He leads me through the cluttered house and out into the front garden, where we sit on a bench seat under Annie’sfavorite silver birch trees. Turning to face me, he says, “Evie, the night of the formal …”
I can’t believe he’s raising that now. “It doesn’t matter, Drew, honestly!”
“No, you don’t understand. Mum sort of … collapsed that night. She ended up in an ambulance. They admitted her.”
The horror of this news descends over me. The idea of Drew at seventeen rushing his mum to the hospital while I became more and more incensed that he wasn’t collecting me for a trivial dance … My thinking at the time thathewas the bad friend.
“I felt so bad that I let you down, but I knew if I told you, this would happen.”
“What?”
“You’d end up here with me.”
He’s right. Of course I would have. I’d have bowled up to the ER in my Jane Austen dress before even conceiving of getting changed and going to meet Oliver. I’d have pushed my way to Drew’s side.
“The thing is, it was my fault,” Drew admits. “That night, and the way her health plummeted afterward. I triggered it.”
That can’t be right.
He takes out his phone and scrolls through the photos.
“You don’t have to go through this now,” I tell him, gently. But he ignores me, and when he finds what he’s looking for, his expression contorts again.
“This is a photo of Mum with my father.” He passes the phone over.
I look at her first. So young and pretty and light andalive. So like Drew. Sunlight bouncing off her face, upturned and looking at …
I zoom in. Then look back at Drew.
This can’t be.
I know that stance. That set of the jaw. The steely glare at the camera, annoyed at having to pose for a photo. I know it, because I saw precisely the same body language play out last week when he was asked to pose for a photo at Oliver’s graduation.
57
Drew
Evie’s obvious shock at the photo of my parents is overtaken by Mum’s doctor turning up to perform the formalities.Pronounce her dead.I have to say it to myself to believe it, and even then it doesn’t seem real.
“I’m sorry, Drew,” she says, after she hands the form to the police. “This was not unexpected.”
But it was.
I shake her hand. “Thank you for coming out tonight.”
Even though we knew it was coming. Even though we’d talked about it. I don’t understand why I feel like I’m in some sort of shock, despite neon billboards blaring this exact outcome at us for years.
“Are there some clothes you’d like your mum to wear?” the funeral director says when we’re back inside. In this cast of thousands, I hadn’t even noticed his arrival.
I stare helplessly at Mum’s current attire—the old trousers with faded knees she used to wear while gardening, a tear where a rose thorn shredded the material at her thigh. An old button-down check shirt, the fabric thin from years of wear.
When I don’t answer, Evie places my phone down on the kitchen bench and comes to my side. “May I help?”
I’m barely processing the clothing task, when it occurs to me that Mum’s hands are dirty from pottering in the garden. I touch her fingers again and try to rub soil off her skin with my thumb, but it won’t budge.
Evie disappears into the hallway for a minute, and I hear the door of the linen press dragging along the carpet as she opens it. She reemerges seconds later with a washcloth, and runs the kitchen tap, waiting patiently for the water to warm up.
Mum doesn’t need the water warm. But Evie is making sure it’s at the perfect temperature anyway. She wrings out the excess liquid and holds the cloth out for me. I just stare at it, as if it’s somehow beyond me to know how to do this.
