stays, but I’d never witnessed the raw devastation of someone grieving for a life lost decades before its time. This was totally different to how Mum and I had been when Dad passed away, and I realised suddenly how out of my depth I was here. I had no comfort to offer this man. His wife had died, and in her place I lived. How could that ever seem fair to him?
‘So,’ said Dee, placing an icy-cold tumbler in my hand. ‘Would you like me to introduce you around?’
What I really wanted was to head for the exit as fast as I could, but that was out of the question, so I nodded and took a gulp of my drink.
‘Well, over there, the guy in the blue shirt who’s practically inhaling canapés, is Todd—’
‘Alex’s brother,’ I said involuntarily.
Dee looked briefly startled. ‘I keep forgetting that Alex has been writing to all of you for so long, that you know all about us.’
‘Just your names,’ I said, although that wasn’t strictly true. Intentionally or otherwise, Alex had revealed enough about his family for them to no longer feel like strangers, even though we’d never met.
I knew of his genuine affection for his sister-in-law Dee, a natural overspill of the love he had for his brother. I knew they had a daughter who was almost the same age as Alex’s son. My glance flitted across the reception room to a velvet banquette whose cushioned seat was incongruously scattered with toys.
‘Alex’s little boy is here tonight?’
For the first time a look I couldn’t quite read flickered behind Dee’s olive-green eyes. ‘He wanted Connor to be here.’ She paused and looked up, her gaze lingering on the crystal-clear night sky, clearly visible through the skylight. ‘This was a special place for my sister-in-law. She used to bring Connor here all the time when he was little – Maisie too, sometimes. They’d booked this room for her birthday party almost a year ago… long before… before everything happened. Alex couldn’t bring himself to cancel the party and said it would be wrong to mark Lisa’s birthday without Connor being here. So I brought Maisie along, to make things seem more… normal.’
My eyebrows rose and Dee’s unconscious frown filled in the gaps.
‘But you tried to talk him out of inviting the four of us tonight, didn’t you?’ I almost gasped at my own boldness.
Her smile seemed both sad and weary. ‘Todd did. Many times. He didn’t think this was the appropriate place for you all to meet. But you know Alex…’ Her voice trailed away as we both realised that of course I didn’t know him, not at all.
And yet why did it feel very much as though I did?
‘Oh good, Dee’s got you a drink,’ Alex said, coming up and resting a hand on his sister-in-law’s shoulder.
She looked up at him and smiled, and a small knot of worry slowly unravelled inside me. He had people who cared. Even though he’d lost the woman he loved, he still had family who cared about him. That made me happy in ways I couldn’t explain.
‘Everything okay?’ Dee asked.
I was staring into my glass of lemonade, and yet I swear I felt the moment when his eyes rested on me.
‘Yeah, everything’s fine.’
‘In that case, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and investigate what Maisie and Connor are getting up to in the bathroom. They’ve been gone a while.’
There was only so long I could keep staring into my glass as though expecting my ice cubes to do something scintillating, but it felt way safer than looking at Alex.
‘This is an amazing venue. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never been to a planetarium before.’
‘Neither had I – until I met Lisa,’ Alex said, his mouth managing a smile that his eyes couldn’t quite replicate.
I groped frantically for something to say. I wasn’t usually socially awkward, but this was such a bizarre situation.
‘Your… Your wife was certainly passionate about astronomy.’ I groaned inwardly at my lame attempt. Why was it so easy to talk to him in the letters we’d exchanged and so difficult when he was standing right there in front of me?
‘Lisa was passionate about everything she did. That’s just how she was. And it’s okay to say her name, Molly,’ he added softly, intuitively sensing my discomfort. ‘After all, she’s the reason you’re here.’
For a second I thought he was referring to my transplant, before realising he meant the birthday party.
‘Lisa is the reason I’m here,’ I confirmed boldly. ‘Not just tonight; I mean, she’s the reason I’m still here in the world.’
Following an instinct that took me by surprise, I reached for his hand, positioning my grip as though we were about to formally shake on a deal but so that his index finger was directly over my pulse point. His eyes were the colour of sticky toffee. They widened as they met mine and he realised what I was doing. His throat tightened and he had to swallow several times. The pad of his fingertip moved gently over the sensitive skin of my wrist. It wasn’t a caress, or if it was, it wasn’t intended for me.
It seemed to take him a long time before he could speak again.
‘That’s the closest I’ve been to her in six months. Thank you.’
His eyes glistened once again as he excused himself and made his way out of the room. It didn’t take a genius to work out why.
13
Alex
Alex needed air. There was none in the Stargazer Room, nor in the corridor outside. He took the steep stairs three at a time, miraculously managing to avoid losing his balance and tumbling to the unforgiving marble floor below. The foyer was deserted now except for a lone security guard who barely even glanced up as Alex pushed his way through the planetarium’s double doors and out into the night.
The cold October air was like a slap to his face, the kind people administer in films when someone starts to become hysterical. It had the same effect on Alex. It slowed him down, putting the brakes on his need to put distance between himself and whatever it was he was fleeing from. He was sure it wasn’t Molly, or any of the other transplant recipients come to that, not when he’d spent so long hoping they’d all come tonight. Frankly, he was still amazed that every one of them had accepted his invitation.
Something was happening here. Alex could feel it stirring beneath the surface of the life he was meant to be putting back together. It was more than just grief, although that was the one-size-fits-all label his brother kept trying to slap on it.
‘It’s more than that,’ Alex reiterated, startling himself by saying the words out loud. Not that there was anyone around to hear him. Anyone with any sense was inside in the warm, not pacing the forecourt in near freezing temperatures, their breath pluming before them like dragon smoke.
He knew he ought to go back inside, that he wasn’t being fair to Todd and Dee. Or to Connor. But then nothing he did was right for Connor any more. Trying to be the parent Connor needed felt like walking a tightrope where one careless misstep could send him plummeting to the bottom of a crevasse. His failures came on a daily basis. Tonight had been no different…
‘Are you ready to go, big man?’ Alex had asked, popping his head around Connor’s bedroom door. It was a relief to see his son had changed into the clothes he’d left out on the bed, although he still hadn’t put his shoes on.
‘Come on, Connor. I don’t want us to be late. Get your shoes on.’
Like an obedient automaton, Connor reached for the pair of black school shoes that Lisa had bought for him at the beginning of the year. Alex was anxious to avoid the rush hour traffic and the urge to step in and take over the tying of the laces was hard to resist, but he managed to stop himself. Be patient, he imagined Lisa whispering in his ear. He needs to do things for himself.
‘It will be nice to visit the planetarium again, won’t it?’ Alex had asked. Even to his ears, his voice had sounded falsely jolly.
Connor looked up from what appeared to be a struggle with his left shoe and something flickered in his eyes, a memory perhaps of the last time he’d visited the place with Lisa.
‘Is Mummy going to be there?’
Alex’s sigh hurt all the way up from his diaphragm to his larynx.
‘No, pal, we’ve talked about this, remember? This is a party to celebrate the day when Mummy was born.’
‘But if it’s her birthday party, she’ll come too, won’t she?’
There was a flash of pain on his face, which Alex was slow to realise was caused by more than just crushed hopes. Connor wiggled his foot into the shoe and winced.
‘Is something wrong with your foot?’ Alex asked, crossing the expanse of carpet and dropping to a crouch before his son.
Connor shrugged.
‘Sit down, let me have a look,’ Alex instructed, all thoughts of the mounting rush hour traffic now forgotten. It was immediately apparent even before he’d whipped off Connor’s sock. It was obvious from the degree of force he’d needed to pluck the shoe from his son’s left foot. The right was just as bad.
Beneath the cartoon character socks, Connor’s toes looked red and there were twin blisters on both of the little ones.
‘Are your shoes too tight?’ Alex asked, staring in dismay at his son’s damaged feet.
‘A bit,’ Connor mumbled.
‘Why didn’t you tell me they were hurting you? Why didn’t you let me know you needed new ones?’
Connor’s blue eyes looked impossibly huge as he stared down at his father. Why didn’t you know yourself? This is your job, they silently accused.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Alex said, hearing the catch in his own voice. ‘I should have known you needed new ones. Mummy always used to buy you new shoes in the summer,’ Alex said, his voice dull with blame.
‘I was going to tell her tonight,’ Connor confided on a wobbly whisper. ‘About the shoes, I mean.’
Alex pulled Connor into his arms. He didn’t exactly relax into the hug, but at least he didn’t pull away.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,’ Alex murmured into his son’s strawberry-blond hair.
Maybe after tonight things would begin to change, Alex thought. He had no reason to think this, but it felt true in a way he couldn’t explain.
Despite a few scudding clouds, it was a crisp, clear night with a generous scattering of stars. It was the kind of night Lisa wouldn’t have allowed them to ignore; there’d have been no hurrying straight to the car and turning on the heater. She’d have wanted to linger, pointing out the stars, trying to share her passion for astronomy with the man she loved.
Alex’s face was tipped up to the inky black sky when the first raindrops fell, mingling inconspicuously with the tears he hadn’t known he was crying. Rain – it hadn’t been forecast, but of course it would fall tonight. Some couples had a song that was uniquely theirs. But for Alex and Lisa, it had always been the rain.
14
Molly
After Alex’s hasty exit, I wandered over to the buffet table. It was laden with food that looked absolutely delicious but which I doubted many guests had the appetite to eat. I jumped when a hand came to rest on my shoulder. Spinning around, I found myself face to face with the young man who’d bustled past me on the stairs earlier. He was only about twenty; his hair was a little too long, and he was probably one day beyond needing a shave. He was wearing a worn leather jacket and ripped skinny jeans, which I assumed were a fashion statement.
‘Hi. I’m Jamie,’ he said, holding out a hand with nails that were bitten so brutally short I almost winced.
There was something about the warmth of his handshake that made me study his face more closely. He too had a puzzled look in his pale grey eyes. He was leaning in, encroaching on my personal space in a way I should have found uncomfortable, and yet I didn’t. I’d been expecting to catch the smell of alcohol or tobacco, but all I got was a whiff of toothpaste and shower gel. Even before he said another word, I knew who he was.
‘So, I’m lungs. And you’re…?’
His grin was irrepressibly engaging, and I got the impression he rather liked shocking people.
‘Heart,’ I whispered back, as though sharing a secret.
His eyes went to my chest, but not in the way that men’s usually did.
‘You doing okay?’
In just three words he’d encapsulated everything that needed to be asked. Few people were able to do that.
‘Really well. You?’
In reply he drew in an enormous lungful of air, his chest swelling as though he was about to dive into a pool. ‘Couldn’t do that before. Not even close. So I’m
doing pretty fuckin’ good, all things considered.’
His eyes twinkled, so I knew the profanity had been deliberately placed to see if I would take the bait. I’d had classrooms full of kids just like him. All talk, no malice. I smiled, feeling like I’d just found a golden ticket in my chocolate bar.
‘Are any of the others like us here yet?’
Jamie placed his hands on my shoulders and swivelled me slightly, turning me towards the furthest corner of the room, where an elderly lady was seated on a leather Chesterfield, talking animatedly to Todd. She bent down and pulled something from a voluminous bag by her feet. I was so used to people sharing photos on their phones, it was quite unusual to see an old-fashioned wallet of photographs.
‘Maybe I’ll go over and introduce myself,’ I said. Jamie nodded, his hand already reaching out and scooping up half a dozen canapés in a single swipe. ‘I forgot to say, I’m Molly by the way.’
His eyebrows lifted as though I’d just said something incredibly stupid. ‘I know. We all know that. He’s mentioned you more than once in his letters.’
I could feel the blush beginning right where the cowl neck of my dress met my skin. It rose like mercury in a barometer. ‘Oh. He… He never… I mean, I don’t think…’
Jamie shrugged before turning back to the buffet table. ‘It is what it is. You should go and say hi to Barbara. She’s sort of cool in an old-lady kind of way.’
Alex’s brother was chatting to Barbara on the dark leather settee, but when I crossed the room and apologised for interrupting them, he immediately sprang to his feet. From the expression in his eyes I suspected he didn’t mind the intrusion.
‘You must be Molly,’ he said. I nodded, still slightly thrown by the fact that every stranger here knew my name and I knew theirs. ‘Please sit down,’ he urged. ‘You’re still recuperating and you must be feeling tired.’
