It breaks my heart that this is what she’s been spending her time and precious energy thinking about. ‘If anything viable came up, I’m sure Josh would know about it,’ I tell her gently. ‘But honestly? I think he’s moved past the point of wanting to reverse what happened. He never talks about it any more.’
Emma sighs, her perfect forehead creasing with a frown. ‘But still. You’re not happy with Oliver. Not really. He isn’t what your heart wants.’
He was once, I think. ‘Listen, as you get older—’
‘Is this what you’d dream of for me?’
I shut my eyes.Please don’t ask me that.
‘Be honest. Is your relationship with Oliver what you would want for me?’
I can’t look at her. I keep my eyes closed. ‘Oliver’s a good person, Em. He’s been in your life since you were three.’
‘Yeah, and I’m nineteen now. You don’t have to do things for my sake any more.’
I smile as I open my eyes again, because, nineteen or not, she cannot possibly understand that everything I do –everything– will always be with her in mind. ‘Let’s stop talking about me. I want to hear about uni. How are your friends? Have you finished your submission for the moot yet? Do you need anything else for the flat?’
‘Mum, please do some soul-searching,’ she says, almost talking over me. Her blue eyes are fierce. ‘Be brave. I get that it’s not easy, but I promise I’ll be there for you. Whatever you need.’
74.
Rachel
October 2024
It is not, as it transpires, one event or argument that leads Oliver and me to our eventual end. Rather, our demise resembles a thundercloud slowly fattening, a collection of resentments clinging to cold air, the threat of a final storm only ever moments away.
But for me, perhaps, there is one incident that stands out from the rest.
I come home from delivering a piece of work one afternoon to find Oliver red-faced on the landing, heaving a chest of drawers out of Emma’s bedroom. His grey T-shirt is blotched with sweat, and he is struggling for breath.
I put a hand on it, this precious chest that has held so many years of playsuits and vests and little pairs of tights, before the ripped jeans and sequinned tops, the secret diaries. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Making some extra room.’
‘For what?’ I say, wondering how much more space Oliver thinks two people need in a house that was already too big when three of us were living in it.
‘My golf clubs. The wine. All the shoes and clothes and handbags overflowing from your side of the wardrobe. Your canvases, and painting stuff—’
‘You can’t just... This is Emma’s bedroom.’ A tiny furnace begins to roar inside me as I regard him, sweating out his repressed emotions all over my daughter’s things.
Most of her furniture has vanished now, aside from her bed, which is loaded with boxes. Tessellations of rosy autumn light are gliding over the newly empty walls. Our voices echo where they never did before. Dust motes dance in the void he has created.
I think of Polly and Darren, and how sensitively they approached this, when their boys moved out. Discussing it as a family, packing the old stuff up together. Darren would never have done it behind Polly’s back.
‘Emma’s moving to London next summer,’ Oliver says slowly, deliberately. ‘She’s not coming home, Rachel.’
The burning sensation inside me becomes darker, more intense. Hot coals in my chest. These feelings do come, from time to time. Are they to do with my time of life? Or solely down to Oliver? I’ve been trying to convince myself it’s the former, but now I’m not so sure.
‘I was only saying it would have been nice if you had asked.’
He doesn’t reply, just turns his back and mutters something under his breath.
I don’t quite catch what it is, but it sounds very much likegive me strength.
After this, it takes me three months to muster the courage to say what is in my heart. What has been in my heart for a long time, I think.
Christmas blurs by, and then it is January, and Oliver and I are still recovering from another whirlwind festive period filled with family logistics and Lawrence being awkward about his plans and invitations to corporate parties and rounds of drinks with neighbours and friends.
