The week scrambles past. I don’t so much as glimpse Fred’s car, or catch sight of Ellis in the garden, despite checking incessantly. Life feels deceptively normal, but doesn’t fool me. I don’t allow myself to sleep deeply, or to ever be at home without the door double-bolted. I keep my phone with me at all times and I’ve reduced my time alone, lingering at the office, spending more time with Jam. We went for a beach walk last night, during which she asked if I’d considered the possibility that Fred has set all this up himself to get rid of me.
I have, yes.
When Friday lunchtime arrives, I’m relieved to have made it to the end of the week, slipping out of the office before anyone can ask why. Today, unlike every other day, isn’t about Fred and Ellis, or even me.
I zip up my fleece and run downstairs in my Dress Down Friday shorts—still warm enough for them, but they’ll be gone by the end of the month. I brought my car to work, parking it in the courtyard out back. If anyone ever noticed, they would know I do the same thing on this day every year.
It’s a twenty-minute drive, the autumnal colors vibrant as they flash past. I’m glad it’s sunny; small mercies.
I slow down as I approach the building with the ominous chimney, pulling into the car park. As I walk across the courtyard, I hear organ music. Coming toward me are mourners in black, heels clipping the air. I feel self-conscious in my shorts, so I dart along a path between rose bushes, going toward the magnolia trees, turning to look over my shoulder every few steps. Being killed in a crematorium’s memorial garden would be crass, but I wouldn’t put it past her.
There’s a bench there which I’m making for, until I spot a crop of white hair that seems familiar. And then as I round the corner, the head turns my way and smiles and it’s Len.
I smile back, pretending I’m pleased to see him here. I’m not put out, just surprised. I’ve always done this alone.
Our hands touch as he stoops to press a kiss on my cheek. I inhale his smell; nothing I could describe. Just Len. “Is it okay that I’m here?” He’s still holding my hand as he looks down at me. Fred got his height from him, but nothing else that I can see.
“Yes, of course.” I gaze at the brass plaques, strewn with leaves. The magnolias are ablaze with green and yellow foliage, reminding me of mango skin. I wish I were somewhere tropical; I wish I could have taken her with me.
Hers is the third along from the break in the stonework, set right between a couple, Sharon and Harry, which always feels apt to me.
“How did you know I’d be here?” I ask, as he sits down beside me with the sigh and grunt befitting his age.
“Just a good guess. Are you on your lunch hour?”
“Yes.”
We fall silent and then he nudges me. “Fancy a cup of tea?”
I check my watch and then over my shoulder nervously. I’m always nervous now. I wonder whether he notices. “Just quickly then.”
“Good girl,” he says, as though I’ve done something great.
He pours the tea into tin mugs, setting them on the bench between us, unwrapping a stack of biscuits. We clink our mugs together. “Cheers.”
A robin is pecking at the soil between the plaques, near Mom’s wording. It took me an age to think of what to say. I was only eighteen; what did I know about death? Quite a lot as it turned out. Losing a parent at that age taught me everything I needed to know and a bit more.
“I’m sorry about Fred,” Len says. “He’s a complete disgrace.”
I nod politely. He’s allowed to talk Fred down, but I’m not. I know how it works. I drink my tea, nibble a biscuit.
“I shouldn’t say this, but I blame Monique.” He shifts in his seat, stretching his right leg with a wince. “She spoiled him something rotten. I used to try to enforce discipline, but when I got home from work, she’d have undone it all.” He shakes his head. “I used to say that it wasn’t going to do him any good, but she wouldn’t listen. She was always blind when it came to him—still is.”
This much is true. But although he’s reaching for a reason, an explanation for me, in truth Jam got it right the other night when she said women always get the blame. Yet, this one’s all on Fred.
Behind us, a twig snaps and I jump. Len narrows his eyes at me. “You okay, love?”
I stand up, shaking my cup dry, looking at the shrubbery behind us. It must have been a bird. But still, it’s enough to make me want to get going. Staying in one place for any length of time doesn’t seem wise anymore. “Thanks for coming, Len. But I should get back to work.”
He gazes up at me, his face creased in the sunshine, his hair cloud white. “I know things are difficult, but you’re still family as far as I’m concerned.”
“I really appreciate that. But I thought Monique…” I don’t finish the sentence, can’t think of a way to say it nicely.
Using the bench to push himself upright, he stands, swaying, getting his balance. “She’ll have to lump it. I’m sorry, but I don’t have a daughter, always wanted one.” His voice tremors and I have to look away. I can’t do this here, by Mom’s plaque.
He leaves it at that. Neither of us look like we can handle a scene. He stoops to pick up his bag. “I’ll walk with you,” he says.
As we approach the crematorium, Latin American music is playing, a gentle samba that makes me wish I were anywhere but here. At the car, he turns to face me, taking my hands. “We’re not all like him, you know, Gabby.”
“I know. It’s okay.”
He bends his knees, his watery eyes meeting mine. “Don’t let them win.”
This startles me, even though I know what he means and why he’s saying it. It’s just that I never thought he’d be saying something like this to me, on the brink of my divorcing his son.
I know he doesn’t mean the house though.
“Thanks, Len.” I go on tiptoes to press a kiss onto his dry cheek. “Thanks for the tea and for thinking of me.” He squeezes my hand and we part ways.
On the drive back to work, checking my rearview mirror constantly, no music playing so I can focus on where I’m going and who might be following, I think of how much easier my life might have been if I’d had a dad like Len, and how Fred might have turned out if he’d had a mom like mine. He might have learned from an early age to protect her, be there for her. As it was, he learned a very different pattern that set him up for where he is now.
My dad set me up too, but couldn’t follow through. He raised me to be strong, a match for him, but didn’t know what that looked like once I reached puberty—didn’t know how to take it from a childhood comic strip to an adult with a body and mind of her own.
Maybe no one set him up properly either.
As I reach the outskirts of town, I slow down, gripping the wheel, tension rising as I draw closer to home, where anything could happen.
I never saw my dad again, after he told me not to call him Dad. He phoned me a couple of times, but I didn’t pick up. I moved two towns away, put physical distance between us, not thinking it would be permanent. It just happened. The space grew between us.
Then one day, eight years ago, I got a letter stating that Robin J. Burton had left me the estate of 23 Ocean View Road in his last will and testament. And my first reaction was that I didn’t know what the J stood for—didn’t know he had a middle name.
The fact that I didn’t even know he was dead, that I’d missed his funeral, that no one had told me about it only occurred to me later, as though my brain were eking thoughts out to prevent me from overloading.
But I overloaded anyway. I don’t remember seeing Fred much that winter, as we organized the house move, and I went through the routine of work, collecting the kids, feeding them. I know now that I was in shock, unavailable, and that Fred wasn’t used to me not pivoting around him. Maybe that was the catalyst. I don’t know. But if my father’s death was the reason Fred cheated on his family, then that says more about him than it ever will about me.
Back in the office, I immerse myself in work, hounded by the sensation that there’s something I’m supposed to be doing, or realizing. By the time I’m locking up for the night, my head is hurting from thinking, fretting.
I check my messages to see if Michael Quinn has replied, but there’s nothing from him. And then I hurry to my car, locking the doors, driving home in silence, running inside the house, double-locking the front door, fending off all the possible horrors for another day, all the while knowing that the worst horrors are right here, with me.
Because there’s something I’m missing—have been missing right from the start. And until I know what it is, the possibility of it is going to terrorize me. I leave another voicemail for Michael Quinn, the shadows growing around me.