Don’t say anything yet, Josie says, handing her the glass. Please, pet, just listen.
But Nora couldn’t speak, even if she wanted to.
You know I’m on a lot of medication, Josie begins, after she sits back down in her chair. A very high dose, for a lot of things I won’t go into. Embarrassing, really.
Nora shakes her head, still wordless.
And one of the side effects, when they upped my dose after Bren was born, was a lack of, shall we say … enthusiasm.
Josie lowers her eyes to the doily beneath her teacup. Smooths it down with her hands.
For a lot of things, she goes on. A lot of my old interests. Wanting to go places, hike up hills, run the charity bake sales, all of it. I became a hermit, as Jon affectionately coined it, but a happy one. The voices quietened. The crying did, too. Mostly. And being content at home was easier than leaving the house, because if I did, that’s when things got hard. But I also struggled to. Um.
Josie is fiddling now with a button on her cardigan.
Show any interest in the romantic dealings one might have with one’s husband, she says, colour patching on her neck. Evenif one loved that husband very much. And he loved her back, till his dying day. A day that, as you know, came too soon.
Nora stares at her.
Josie touches her collar, as if too hot.
We tried a few things, but it was no use. After it had been a very long time, with no signs of improvement – Bren was young, but not so young that we didn’t have any opportunity to … well. I’d been reading up about this new medication they’d put me on, you see. And I saw something on daytime television. One of these chat shows with all the shouting and the drama but it’s all very human, really, when you get to the root of the thing.
She waits for a response, here, but Nora’s face has gone numb.
I thought about it. A lot. And then I suggested he get his needs met, elsewhere. It really was fine with me. I worried our marriage might not survive, otherwise. We were both so young, still. It might have, of course. Jon said he didn’t need to … well. But I would rather it was out in the open, than he be driven to … betrayal.
Nora can’t help it. She is blushing more deeply now, mainly because Josie is, and there is not enough cake or water to busy herself with, so she has to simply sit and let the pieces slot into place in her mind; has to look at Josie touching her neck again, her wedding ring still on her left hand.
We said nothing more about it for years, Josie says. He left the military and we moved here, as you know. Bren was at his new school, and Jon was scratching around in that shed of his, doing odd jobs for the neighbours, laying down Freya’s decking, and the two of them just … hit it off, I suppose. Hard not to, when she is who she is. So bright, and brilliant. Andfunny. Gosh, she made him laugh. Made us both laugh, in fact. So we … revisited the situation.
Nora’s numbness is receding. Now it feels as if the wallsmight close in, like in the video game Bren used to play in the next room, crushing the cartoon on screen unless you could figure out the right set of moves.
You … planned it? she manages.
Planned is a strong term, Josie says, with a small smile. There wasn’t any organisation involved. No guidebooks, or Post-it notes.
Nora blinks, and Josie smiles wider, says remember? You and Bren were so into your Post-it notes, when you were planning your trip. Orange for him, green for you. Blue for maybes. You had a lot of maybes.
Then she says sorry, she’s getting off topic. And she has wondered whether she should’ve explained, over the years. When the best time might have been, to do that.
Freya and I have talked about it, of course, Josie says, shrugging her birdlike shoulders, but it always felt a bit irrelevant, pet. It wouldn’t have been right, when you were young. You and Bren were such good friends, too. We didn’t want to make anything …
Weird, Nora says.
I see the irony, Josie admits. I know it’s messy, Nora. Except it didn’t really feel that way, to us. Freya was so … Freya. We assumed she’d be open to something … unusual.
If Nora could snort right now, she would, but instead she just sits there, red-faced. Cake abandoned on her plate.
This is uncomfortable, Josie says, isn’t it.
No, Nora says. Well, yes. But I’m more. Just. Baffled.
Josie laughs at this, and there is a flicker, in Nora’s mind, at how Robin would have laughed at that adjective, too.
I would’ve been, as well, Josie admits. If it hadn’t been my idea.
So Freya agreed? Nora says. To this … set-up?
