Him

Wednesday 23:00

I cross the road and realize I’ve taken a wrong turn. I’m drunk. Too drunk to drive home from Priya’s house, so I decided to walk. I know I shouldn’t have kissed her, but that’s all it was, a drunken kiss. No need to turn it into a drama, or blow it out of proportion. I was thinking about Anna when I did it, perhaps because of the taste of whiskey inside her mouth and mine. I don’t regret it. I will in the morning, but for now I’m going to enjoy the way tonight made me feel: to know that a beautiful, intelligent young woman finds me attractive.

I choose not to linger on the question of why.

Spending time with someone younger than myself made me feel less old tonight. Listening to Priya talk about her future made me realize my own might not be set in stone. Youth fools us into thinking there are infinite paths to choose from in life; maturity tricks us into thinking there is only one. Priya opened up about her past, and her honesty was contagious. She told me her mother died of cancer last year and she’s still grieving. The woman raised her alone, in a community that frowned upon that sort of thing, and Priya was quite open about how much she missed having a father figure growing up.

I expect that’s what made me think about my daughter. The truth is, I think about her all the time. If I don’t talk about Charlotte it’s only because I feel like I can’t. It was my idea—to take Anna out for a birthday meal, just the two of us—so maybe that’s why I still think what happened was my fault.

Anna had barely left the house at all for months. She’d been on strict bed rest before the birth, and then afterward when we brought Charlotte home, she turned into someone I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t right, and neither was she. Her whole life was suddenly only about our daughter, and nobody could make her see that it was all too much, that she needed to take a step back. If I mentioned getting help, it only made things worse.

I’d arranged for her mother to babysit for one night, just one night for god’s sake; it was meant to be a kind thing to do. For both of them. But when we went to collect Charlotte the following morning, I knew that something was wrong as soon as Anna’s mother opened the door. She had promised not to drink while looking after the baby, but we could both smell the alcohol on her breath. She didn’t say a word, but looked as though she had been crying. Anna pushed her mother aside, and ran into the house. I was only a few steps behind. The travel crib was exactly where we had left it, Charlotte was still inside, and I remember the relief I felt when I saw her. It was only when Anna lifted her up that I could tell our little girl was dead.

There is no such thing as unconditional love. I didn’t really blame Anna’s mother. She’d only started drinking after discovering Charlotte had stopped breathing in the middle of the night. She’d panicked. For some reason she didn’t call an ambulance, I think perhaps because she already knew the child was dead. The coroner confirmed it was a cot death, and could have happened anytime, anyplace. But I blamed myself. So did Anna. Over and over again, screaming the silent words at me through her never-ending tears.

I loved our little girl just as much as she did, but it felt like Anna was the only one allowed to grieve. Now, two years later, I seem to be teetering on the edge at all times, a domino on the verge of falling over and taking those closest down with me. For a long while after what happened nothing about my life felt real or had any meaning. It’s the reason I left London and came back here. To make some sort of family with what I had left: a sister and a niece. And to give Anna the space she said she needed.

We buried Charlotte in Blackdown—Anna was in no fit state to make a decision at the time, so I made it—and I think it’s something else she still hates me for.

It’s a half-hour walk, along pitch-black footpaths and deserted country lanes, from Priya’s end of town to mine, but walking is the only option. There are no cabs in the countryside. No signs of life at all in Blackdown at this time of night. A black cat runs in front of me, crossing my path and contradicting my last thought. It’s the sort of thing that would have worried my ex-wife, but I don’t buy into all that superstitious nonsense. Besides, I’ve already had more than my fair share of bad luck.

It’s bitterly cold, the variety that bites if you dare to stand still in it for too long. So I shove my hands a little deeper, down inside my pockets, and keep them there rather than smoke. Strangely, I don’t even feel the need for a cigarette now, after spending an evening talking to another human being instead of staring at a screen.

Rachel and I didn’t really talk, we just shared polite conversation accompanied by impolite sex. It never felt like we had much to say to each other, at least not things that either of us would have wanted to hear. I keep thinking about the words that were painted on her fingernails: TWO FACED. Anna and I used to talk before Charlotte came along, but it was as though we forgot how. Tonight, with Priya, I felt like a real person again.

I decide to send her a text, and reach inside my pocket for my phone.

I find Rachel’s phone instead, and there is an unread message:

You should have gone straight home tonight, Jack.

I stop walking and stare at the words for a few seconds. Then turn a full three-sixty, peering into the darkness, trying to see whether someone is following me now. Someone clearly has been. I wasn’t imagining it. But who? And why? I shove the phone back into my pocket and walk a little faster.

I can see that my house is in complete darkness when I turn onto the street. Nothing unusual about that; it’s late, and I don’t expect my little sister to wait for me to come home. We’ve never been the kind of siblings to check up on each other. I presume Zoe has had a couple of glasses of cheap wine and gone to bed, just like she does most nights.

I start searching for my keys as soon as I get through the gate, struggling to find them in the gloom. The porch light comes on by the time I am halfway down the garden path, but despite it shedding a little light inside my jacket pocket where my keys should be, I can see they aren’t there.

I hate the idea of having to wake the whole house in order to get Zoe to let me in—it can be hard to get my niece to go back to sleep—but when I step up to the front door, I see that won’t be necessary. It’s already open.

There is always a heartbeat-length moment when you know that something very bad is about to happen, and you are too late to do anything about it. It lasts less than a second and more than a lifetime all at once, while you are frozen in space and time, reluctant to look ahead, but knowing it’s too late to look back. This is one of those moments. I have experienced only a few like it in my life.

I sober up fast.

The police part of my brain tells me to call someone, but I don’t. What is left of my family is inside this house and I can’t wait for backup. I hurry through the front door, switching on the lights in all of the downstairs rooms, finding each one as empty as the last. The rest of the doors and windows appear to be closed and locked. I check the alarm system, but it looks as though someone has turned it off. The only way to do that is by knowing the code.

There is no sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle; if anything the whole place looks a lot cleaner and tidier than when I left this morning. Toddlers are experts at creating mess, but all the clutter and chaos I’ve grown used to has been tidied away and put back in its place. Everything feels wrong, and I’ve learned over the years to trust my gut about things like this.

That’s when I see it.

One of the smaller knives is missing from the block on the counter. I remember that it wasn’t there this morning either, or the night before. My house keys are here too, even though I’m sure they were in my pocket earlier tonight, before I went to Priya’s home. Maybe I did leave them here—the last few days are a sleep-deprived blur. Then I see the photo. It’s just like the one Anna said was stolen from her car, and it’s a picture that I remember taking twenty years ago.

The five girls are lined up and smiling at the camera: Rachel Hopkins, Helen Wang, Anna, Zoe, and a strange-looking girl I vaguely recognize, but whose name I can’t remember. They are wearing matching grins on their faces, and matching friendship bracelets on their wrists. But that isn’t all. Three of the five girls in the photo have a black cross drawn over their face now: Rachel, Helen … and Zoe.

I drop the picture—realizing too late that I should never have touched it—and run up the stairs two at a time. I reach my niece’s room first, bursting through the door to see that Olivia is safe and sound, tucked up asleep in bed. Her pillow, along with everything else in the room, is covered in a pattern of unicorns. She looks so peaceful that for a moment I think maybe everything is okay. But then I realize that the noise I just made would normally have woken her. Olivia is breathing, but she’s completely out of it.

I hurry along the landing to my sister’s room, but she isn’t there. All the bedroom doors are ajar, and I soon discover that each one is empty. The bathroom door is closed. When I try to turn the handle, it doesn’t open.

We haven’t locked this door for years due to an incident when we were children, and I don’t know where the key could be. I can’t remember ever seeing one. The rule in our house was always that if the door is closed, you don’t go in. I knock gently and whisper her name.

“Zoe?”

It’s so quiet that everything I say and do sounds loud.

I try to peer through the keyhole, but see nothing but black.

“Zoe?”

I say her name a little louder this time, before banging my fist on the wooden panels. When there is still nothing but silence, I take a step back and kick the door. It swings open, its hinges crying out as though in pain. Then I see her.

My sister is lying in the bath.

One of her eyes is open, and appears to be staring at something written on the wall; the other one has been sewn closed, a needle and thick black thread still dangling from her eyelid.

The water is red, her slit wrists visible just below the surface.

I’m sickened by the fact I already know what this is supposed to mean: turn a blind eye.

I’m sure the normal response would be to rush to the side of the bathtub and pull her out, but I can’t move. My sister’s head is slumped to one side at a disturbing angle, her hair is the same color as the perfectly still bloody water, and I don’t need to check for a pulse to know that she is dead. Zoe’s mouth is open, and I can see the friendship bracelet tied around her tongue from the doorway.

I stay in the hall, as though my feet can’t cross the threshold. I feel bile rise up my throat, but swallow it down. I should call the police but I don’t. I try to think of a friend I could call for help—it feels like that is what I need right now—but then I remember I don’t have any left. Nobody wants to be friends with the couple whose baby died.

I surprise myself then by calling Priya.

In my drunken, shocked state, my colleague seems to be the closest I’ve got to having someone who cares. I don’t know what I say when she answers, but it must have made some kind of sense, because she tells me she is on her way. It looks like my sister wrote a name on the tiled wall, using her finger as a pen and her own blood as ink before she died. I didn’t mention that part to Priya. I couldn’t say it out loud.

I slide down onto the landing floor. Time slows to a painful standstill while I wait, punctuated only by the sound of the tap dripping. It’s been doing that for years, but it never bothered me until now. I watch as tiny ripples spread themselves across the surface of the red water, my eyes inevitably wandering to Zoe’s. When I can’t bear to look at her disfigured face anymore, I stare at the name my sister wrote in blood above the bath:

ANDREWS.