They handed me a tissue, but I thought I caught a glimpse of disbelief. If it was there, they had nothing on me. The hotel, as it turned out, had had complaints about the path before. They’d been planning to erect a fence the very next week.
They questioned me a couple more times after that, but it was inconclusive. The story went that Marcie had been upset by our argument. That she was not as careful as she should have been when approaching the cliff. That the rocks were slippery from the rain.
The journey back was silent. Dad’s hands were white on the steering wheel. Silent tears ran down Mum’s face. I looked out the window. As we passed through the town, I caught sight of the boys piling into a car, a surfboard strapped to the top. They looked shaken and white. Josh and I never spoke again.
—
The fallout waseven worse than I could have imagined. Mum and Dad walked the house like shells of their former selves. They stopped speaking to each other. They stopped speaking to me. Mum had to choose Marcie’s clothes for her burial. She ripped Marcie’s side of the room apart.
“Where’s the bracelet? Where’s her bracelet? She wasn’t wearing it! Why wasn’t she wearing it?”
I slipped it between the slats of my bed and the mattress after that.
We had a funeral. Billy came. I cried all the way through, and at the end he put his arm round me. It didn’t feel like I’d imagined it would feel. He sent me a message afterward, but I didn’t reply.
I caught Mum looking at me during the funeral. She didn’t cry, but her hands were trembling. She was frowning at me like my grandparents did: like I was a puzzle she didn’t know how to solve. I stared at my feet and wished for it to be over.
Dad left three months later. It was the single most cowardly thing I’ve ever witnessed. He and mum had barely said three words to each other in that time, but suddenly their voices permeated the quiet mausoleum of our house.
“She had something to do with it. I know she did.”
“Listen to yourself. Do you know what you’re suggesting?”
“I know exactly what I’m suggesting, Richard. And you do, too.”
“Don’t be fucking ridiculous,” he snarled. “You can’t blame her for this. Do you know what that will do to her?”
“If they hadn’t been fighting…” she moaned.
“Marcie could be difficult. You know that.”
He left that evening with a small overnight bag. He never came back to collect the rest of his things. A year later, he was married. A year after that, he had another baby on the way.
I tried with Mum. God knows I tried. For the first time, it was just the two of us. She’d started drinking heavily. Mostly, she barely seemed to notice I was there, but sometimes she’d look at me with something like fear in her eyes. I wanted to make her feel better. I thought I might be able to fill the void that Marcie had left behind. I was one half of her, after all. The only connection to her beloved daughter she had left.
One day, when the silence had stretched so tight it was stifling, I went to Marcie’s side of the room. I opened her chest of drawers. I picked out the most Marcie-ish outfit I could find. Something unique, something special. I cut my hair. Colored it blond. I barely recognized myself when I looked in the mirror. I liked it. And then I went to her.
Her reaction was not what I’d expected. I wanted her to take me in her arms, like she used to with Marcie. To kiss me on the crown of my head. To smooth my new, golden hair. Instead, she sat up and blinked at me, and her expression was one of abject terror.
I tempered my clothes and behavior around the house after that. But when I went out I noticed that people looked at me differently. And with their silent admiration, I felt a change occur within me. That confidence I’d always strived for seemed to flood my veins. I squared my shoulders, pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, and smiled at them as they passed me by, just like Marcie used to.
Thirty-one
I set the stewdown on the freshly laid table. I found a white tablecloth tucked away in one of the drawers. It really completes the scene. I’ve always had a good eye for design. I can thank my teenage artistic obsession for that. The candles—in the brass candlesticks I found—add a lovely, intimate glow. It’s cozy. I’ve set two places next to each other at the end of the long table. I want it to feel romantic, close, familiar.
I’m not sure this sort of domesticity is for me, long-term. I’m all for putting in the effort, but it must get monotonous after a while. Still, there’s been a certain novelty to the whole experience: deciding on a recipe, buying the ingredients, pulling it all together. Jack forgot to find that key in the kitchen for me, so I borrowed one from Martha, edging into the room as she was dusting, clasping my hands in front of me, filled with meek apology for my request. She’d frowned at me when I said I did not have my own, then rummaged in her bag and handed me hers.
“I’ll need it back, mind. When you’re done.”
Despite her frostiness, I enjoyed picking out only the freshest ingredients from the little organic store round the corner (in keeping with Jack’s preferences, of course), following one of those recipes I found in the drawer, laying the table with painstaking precision, all to show Jack that I, too, can be a homemaker. I deliberated for a long time over the recipe. I flicked through several online options that popped up when I typed in “cozy dinner ideas,” then “nourishing dinner ideas,” then simply “dinner ideas,” but felt overwhelmed by the choices. It was then I remembered the stack of handwritten recipe cards. I could hardly believe I’d forgotten. I liked the idea that I would be following the exact same process as Alice once did, in the exact same kitchen, wearing the exact same apron, which I’d found in the pantry.
I picked one that didn’t seem overly complicated. It’s important to acknowledge one’s flaws, and cookery has never been my gift. It’s never needed to be. When you’re cooking for one, some of the joy does go out of the whole process. But this was simple and easy enough to follow. I’d have liked to have made my own chicken stock, too, as the recipe suggested, but time was not on my side, so I bought some from the shop. It all came together very nicely. It sits, now, steaming on the table, next to two bowls that I’ve laid out. The recipe called for it to be served withthick, crusty bread. Homemade if poss (use recipe that J likes). That, I decided, was beyond the realm of my capabilities, though I found the recipe she was talking about. She’d put a sentimental smiley face at the bottom, which only fed into the image I’d constructed of her. Sickeningly sweet, virtuous right to the end.
Though I didn’t make the loaf that I now arrange on the chopping board at the end of the table, I’ll pass it off as my own, obviously. A family recipe that’s been handed down through the generations.
Jack got home five minutes ago, just as I was finishing up the stew with a dollop of sour cream. He stopped dead in his tracks as he enteredthe kitchen, his nose raised slightly like a fox that has caught the scent of a rabbit on the wind. I was the picture of innocence, as though I wasn’t fully aware of the link between smell and memory. As though this was not all part of the plan—using one of Alice’s recipes to position myself even more firmly in the spot she so thoughtfully vacated for me.
“It smells amazing, Iris,” he said. “I’ll just go and change, then I’ll be right down.”
