I wonder where this has come from. This sudden shift in him. This isnot a request at all, but a demand. I want to hiss at him, catlike, that I am not his servant. That I am the woman who can save him, just as his dead wife did. But perhaps the dry cleaningwasone of Alice’s jobs. I wrestle with the anger, remind myself of Alice’s virtues, and nod meekly.
“Good girl,” he says.
It nearly tips me. I nearly release the full weight of my fury, but—once again—I force myself to remember where I am. Why this is important. I will help him through whatever this is, gently guide him back to becoming the charming man I met at the group that day. The one who thinks I am special. The one who bought me daffodils.
—
Jack doesn’t improvemuch over the course of the week. If anything, his black mood seems to be getting worse. I put it down to the alcohol and the lack of sleep, but it doesn’t make him any easier to deal with. The dry cleaning that I begrudgingly collected was just the beginning. When he arrived home that evening, he asked me politely why I had not put it away, with a tightness to his voice that belied the simmering anger beneath. He begins to request things for dinner—complicated dishes that I’m sure are outside of my limited capabilities, but which I attempt anyway, knowing that Alice would have excelled at them. One night, he merely wrinkles his nose at my offering, lays his napkin down on the table, and exits the room. I don’t see him again for the rest of the evening.
And while Alice might have put up with this childish behavior, it begins to grate on me. Jack hasn’t made me feel special, or appreciated, orloved, since our first dinner together.
By the following Tuesday afternoon, I am crawling the walls. When I receive a message with yet another unreasonable demand—Could you change the sheets in our room? They should be in the airing cupboard, no kiss, no thoughtful appendix—I decide enough is enough. Irealize that the group meets this evening, and I could use it tonight more than ever.
Jack isn’t back when I don my coat, and I’m glad for it. I’m not in the mood to navigate yet another of his stormy shifts in personality. I don’t bother writing a note. Let him wonder where his new lackey has got to.
I’m early to the community hall, so I make small talk with Fiona as the others trickle in. Something stops me from telling her about Jack—she no longer waits for him at the start of each session—and, as much as I would like to boast about my new relationship, Jack’s behavior recently has left a funny taste in my mouth. I doubt I could muster the enthusiasm anyway. I’ve been feeling flat recently, which is unlike me.
What I really need is validation. Some confirmation that I still exist. The feel of all the eyes in the room turning toward me. And so, when the session begins, I am the first to speak. My hand is in the air before Fiona has even finished asking if anyone would like to kick off today’s session.
“I would,” I say, and I like the feeling of being in control again. Of commanding the attention of the room. The familiar thrill begins to build. God, I’ve missed it. I summon tears. I don’t even need to usethememory. They’ve been threatening to spill over all week: tears of anger and frustration and disappointment.
Fiona pats me on my shoulder, and I even manage not to flinch. “My mum and I had a huge argument. She blamed me for the death of my twin sister,” I say, and I pause to allow the words to settle.
It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud. It doesn’t hurt as much as I’d thought it would. Talking about Marcie is easier now that I’m no longer molding myself from her. It creates some much-needed distance, and the words are looser and more forthcoming. “It was anaccident. She slipped. We were only seventeen, but I do feel responsible, in a way. We’d argued that morning, like you, Hannah, and your mum.”
Hannah dips her head as though she understands. I love her for it.This tiny gesture of acknowledgment makes me feel seen for the first time in days.
“Perhaps if we hadn’t argued, she’d have taken more care. But I know it’s not helpful to dwell on questions like that.”
“I didn’t know you’d lost your sister, too, Iris. I’m sorry,” Fiona says, and she begins rubbing circles on my back. I shift slightly out of her reach. She’s a heavy smoker, and I don’t want the smell of stale ash to transfer to my clothes.
“Yes, well. It was a long time ago, but obviously, with losing Freddie, too…it hasn’t been easy.”
“Your mum sounds like she was out of line, blaming you like that,” Matt interjects, and I give him a gracious, albeit watery smile. He’s right: She was out of line.
“We don’t always say what we mean when we’re suffering a loss,” Fiona reprimands gently, but she looks like she agrees with him.
“Oh, I think she meant it,” I say darkly, remembering her twisted features.
“Well, do try not to take it personally, Iris. Am I right in thinking that your mother”—she clears her throat delicately—“struggleswith certain issues?”
I nod. I mentioned Mum’s problem with alcohol early on. It came after a particularly hazardous conversation about Freddie, during which Mum had probed about our relationship, asking for detail after detail, almost like she didn’t believe he was real. There was something purgative about revealing this darker, dirtier side to Mum in front of a group of strangers.
“It sounds like she has a few demons to exorcise, too. You’ve been very brave sharing with us today.”
“Thank you,” I say, one ear straining for the murmurs of sympathy filtering through the room. Ihavehad a tough deal. It hasn’t been easyfor me, and it took coming here to remind me of that fact. A cathartic exercise. A form of self-care, even.
When I make it clear that I have said all I want to on the matter, Fiona turns her attention to Charlie and is met, unsurprisingly, with the sort of tortured silence that you usually find at funerals. Charlie lost his partner, Jeremy, to illness and has not been coping well. Given his lack of contributions, I don’t know why he keeps coming, but perhaps it’s less about airing his feelings and more about the fact that a regular date in his diary stops him from succumbing to wave after wave of grief and depression.
We get nothing out of him, and the session moves on.
At the end, Fiona claps her hands. “I’ve been giving it some thought,” she says. “And I think it might be fun for you to bring photographs with you to one of our upcoming sessions. What are your thoughts?” She asks the question as though she has just proposed a particularly exciting school trip. The response is less enthusiastic. There are some general, noncommittal murmurs, but nothing concrete.
“I’ll send you all an email about it, shall I?”
Thirty-four
There is anominous ambience to the house as I step through the door. A bloated, expectant atmosphere that I can feel even in the hallway. Good. He’s had three hours to stew over my absence, and I hope he felt every second of it.
