“I promise I won’t let her get in as many punches as Joseph.”
The reference startles me into laughter but it quickly fades. I press my hands against my abdomen, take a deep breath, and force myself out of the car before my courage can completely fade.
“Give me your hand,” Seb says, walking around the car and reaching his out. “Grip it nice and tight. Close your eyes if you need to. She doesn’t bite.”
I nod but there’s a lot of things people can do to you without biting. Biting sounds quite heavenly in comparison with a disappointed stare.
Seb’s mum pulls the door open as we reach the landing, waving us inside, an expression of grave doubt on her face. As he walks in, she grabs him in a one-armed hug and he pulls me against his other side, so the three of us are in an embrace.
Then we separate and I wish he would give me my hand back because I want to wring them in front of me, gripping so hard my knuckles turn white.
Maybe he knows that though, because he takes a firmer hold, my bones grinding together.
“I know you two know each other, but just to be polite, Esme, this is my mum—”
“Call me Jocelyn.”
“And mum, this is the girl I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”
My nerves are so twisted, I almost miss the time period. “Steady on,” I joke back, trying to locate a smile. “Longevity doesn’t run in my family.”
“Then I’ll have you stuffed and placed next to the gigantic bear I intend to have in the entrance to our future home.”
Jocelyn’s eyes are hooded but the way she presses her lips together makes me think she doesn’t approve. “I’m so sorry,” I burst out, unable to contain myself a second longer. “You were always so kind to me and what I did to you was awful.”
Her eyes drop to the floor, and I think she’s about to reject my apology, and why shouldn’t she? The first time someone ever tried to help, and I ruined her life.
“I wish I could go back in time and—”
“Why did you agree to tell the police that story about me?”
“Mum,” Seb says in a warning tone but I’m grateful. Grateful that she’s not giving me some false reassurance that it’s okay when it patently isn’t. Grateful, too, that she’s offering a chance to explain.
“They agreed to stop…” I wave my hand, unable to put words on all the things Allain and Marnie had made me do. Not wanting to add power to the memories by being specific. “If I made the problem go away.”
“And I was the problem?”
I nod, shaking free of Seb’s hand because it’s cruel to make him choose. He doesn’t need to back me against his mother. He can have a relationship with both of us separately if it comes to that.
“After I—” The next word catches in my throat. I want to downplay it, fudge it, skirt around it like the gigantic elephant it is. But the time for that is past. I take a deep breath, focus on the top button of Jocelyn’s patterned blouse, and admit the full truth. “After Iliedto the police, and they stopped feeling threatened”—I struggle to inhale another breath—“it got better.”
I dare to make eye contact again, expecting to see the same hard light that Seb used to glare at me. But her eyes are soft, her mouth relaxed.
“It was worth something, then?” she asks, and I nod, the first tear slipping past my gatekeepers to trickle down my cheek.
“It made things so much better. I felt like I could finally breathe.”
She reaches out and pulls me into a hard hug, the embrace so unexpected, so undeserved, that it shocks me.
Her voice is a hard whisper as she says, “I’m glad. I thought for ages everything I did was pointless, that I hadn’t helped you at all. I was so ashamed I couldn’t get you away from them.”
“But you did. You helped so much.” I pause, my throat choking on a sob that’s been stuck there for a lifetime. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would never have found the courage to negotiate into boarding school. I would never…”
But then the words really do run out. I wave my hand, then decide it’s worth more hugging Jocelyn in an embrace as hard as she’s hugging me.
After a few minutes, Seb clears his throat. “I suppose somewhere around here I should tender an apology.”
“Yeah,” his mum says, finally breaking away from our hug. “You didn’t load the dishwasher before you left this morning, and you promised me last night you would.”
