After an awkward pause, Fiona clears her throat.
“Right. Shall we push on, then?”
There is a general murmur of assent, at the same time as the swinging door behind me bangs open. It’s such an aggressive noise amid the solemn silence that I twist in my seat with a thrill of horror. Because there is only one person who would be angry enough to open the door with such force. And there he is.
Jack strides right through the center of the circle, hands clenched into fists. He moves Matt’s flowers with so little ceremony, I hear Fiona tut. Then he sits heavily and stares at me with such intensity that I look at my feet. I suppose it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where I might be disappearing to each Tuesday. Probably should’ve seen this one coming. But Jack is impossible to read, and I was sure he believed me last time I said I was just walking to clear my head.
Perhaps—the thought strikes me uneasily—I’m not as convincing as I believed. Maybe he’s suspected all along.
“Jack!” Fiona says. “We didn’t think you’d be joining us anymore.”
“I’m so sorry for my absence,” he says with such candor I almost believe him. “I’ve found recent weeks difficult, but I’m back now.”
“Well, we’re glad to see you.”
This is an understatement. Rita’s hand has flown to her hair. She stopped with the excessive makeup after Jack’s absence continued, and now her face is filled with regret. Even Hannah has sat up straighter in her seat. Only Charlie hasn’t reacted. He’s still staring, unseeing, at the center of the circle.
“Right.” Fiona’s face is an unsightly pink color. “Well, Jack, I’mafraid the format is a little different this week. We’ve all brought photos of those we’ve lost. We’re going to share them with the rest of the group.”
Jack’s eyes flick to mine. Shit. He’s going to know that I didn’t delete all of Freddie’s photos.
“That’s fine,” he says, and he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. For all my planning, for all my desperation to get into that chest, I realize now that he’s been keeping a digital record of Alice’s life that I could have accessed at any time. Rookie mistake—I’ve been making a lot of those lately. It’s easy to break into a phone, if only you know how. I’ve been sharing a bed with this man who is passed out drunk most nights. It would have been easy to swipe it from his bedside table.
He’s scrolling through it now, and despite my discomfort at his sudden appearance, I experience a swell of excitement, too. Finally, I am going to see the woman I have been basing myself on. I will see how she compares to me, what I could do differently with my hair and my posture.
I pull Freddie from my own pocket. If I’d known that Jack was going to be here, I would’ve found time to pick the very best picture I could. Because Freddie is a reflection of me, even in death.
“Could everyone pass their photographs to the left, please?” Fiona jigs her leg with nervous excitement.
Jack hands his phone over to Hannah, and I swallow. I would like to go and snatch it from her hands, but I must practice patience, keep my face neutral. It would be unseemly to be too keen. Morbid, even.
Rita hands me her photograph and I give a cursory glance toward her father. He looks much as you’d expect from a man who celebrated his retirement with a private cruise around the Caribbean. Bullish in stature, with the pinched, wily features of a rodent. He stares defiantly at the camera, wine-stained teeth bared in a smile. I can barely compute that this is the man deserving of those long, tedious Facebook posts. What is it about fathers being so unbelievably disappointing?
Freddie’s not getting the reaction I hoped for. I wanted glances in my direction—faces filled with sympathy as they took in this man who was taken from me too soon. But—after superficial glances—he is passed unceremoniously to the left again. I knew I should have taken longer over my selection. It’s Jack’s fault he’s not getting the attention he deserves. If only I’d been allowed to ponder my choice, pick one that truly reflected Freddie and everything he stood for…
It doesn’t help that Alice, by comparison, seems to draw sharp intakes of breath from whomever she is passed to. Even Fiona—hardened harridan that she is—puts a hand to her mouth. When she looks up, I’m sure I see tears in her eyes.
It’s not fair on Freddie. It’s not fair on any of the other people who are being handed round the circle, and I can’t fathom what is drawing such sadness from all of them.
I’m so distracted by the progress of Alice round the circle, I can barely bring myself to look at Hannah’s mother: a kind-, if fragile-looking woman. I wonder what picture I’d use of Mum. What people would assume about her.
And then, finally, it’s time. Rita hands me Jack’s phone, and the moment I catch sight of the image there, I very nearly drop it. I don’t want to look, but at the same time I can’t look away. That direct gaze, leveled at the camera, so different from how I initially imagined her. This is not the meek woman I’d pictured. This is someone very different altogether. Staggeringly beautiful, an ethereal, unpinpointable essence that rocks me to my very core. And even when I close my eyes, I can still see her, like an echo that will not stop reverberating. She stares right into the lens, right into me, and there is something accusatory about her gaze. Like she knows exactly who I am. Exactly what I have done.
The nausea comes on quickly. I’m suddenly clammy with it, the phone slippery in my hand. I know I need to keep it together, but she islodged firmly in my head now, and I can’t focus. All I can see is her. I don’t even care that Jack is still staring at me, a muscle twitching in his jaw. I need to get out. I need the fresh air.
I’m brought back to myself by a buzzing in my pocket, and I pull out my phone like it is a beacon in the darkness. Another unknown number, but at this point I don’t care. It gives me the excuse I need to exit this hot, airless room, where it feels like I can’t breathe. So I can no longer see those haunting blue eyes.
I push Jack’s phone into Charlie’s hand and stumble to my feet, glancing across the circle at Jack. Freddie has reached him now. He is looking down at the photograph with pure, unadulterated hatred stamped across his features, but I can’t worry about that now. I stagger to the door and wrench it open, aware that I have drawn every eye in the room, and, for the first time, I wish they wouldn’t look at me.
In the corridor, I lift the phone to my ear, still shaking.
“H-hello?”
“Is that Iris Jones?” A man’s voice. I don’t recognize it.
“Yes.”
“Hello. My name is Brian. I’m calling from the coroner’s office. Is there somewhere quiet you can talk?”
