Olivia sniffed, then rubbed at her own glistening cheeks. Wait –what?
‘Please go on, Rachel,’ she said, ‘if there’s more you want to tell us.’
‘Lizzy’s cancer recurred when she was seventeen,’ Rachel continued. ‘This time it was in her lungs, and then it spread again. It was unstoppable. But I don’t think I or my parents ever really believed she was going to die until she did. I was fifteen then. Awkward. Hormonal.Ginger. We lived in a small town and literally everyone suddenly knew me as the gobby girl whose older sister had died of cancer. My parents were broken, so I tried to become more like Lizzy had been – I made it my mission never to add to their load, never to cause them anxiety. And when I went to uni, I found it easier just to say no when people asked if I had brothers and sisters. I got so good at pushing my feelings down I became an emotional pressure cooker – something I’ve only realised very recently. And when you keep too much in, you get to a point where you don’t think clearly. You end up doing rash, self-destructive things … Things likethis. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen. If you’ll excuse me …’
Rachel pushed her chair back swiftly and stood up, wiping at her eyes. Greg shook his head and Olivia motioned for her to sit back down, but she was already at the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rachel said again, her voice trembling, tears coursing down her face.
She left the room, found her way out of the building and crossed the road into Kensington Gardens. After finding a secluded spot behind a bush, Rachel slumped down and let herself cry. She sat for what might have been five minutes or fifty – gasping and sobbing until her tears subsided and she could breathe normally again.
Birds were singing. Somewhere nearby there was a bunch of teenagers laughing.
She heard footsteps, the buzzing of a wasp right by her ear and snatches of more conversations than she could count. Someone was mowing the lawns too, riding up and down the park on a motorised vehicle that reminded Rachel of a toy tractor she and Lizzy had had when they were little.
The smell of freshly cut grass tickled her nose, making her want to sneeze. It reminded her she was alive.
‘Forgotten something?’ Greg asked, looming over Rachel. He had her laptop bag, handbag and jacket hanging from his arm.
‘Oh God. Thanks,’ Rachel said as he flopped down beside her on the grass. She turned to him and felt her eyes filling up again. ‘Greg, I don’t know what to say. I’msosorry—’
He gathered her into a hug before she could get properly started with her mea culpa.
‘Shut up, shutalllllthe way up,’ he said. ‘Don’t youdareapologise. You have nothing to be sorry for.’
She made a gurgling sound that was half-laugh, half-cry. ‘I’m not sure Isaac or Toby would see it that way. And it’s my own fault I got so worked up – let Olivia push my buttons for months. I should never have worked on the account. I should have known I couldn’t handle it.’
‘Why did you work on it? Tell me it wasn’t just because Harper was involved.’
‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘It wasn’t that. I just couldn’t see a way to avoid doing the project without telling someone – probably the whole senior management team –why.’
‘Would that have been so bad?’
‘Yes. Maybe …? I don’t know. Talking about Lizzy has … unpredictable results. Some people are amazing, like Anna was when I told her, or Will and Tom. For other people, it changes how they look at you. You become a person who’s suffered – some sort of victim – or they get upset that you haven’t been totally honest with them. Jack said he felt like I’d been lying to him for three years when I finally told him what had happened.’
‘Colour me shocked,’ Greg said, rolling his eyes. ‘I’m guessing that was around the time he cheated on you?’
‘Yeah.’ Rachel nodded.
‘Nothing like a little gaslighting,’ he groaned, shaking his head. ‘For the record, Jack’s decision to put his pencil in some other woman’s case had absolutelynothingto do with your reluctance to talk about losing your sister. It had everything to do with him being a common or garden shitbag.’
Rachel laughed, but she knew Greg was serious – and that he was right.
‘Can I say something?’ he asked. ‘Something you might find hard to hear?’
‘Yes,’ Rachel answered. He’d earned the right, and she trusted that whatever awful thing he might come out with, it would be because he cared.
‘You keep quiet about Lizzy because you don’t want people to think of you as the girl whose sister died. You keep it in because it’s more comfortable – because you think it’s easier.
‘Did you ever think that youarethe girl whose sister died, whether you want to be or not? Losing Lizzy is only part of who you are, and anyone worth two minutes of your time will understand that – but it’s a part that’s real. It’s not going to disappear just because you refuse to look at it. And I don’t believe denying that part of yourself is comfortable – let alone easy. If anything, I’d guess it takes a tremendous effort. One last point, if I may. You lit up in there while you were taking about her: how smart and lovely she was, how much you wanted to be like her. When you choose not to tell people you lost Lizzy, you cut yourself off from telling them you everhadLizzy. And it sounds to me like she was pretty cool. And maybe more people should know that.’
Rachel cry-laughed again. ‘Greg, you could charge by the hour for this.’
‘You couldn’t afford me. Just promise me you’ll think about it.’
Rachel nodded, then pulled up her knees to rest her head on them.
After a few moments of silence, she asked, ‘Am I sacked, do you think?’
