‘It is …’
I’ve run out of inane things to say, so we sit there in silence, our heads tipped back, staring at the sky. Now and then Gil points out a shooting star, or the slow steady track of a satellite. I name a few constellations, and then so does he, but we can’t find any of them in the blanket of blinking stars, and then we spend ten minutes trying to work out where Orion is buried and if it can even be seen at this time of year.
After a while, I realize the subject that’s keeping me up will also interest Gil. ‘Just as I was getting ready for bed, I got a text from Simon.’
‘Oh?’
‘He doesn’t think he’s going to come down for a visit this weekend, after all.’ I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice, but I don’t quite succeed. Simon visited the first two weekends I was here, but this is now the second time he’s cancelled. ‘Some big project they’ve got on at work. He says he is putting out fires on an hourly basis and he probably needs to go into the office on Saturday morning.It’s a long drive to come just for a few hours, possibly stay overnight and then have to go straight back again.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Gil says.
‘He says he might come next weekend.’ I pause for a moment, then add, ‘I hope he’ll be okay on his own. He must be getting lonely.’
Gil tips his head slightly and studies me. ‘How are you able to worry about everyone else when you’re going through what’s probably the most difficult time of your life?’
I feel something akin to a flash of lightning sear through me. He’s asked me something very similar to that before. When we were in the water. When we almost drowned.
Only he didn’t. Did he?
Then why does it feel so real, as solid as any other memory I have in my head?Sometimes, I really do wonder if I got a glimpse at another version of my life.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply softly. ‘It’s just how I am.’
Gil doesn’t push me further. If he did, I’d probably push back, banish this subject just because I’m so used to being stubborn with him, but the fact he leaves the silence untroubled means I don’t shoo the topic away as I normally would. It’s an interesting question. WhydoI do that?
After a few minutes, I say, ‘Maybe it’s to do with my brother. Maybe I’m always trying to make up for the child that’s missing, ensuring I’m doubly good so I’m not letting them down.’
‘It’s tough enough being an only child without all of that.’
‘I remember now … You’re an only child, too.’
‘Yes.’
I nod, recalling another night, a shouted conversation in a hallway,back in a time when I didn’t hate Gil. Back in a time when I liked him more than I’ve ever wanted to admit since. I don’t know how to react to that admission, so I just gloss right over it in true Erin style and keep talking. ‘The weird thing is I never felt as if I was an only child, because if that’s the case, you should get all the attention, right?’
‘You never really talk much about your family. Well, about Alex. But I’ve seen how … single-minded your mum is.’
I huff out a laugh. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’
He looks at me as if he’s trying to work out a puzzle. ‘Alex got all the attention, didn’t he, even though he wasn’t there?’
‘Yes.’ His words bring a lump to my throat and I swallow it down. ‘The spectre of Alex was everywhere when I was growing up. My mum kept the box room decorated as a nursery, something that caused a lot of conflict between her and my dad. And there were photos of him everywhere.’ I wince at the memory of a line of large pictures of my brother on the mantelpiece in the living room, along with one tiny one of me. ‘My mum insisted we make a big fuss of his birthday every year – a cake with candles and everything – but when I turned eight, I didn’t even get a party because Mum was doing a charity run that weekend and she had too much on her plate. I spent my birthday in a freezing park in the rain, cheering Mum on.’
I didn’t think anyone ever noticed how I would feel about being the one left behind after my brother’s death. It wasn’t my feelings that were important, were they? But it shocks me that Gil, of all people, is the first one to make all the pieces fit. Maybe that’s why I keep talking, spilling out secrets I’ve never told anyone.
‘It got worse once my parents’ marriage fell apart about five years after he died.My mum was really depressed for a while. Another gaping hole in her life. I think she set the charity up to fill it, and I don’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t, so I can’t be mad at her for that. It gave her something to get out of bed for in the morning. It gave her a purpose.’
‘Erin …’ I can hear the censure in his tone, and I know he’s thinking that there should have been something,somebody,else to give her that sense of hope and purpose.
I shake my head. ‘I couldn’t stop her, even if I’d known how to express that feeling when I was a child, because even then I knew how selfish it would be. She was helping other parents. Otherbabies.’
Gil’s expression tells me he doesn’t agree with me. ‘Maybe there could have been a better balance. Have you ever talked to your mum about this?’
I laugh at the absurdity of the idea. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘The thing that fuels her is that she feels she let Alex down. How could I add to that? How could I tell her she’s an even worse mother than she thought she was? Besides … It’s changing now. I think my accident really shook her up.’
