“Just Auntie Anya.”
“Because she’s your girlfriend?”
I smiled and nodded, ruffling his hair.
If she still was.
* * *
Jamie pickedher boys up six hours later. They were both asleep in their beds at the guesthouse, tired out from the food and the football and the worry over their friend. I’d had a few texts from Anya and my sister, telling me that Harry had a clean break, and he’d be coming home with his arm in plaster, but it was all going to be okay. He’d seen his mum who’d fussed him even more than his baby sister and he’d eventually even given his sister a kiss which had been caught on camera.
I walked home from the guesthouse, having only seen the silhouette of Anya as she put Harry in his room. Shit was a state I’d felt for months, if not a couple of years since Ryan’s death, but the last few months I started to feel as if I deserved something more.
The tide was in so I took the path through the trees and bushes to get back to my shell of a house. Stars were shrouded by clouds and the air felt heavy, maybe the last of the summer thunderstorms was about to roll in. As I got to the barn, the rain was falling heavily on me, saturating everything it touched quickly, cooling everything, taking away the heat.
There was a car on the drive that belonged to Janie, left that evening. They’d gone to the hospital in Anya’s car as Harry’s seat was in it so it had made sense. As usual, Janie had left her car unlocked, just in case one of the boys had needed to run back to it.
I opened the drivers’ door and got in, looking at the steering wheel as if it was a foreign object, or something sent from another planet. I hit it, hard with the palms of my hands. Then again and again, smacking the leather. I heard my cry above the rain that plummeted down on the roof of the car and felt its anguish and then my face was wet.
For the first time in two years I cried. Sobbed. The tension broke.
How do you fix something that is not fixable?
How can love be sustained if it comes from grief?
Anya
Ididn’t hear from Gabe for two days. I didn’t know what I wanted to hear when I spoke to him. There were no texts from him, no phone calls. No messages via anyone we both knew. Nothing.
Harry had forgotten about the barbecue in the midst of all the attention he was getting because of his arm, and that boy could milk it. His nan and dad waited on him, brought him gifts, some from his sister and made him feel like king. We were creating a monster for when my sister came home and I was glad I’d only be there for a week of the fall-out.
By the morning of the third day since Harry had hurt himself, I’d had enough of the Gabe-imposed silence so I set out to find him. He’d not been on the boats, nor had he been in touch with Janie. I figured he was wrapped up in painting, although I hoped he was busy with one of the projects I knew he’d been offered on the island.
I was also half mad at him.
I got that he couldn’t get into a car. Not yet. The trauma was a graze and the scab was forever being knocked off. Expecting him to be able to get over that in the crash of a wave and take a five-year-old to hospital was unreasonable, but having him ghost everybody afterward was not acceptable.
I found him in the barn, standing in front of a massive canvas that was covered with pinks and purples, some silvers. It was nothing like his usual creations which were generally based on a scene or a person. This was something fantastical. I noticed that he’d embedded shells into the painting.
“Gabe.” He hadn’t noticed me even after I’d watched him for five minutes. “Gabe.”
He turned as if I’d only just arrived. “Shit. I didn’t know you were there.”
“Been here a bit. Saw you go to town with the purple.” The purple which was part of a mermaid’s tail. I had an inkling of who this was for.
“Sorry. Been at this for most of the past couple of days.”
“Is that your excuse for avoiding me?”
He looked at his feet and then at me. “Yep. Got it in one.”
“Gabe, you didn’t have to come with me. I get why you won’t get in a car…”
“How the fuck can I support any one if I can’t do the most basic of things? I had a five-year-old fucking begging me to go with him to the hospital because he’d broken his fucking arm and I couldn’t look after him. Or give you the support you needed? Anya, I worship the fucking ground you walk on; I see how you’ve managed to accept what’s happened and deal with your grief instead of being like this... this weird cave dwelling freak I’ve become who can’t face fucking anything apart from hiding away painting shit and avoiding living because he’s too fucking scared.
“I’m not what you need. I can’t be what you need.”
I dropped my bag on the floor, tears flooding my face before I’d even realised they’d fallen.
