‘Of course,’ Lissa says quickly. And oh God,hasshe made it worse? ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says again. ‘I shouldn’t have called.’
‘No. I’m glad you did. I wasn’t sure whether to tell you – whether you’d want to know.’
‘Of course I’d want to know,’ she murmurs. ‘This is your dad we’re talking about, Ash. Why would you think I wouldn’t?’
He gives a low, tired sigh. ‘I don’t know, Liss. We sleep together and then you bolt.’ She winces, slowing down as she reaches a road she has to cross. ‘Not exactly a good sign, is it?’
‘That wasn’t about you.’ She whispers it. ‘I was just trying to …’ But she doesn’t know how to finish.Keep you safe. Stop the past from repeating itself.
There’s another moment of quiet. Then, ‘It happened the night we were together. In Cornwall.’
She closes her eyes briefly. ‘Oh God. Ash.’ It feels like an awful sign – that the night she figured out what was going on was the same night his dad lost his life. Another indication that they shouldn’t be together. And now he’ll be blaming himself for not being there. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Why can’t she think of anything else to say? Why can’t she do anything to make him feel better? She hates it, this powerlessness.
‘In some ways, I think he would have preferred it this way,’ Ash says, in a flat tone she’s never heard him use before. ‘He was dreading it. You know, the slow descent. The idea that he might have to move somewhere with more help. And I’ve been dreading that too, I guess.’ He doesn’t say anything more, but she knows him well enough to guess what’s going unsaid here – that because he was dreading it, he is somehow to blame.
‘This isn’t your fault, Ash,’ she says, as gently as she can. But she thinks of people telling her that very same thing – of how hard it is to believe.
‘Yeah,’ Ash says. ‘Well.’
Lissa thinks of Jack, of the kind smile, the wry tone. A life that had become smaller, fighting mental and physical battles on every front. She can’t cry. It’s Ash who should be allowed to cry, not her. But still she finds herself welling up. ‘Mark said the funeral is on Saturday?’ She manages to keep her voice steady as she asks.
‘Yeah,’ Ash says again.
‘Do you want me to …’ She takes a breath. ‘I’d like to come. Be there for you. But only if you want me.’
He hesitates for enough time to make her question the offer, wonder if she shouldn’t have put him on the spot like that.
Then his voice comes down the phone, soft, quiet, sad. But not quite as flat. ‘I’ll always want you, Lissa.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Two days before Jack’s funeral, Lissa sits opposite Saskia in her little back room. Saskia’s head is cocked as she studies her, sunlight sparking off her silver stud earrings.
‘I don’t quite understand what you’re asking,’ she says. ‘You want to do another tarot reading?’
‘No,’ Lissa says, bouncing her knee. ‘I just want to know if I’m making the right decisions. If I’ve figured things out the way I’m supposed to have.’
Saskia nods slowly, and Lissa can tell she’s thinking. Maybe thinking that Lissa is a madwoman? She supposes it doesn’t really matter – she just wants someone to talk it through with, and since she can hardly do that with Mia or Darcy, Saskia is sort of her only option.
‘You said I was trapped,’ she says. ‘In the reading last time. That I was trapped in a cycle. Well, I’ve figured out what the cycle is.’ She goes on to explain, what happens. That in each life, she loses a sibling. In each life, she falls in love – with the same person. And each time, it ends in tragedy.
‘You said I could only move to a more positive future if I started making a different choice,’ she continues, ignoring the way Saskia’s brow furrows deeper and deeper as she listens. ‘So I want to know – am I doing the right thing by staying away from him?’
Is she doing the right thing by going to the funeral? And after that, should she hold firm? Is that the only way to keep him safe? Because they always die when they are together, don’t they? So maybe by not being together it won’t happen.
But despite all that, a part of her wants to be told the opposite. That she’s got this wrong somehow. That she doesn’t need to stay away from him.
Saskia studies her for a long moment, but Lissa can think of nothing more to say. She feels exhausted, wrung out. She just wants someone to give her the answers.
Then Saskia leans forward on her armchair, clasping her hands in her lap. ‘Okay, well first things first here, Lissa. I cannot give you a straightforward answer about this. I believe thatyoubelieve this pattern is happening, and I can understand your desire to figure out why. But I can’t say for certain whether you’re right about that – I’m not sure anyone can. If itishappening the way you think it is, then I also can’t give you an easy answer as to why. But what I will say is that just because the pasthasrepeated itself doesn’t mean it is destined to keep doing so. After all, we can learn, can’t we, from the mistakes of our past?’
Lissa lifts her fingers to her temples and massages. ‘Yes,’ she says, and tries to keep the impatience from her voice, ‘but I don’t know which mistake I’m supposed to be fixing. There must be something I do in each lifetime to cause this.’
Saskia cocks her head. ‘Why do you assume it’s somethingyou’redoing?’
Lissa huffs out a breath – because isn’t that obvious? ‘What else would it be?’ Unless it really is punishment, in which case it wouldn’t matter what she did.
Saskia straightens and reaches for the pack of cards on her desk. ‘I know you said you didn’t want another reading, but I’m going to do a simple one to try to help you here. Three cards,’ she says as she shuffles, ‘past, present, future.’
