THIRTY
I hated missing Damon. I hated myself for not being able to get my love life together—or even my life together. I hated that he could be with another woman. And I hated my parents.
Everything felt colder and darker. I’d had no idea how much happiness and light he brought before he was gone, and it was too late.
I sat at my dingy desk after making The Ogre his second coffee of the hour. I’d never felt so low or like such a complete failure before.
Opening my drawer, I got my phone out to check my personal emails to see if anyone had offered me an amazing job for ten times what I was earning here. No such luck.
And nothing from Damon. Not that I’d expected it. Ending things was ultimately my idea, but here I was, hoping he would make contact. I was desperate for something. Anything.
Chloe had spoken to him a few times. She hadn’t divulged much, and that’d made me want to shine a bright light in her eyes and demand that she told me every little detail. But I was afraid. Afraid that she would tell me he was coping and afraid that she would tell me he wasn’t. I’d hurt him, but I couldn’t hear someone tell me how much, not again.
I gripped my phone in my hands, wanting to reach out to him. If I could flick a switch and have everything go back to how it had been before we parted ways, I’d do it. When he’d walked out of my life, he had taken something with him, something big, and I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to live with that.
Not wanting to be that woman, I pushed the longing from my mind, put the phone down, and carried on. I didn’t need anyone. My chest might well feel hollow, but my heart still pumped, and I still breathed. I’d be fine.
Ten minutes into sorting The Ogre’s diary for the next week, I got a call on the phone I was trying to ignore. No one called me during work hours. And my blood chilled when I saw it was Nan calling.
“Hello?” I said.
“Nell, it’s Nan,” she said, still in times where you didn’t have a screen to tell you who was calling. “Where are you?”
This was now officially weird, and I felt slightly sick. Her monthly catch-up call wasn’t due for another week, and she always preferred to call me on the landline rather than mobile.
“At work. Why? What’s going on?”
“Okay, love. I’m going to come and pick you up,” she said softly.
“Why?” I asked, standing up. I had a pit in my stomach the size of the Titanic. Something wasn’t right. “I don’t need picking up. I have my car. Why would you need to pick me up?”
“Love, I really think it’s best if I come and get you.”
“O-okay,” I whispered, placing my hand on the desk as I felt my body sway.
Nan hung up, but I kept the phone to my ear. Ice pricked my skin. She didn’t live far from my office so she wouldn’t be long—if she was coming from her house.
Lowering the phone, I let it drop on the desk and then walked through to The Ogre’s office.
“Reg, my nan’s coming to pick me up,” I said, curling my fingers into my palms.
“Why?” he asked, frowning. His forehead wrinkled, creating deep waves of skin.
I shook my head. “I…I don’t know. Something’s really wrong, but she didn’t say.”
Why I’d thought I’d get any comfort from telling him, I had no idea. I wanted and needed someone to tell me that I was panicking over nothing and that the ice-cold fear I felt was unnecessary. Reg was never going to do that for me. I knew whom I needed, and he was the one person I couldn’t call. He’d told me to stay away.
“Well, let me know before you leave.”
Wanker. “Sure,” I said in a daze. I turned around, going back into my office.
Something’s happened, and I think I know what. I’ve always known, so why am I in shock?
I sat down at my desk and carefully placed my phone in my handbag. Gripping the handles between my fists, I watched the clock tick by. She wouldn’t be long. Soon, I would know what’d happened. Soon, my worst fears would undoubtedly be realised.
“Nell,” Harry snapped. “Someone’s here for you. In the future, can you save personal calls for your lunch break?”
I completely ignored him as I stood from my desk and walked out. At the minute, I didn’t have the energy to worry about them.
Nan was outside reception. She looked awful, had clearly been crying, and was pacing back and forth.
“Nan,” I said, bursting through the doors, “what’s happened?”
Which one of them?
“Oh, Nell,” she said, falling into my arms and sobbing. “I’m so sorry, darling, but it’s Mum.”
I went through the motions of pulling her back and asking what’d happened. I got in the car with her, put my seat belt on, and turned the dial to full heat. I was so cold that I couldn’t stop shivering.
“Nan, I need to know what happened,” I said calmly.
“There was an incident.”
There’s always an incident.
“They were upstairs when things got out of hand. I don’t know what happened next, but your mum fell down the stairs.”
They were throwing punches and didn’t think about where they were.
“Fell? She fell?”
“Love, I’m so sorry.”
The air was sucked from my lungs, and I doubled over. It hurt so much that I felt like I was being ripped apart. “No…no, she can’t be.”
“Nelly…”
My mother is dead.
I squeezed my eyes closed and leaned against the window. It hurt so bad.
“But…fuck! Why? I don’t understand why they couldn’t just stay away from each other. I asked them, pleaded with them, so many times,” I said, breaking into chest-rattling sobs. “She can’t be dead.”
“Shh, lovey, you’re going to be okay,” she replied, forcing her words through thick emotion.
“What happened?” I sobbed.
“They were arguing, and it got out of hand. Dad…your dad is in custody.”
Fucking hell.
“I promise, you’ll be okay.”
How can that be true?
One of my parents was lying on a cold slab of metal, and the other was behind bars. I had no idea how to handle the situation or what I should feel, other than utter despair. There were so many questions flying through my head, so much guilt I carried for not doing more to make them stay apart.
My parents had been okay on their own, but together, they had been toxic, and they hadn’t cared about anything or anyone around them—not even their own daughter.
I sat in Nan’s car, trying to piece everything together. How did it happen? What will happen next? How am I going to get through losing them both? How will I find the strength to say good-bye to my mum and even accept that I won’t see her again? Every painful question had the same agonizing answer. I don’t know.
Mum was dead. Dad was responsible. And the only surprising part to me was that it’d taken this long to happen.
“Are you okay?” Nan asked, periodically wiping her eyes as she drove.
“No, I’m not.” I was having an out-of-body experience. I was crying while I felt robotic and somewhat detached. “You?”
She shook her tightly permed head. “I just can’t believe it. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Get to the bottom of it? We knew the basics. We knew enough to understand what had happened. They’d fought all the time. They would get so violent that this was the only place it could end.
Is she more concerned about Dad when her daughter-in-law is dead?
Right now, no matter what the circumstances were, I couldn’t care less about Dad. I just wanted to be with my mum.
Nan pulled into a parking space at the hospital as close to Accident and Emergency as she could get. Mum had come in through A&E, so that was the best place to start. We didn’t know if she might’ve been transferred to the…morgue yet.
We raced through the automatic doors, and then I froze up. The rushed journey here had given us something to do, but now that we were here, the last step would be seeing Mum dead. Is that really how I want my last moments with her to be?
Things were strained when I would go over for dinner, but we’d have a laugh, say I love you, kiss on the cheeks, and have a hug. That was better than crying, not hearing love you back, and kissing a cold cheek.
I felt like I’d been plucked out of the air and thrown out somewhere, cold and alone. No one was here to tell me what to do for the best, for the best for me. Nan had her son at the forefront of her mind. If she were allowed to see him, I doubt she would be here now.
Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself and looked around. People in white coats walked past. Patients milled around, waiting to be seen. The receptionist talking to Nan spoke with her head at an angle—the sympathy angle. I’d bet I looked really odd, standing in the middle of the entrance with my arms wrapped tightly around my middle.
Everyone moved so gracefully through the entrance of the hospital. I’d expected rushing around, shouting, blood and gore, but there was none. Everything around me was so calm, and although I stood still and peaceful, I was anything but.
They were all so completely absorbed in their own lives. No one noticed me at all. I had never felt so alone in my whole life. Am I an orphan, or are you only given that title if you’re a minor? Is there even a word for adults who have lost their parents?
I hadn’t lost my dad, not really. But in every way that felt real, he was gone.
It’d been a very long time since I’d hero-worshipped the man, but what was left of my heart bled for him.
How could either of them let it happen? Why didn’t they just stay away?
My skin felt too tight. I didn’t want to be alone in this anymore. Nan was here, but we weren’t particularly close. There wasn’t one time in my life when I’d confided in her or looked to her for comfort.
The only person I could rely on was my best friend.
I pulled my phone out of my bag and sent Chloe a text message. It was short, blunt, and to the point.
Dad killed Mum. I’m at the hospital.
Less than twenty seconds later, it was ringing.
“Nell?” Nan said, now back with me and looking at my ringing phone.
Huh, when did she get back over here?
“Do you want me to answer that?”
I held it out to her.
Where’s Mum?
“Hello? No, it’s Nell’s Nan.”
Chloe must be speaking because Nan listened for a while. I’d bet Chloe was ranting and stumbling over her words, frantic to find out what my text was about. I should’ve called her, but I wasn’t sure I could have said the words aloud.
“Yes, it’s true. There was a fight, and she fell down the stairs.” Nan placed her hand on my cheek and said the words for Chloe to hear, but they were all for me, “She hit her head hard on the wall, and that…well, it killed her instantly.”
She died instantly? Please say that is true. How would Nan know that? Dad told her maybe?
I nodded, and as I blinked, a wave of tears rolled from my eyes.
It made me feel a tiny bit better that my mum hadn’t suffered. But did she know she was going to die? I couldn’t bear the thought of her being terrified of death as she had fallen at the hands of a man who should’ve protected her.
None of it made sense to me. I could count on one hand the number of people I loved, and three of them were only because I was duty-bound to, and I knew I could never, ever hurt them.
“Yes, I think she would want you here,” Nan said. She told Chloe we were in the waiting room of A&E.
Won’t we go to the morgue soon?
“Okay, bye.” She hung up, handed the phone back to me, and kissed my cheek.
“Nan,” I said as she took my hand and led me…somewhere, “where are we going?”
“That’s up to you. Do you want to see her? It doesn’t have to be now, if you’re not ready.”
“When, if it’s not now?” It wasn’t like we could grab coffee next week. When the fuck will I see my mum?
“The funeral home, lovey.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, making her stumble. The funeral home after they’d cleaned her up and made it look like she were sleeping. They would cover cuts and bruises as best as they could. I wanted to see my mum when she looked like my mum.
“I want to do that. I don’t want to see her now.” I didn’t ever want the image of her looking broken in my head.
“Okay, we can arrange that. Whatever you want, Nell.”
“Chloe’s coming, isn’t she?”
“She said she was, but I can call her back and let her know I’m taking you home.”
“No!” I snapped, taking a step back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Her speckled grey eyebrows knit together. “Why?”
“Because…I can’t.” I looked around, panicked. Can security make me leave if I’m not here with a purpose? “I can’t leave her here, Nan.”
“Oh, Nell.” She wiped her eyes again. “You can’t stay here, love. You need to go home. There’s nothing we can do right now. Let me take you home and wait until your friend gets there.”
Where is she going after?
Actually, I knew that one. The second she got a chance, she’d ditch me to go to the station.
“No, thank you. I’m staying here. I’ll wait for Chloe.” And stay with Mum for as long as I can. “You go and do what you need to.”
“Sweetheart, he’s my son. And he’s your dad. Whatever you think, he loved your mum, too.”
That isn’t love. It’s obsession and habit and selfishness. Calling it love is an insult.
“I understand,” I replied, pursing my lips. “I’ll speak to you later.”
“I can’t leave you here by yourself.”
“I won’t be by myself for long, and if I’m honest, I wouldn’t mind sitting down, alone, for a while.”
“Nell…”
“Please, Nan. This is what I want. Will you tell me what’s happening with Dad when you know?”
“Of course,” she said, gripping me in a warm hug. “I love you, darling.”
Why do I never feel like I’m whole and complete when my family say that? I knew they loved me, in their own way, but the only person whom I’d really, really felt it with was Damon.
“Love you, too,” I replied, trying to sound as sincere as I could.
Nan left, and I walked over to a quiet area near the side of the doors in A&E. People chose to be closer to reception, probably so they could keep an eye on who was coming and going to make sure they weren’t overlooked.
I didn’t want to be noticed, and I was already freezing right down to the bones, so sitting by a chilly door wasn’t going to make any difference to me.
My cloak of invisibility was lifted when a nurse knelt in front of me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m waiting for my friend,” was my reply.
She nodded, stood up, and walked away.
Then, I was alone again. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, and the realisation made me feel sick. My whole childhood, I’d felt alone. I’d had Chloe, but because I couldn’t let her in and tell her what was going on, I never really felt like I had anyone. She knew now, and I’d have to tell her everything.
The pain of opening up and baring it all took my breath away.