‘You know, I think I got into gardening for the same reason you got into cooking, Fisher,’ she said, her tone casual as she wedged the last of the leek seedlings into the little trolley she used to haul plants down to the community garden, ready for the morning.
‘You were also a fully grown adult who realised they had no practical life skills?’ I closed the boot and looked at her quizzically. ‘Didn’t you tell me when we were at Tsundoku a couple of weeks ago that you started gardening when you were, like, six?’
‘I was seven. And I thought if I could contribute to the household and help out, my father would stop screaming at my mum and Chess and me that we were all a waste of space.’
I stopped dead.
She sniffed, swallowing once, twice. ‘I thought I could make him love us.’
‘Oh God,’ I said, as tears started to bead in the corner of her eyes. ‘Shit, Sadie.’
‘Sorry.’ She brushed them away roughly. ‘I didn’t mean to trauma dump on you. My abandonment issues are for my therapist to worry about, not you. I’m fine, really. I just…’
She didn’t need to finish the sentence, and there was no way I was going to make her. ‘I need to take the car back to Fi,’ I said, ‘but it can wait. We can go upstairs. I can make you a cup of tea. I could even… I didn’t want to tell you until I got it perfect, but I’ve been finessing a mug cake recipe. I’ve got some ideas for some pretty adventurous flavour combinations. You could taste-test them for me.’
‘Oh, Jonah, that’s really nice of you.’
My heart skipped a beat.
But then she shook her head. ‘Take the car back to Fiona, though. I think I, um… I think I should just be alone for a minute.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I’m sure.’
Then, to my great surprise, she put her arms around my neck. ‘Thank you, though,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it.’
She kissed my cheek, and maybe that was why I let what I said next come out of my mouth.
‘Any time, darling,’ I whispered into her hair.
I kicked myself for it every second of the short drive back to Fi’s. Mug cake. Fuckingmug cake. Why the fuck had I offered to make her mug cake? The thing that she’d specifically told me, on thenight of the sixth ceasefire, was something that Chess used to make for her?
And I’d tried to kiss her. I’d called herdarling,even though there wasn’t anyone else there to hear it except her. What the fuck was I thinking?
I smacked the steering wheel. Yes, we’d been getting along. Yes, we’d been getting a bit more tactile of late. Yes, we were now even in a place where her hugging me the way she’d just hugged me was… normal.
But whenever Sadie reached out to me – whether to put her hand on my arm, or her arms around my neck, or even to sprawl over me in her sleep, as she surely would again if we started babysitting the kids one night a week – I had to remember that it wasn’t because she was genuinely emotionally attached to me. It wasn’t because I was Jonah Fisher, person she enjoyed spending time with.
It was because she was lonely, and I wasthere.
The basic governing principle of narrative was causation. It wasn’tX happened then Y happened– it wasY happened because X happened.
Sadie had not started reaching out to me because, out of nowhere, she was starting to feel about me the way I’d always felt about her. She was doing it because she and Chess were at odds, and I was the only possible substitute.
I could enjoy it, sure. But I couldn’t read into it. And I absolutely –absolutely– couldn’t take advantage of it.
I sighed, pulling the car to a stop in Fiona’s driveway. I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what the right thing to do was, but that didn’t mean I wanted to do it. I’d resisted it over the past few months – if there was one thing I knew about Sadie, it was that she could speak for herself – but it was obvious nothing was going to change unless I did something to change it.
It only took about three seconds to find Chess’s email address, sitting beneath a stern, unsmiling picture of her on her law firm’s website. Dear Francesca, I wrote.
I’m sure you’re not interested in hearing from me and I don’t blame you at all. Neither I nor my family have ever given you any reason to like me – and you were absolutely correct when you told me I had ridden Sadie’s coat-tails into a job I do not deserve.
What I do blame you for, though, is making her miserable.
Despite what you may think, I care very deeply about your sister. You might find this difficult to believe, given our history and the numerous ways I’ve benefitted from our marriage, but I would not have married her otherwise. Sadie is extremely important to me – and the fact that you’re refusing to speak to her is killing her.
I know you had a fight the night before our wedding. I know you probably both said some things, but frankly, I don’t care. Are you really going to let me – someone I know you have no respect for – come between you?
