She hadn’t expected to see her at the funeral. After all these years, Jess had faded until she had begun to take on the sepia tones of a distant memory or of a film watched long ago, the images patchy and incomplete. It wasn’t that Emily never thought of her; she was aware of her in the world, but just – during the past sixteen years at least – not in hers. And so it took her by complete surprise, the lurch of yearning affection she felt when she spotted the unmistakable outline of Jess sitting alone at the far end of the empty front pew. From the doorway, she appeared unchanged, the sharp downward light from the stained glass windows outlining her narrow shape. Emily would have known that shape anywhere: the sun-streaked hair that bordered on messy, the modest tilt of her head, the delicate frame of her shoulders still evident beneath a heavy mannish coat. How must it be for her, returning to their gentle home town after all these years away? Emily finds it strange enough on her yearly visits, but to have been absent for the best part of two decades? It must feel like walking among ghosts.
Instinctively Emily reached for James, slipping her arm through his as she scanned the farther rows of the small church. Chloe trailed awkwardly beside them, visibly shivering in the cold stone building, the cuffs of her coat pinched down into tight fists. Emily searched for familiarity in the faces of her mother’s friends and neighbours, and her glance lingered briefly on her old schoolfriend Sammie Evans over on the far side, but apart from her she recognised no one. Many of them seemed to know her, though, to nod and smile sympathetically as she, James and Chloe passed mutely along the aisle towards the front seats, reserved for immediate family, reserved for them. That’s Emily, they’d all be thinking. That’s Emily with her widower and their baby, and that’s the teenage stepdaughter. SO sad; the mother died when she was just a tot. SO sad. Amazing how Emily took them on. He runs his own business, you know. Oh, yes, they’d all know who they were: Mum would have shared every proud little detail, passing it on over church tea and cake, her talk of them a poor substitute for the visits they should have made more often. When did all these people get so old? Emily wondered, her eyes taking in the sea of silvered hair and mourning grey, not one of their faces recognisable as the younger versions from her childhood. Is this the way it will go, for all of us? Daisy wriggled on James’s shoulder and he extricated his arm from Emily’s to soothe and reposition her. Even the baby was silent, as if she understood the gravity of a funeral, the need for solemnity in the House of God. That was what Mum and Dad used to call it, the House of God, and Emily and her sister would try not to smirk or roll their eyes or any of those other things that teenagers falling out of love with religion so often did. Mum never got used to the idea that neither of her daughters wanted to carry on in the Catholic faith, and Dad, though silent on the matter, was saddened by it too, missing the presence of his daughters by his side at Sunday mass. Of course, Jess was gone long before Emily had the courage to pull away completely, but over the years she and her parents found a way to skirt around the subject, to avert their eyes from the disappointment in the room. Not that it mattered any more, because now both their parents were dead. Perhaps that was why Jess felt able to come back; perhaps it’s always easier to face our loved ones once they’re gone.
Daisy reached out towards her and Emily felt a pang of regret that she hadn’t brought her to see Mum in the past six months or so. She had only been three or four months old the last time Mum saw her, and she probably wouldn’t have recognised Daisy now, her early wisps of dark downy hair having morphed into soft blonde curls; they change so quickly in that first year. People are always saying that, aren’t they: make the most of these early days, they’ll have grown up and left home before you know it. When Mum last saw her she was barely rolling over, and now she had a whole world of her own: favourite toys and television shows, best friends and funny little habits. Only last week she had them all in stitches when they caught her leaning out through the old cat flap, desperately grasping for a dropped toy she’d spotted on the other side. Mum would have loved that story. Emily thought of all the other things they’d never discussed. Jess’s disappearance. Dad’s indiscretions. Emily’s desperation to break away. Should she feel bad about these things? These missed opportunities to know her mother better, to love her more? Maybe it was just being in church again, the source of this guilt. Or maybe it was seeing Jess, sitting there, so alone, without family or friend by her side. Of course, she thought, we Catholics do a good line in those things – shame, anxiety, remorse. In reality, Emily didn’t think of herself as someone too blighted by these emotions, but even as they drew closer to the front of the church, towards the elevated coffin at the centre of the aisle, she wondered if God had been watching when she shuddered in disgust at her mother’s request for burial, still wedded as she was to the old Catholic rites. When drawing up their own family wills, Emily had firmly stipulated cremation for herself and James (along with a hilltop scattering, to go the whole hog), and she wondered what God thought of that – or what he thought as she popped her daily contraceptive pill, and consciously supported the concept of a woman’s right to choose. Bless me Father, for I have sinned – it has been twenty-one years since my last confession, and I’ve broken all the rules.
She started to worry what the rest of the congregation would think if she didn’t join them to receive communion, and as they drew closer to the coffin she became aware of the force of her breath pushing against her ribcage, straining to be released. She exhaled, slowly, silently, and when they came level with the front pew Jess turned and looked at her, as if she’d known she was there all along and could sense her anxiety. Jess smiled, gently, and Emily slid into the seat beside her and, without thought, slipped a hand into hers. And that was how easily they glided back into each other’s lives: a simple moment of understanding, a shared point of grief in their adult lives.
And now here they are, three months later, in what feels like a scene from a nightmare parallel universe, small clusters posed around the house in the soft rising light of morning. They gather like portrait studies: the devastated parents bent over the dining room table, a police officer on either side; the huddle of strangers through the archway, poised to photograph the island worktop, the bloodied kitchen floor; the barely functioning aunt, a blanket around her shoulders, hovering in the doorway to the living room. Emily glances at James before she replies to the officer’s question, giving an answer that accurately matches his. ‘We arrived home together. At around 2am. That’s when we found Jess on the floor.’
She can feel her sister’s eyes on her; she feels the need in them, the way they implore her to turn in her direction, to look up and offer her hope. But she won’t do that, can’t do that. She stares at a dark knot in the wood grain of the table, focuses on the streaks and whorls of it, until she hears the faint tone of Jess from the other room, answering the inspector’s questions in an oddly blunted voice. Now feeling strangely composed, Emily knows she only has herself to blame. She brought Jess back into this family, despite everything that went on before. She trusted her. She forgave her.