Page 20 of One Last Gift

Cassie would have to go back to work soon as well, or risk being fired. Robert had given her a few days’ compassionate leave, and she’d combined that with the annual leave she’d already booked off around Christmas—she and Josh took it in turns to work the festive period, and it was her year off. But after that, Robert would expect her back, and he’d have no qualms about “letting her go” if she didn’t make it work. Maybe that was for the best, though. Life went on—she still had to earn money, pay rent. She couldn’t just stop functioning entirely, much as she wanted to, and work would at least be a distraction.

The doorbell rang. Cassie waited for a moment, but the shower was still on upstairs, so she threw the blanket off and walked to the hallway to open the front door.

Sam. It was Sam, standing there in the rain, barely sheltered by Linda’s little porch, his breath misting out in front of him in the cold. Cassie took a step back, pulling her oversized cardigan—one Linda had lent her because she’d packed so haphazardly—around her.

He looked terrible. He was wearing faded jeans and a gray sweater that seemed to hang off his usually toned frame. The stubble had grown even longer since she’d last seen him, into a half-grown beard, and there were dark gray circles under his eyes, which were bloodshot.

“Hazel told me you were staying here,” Sam said by way of explanation, his voice a little husky.

Cassie could only stare at him, her palms clammy as they gripped the cardigan. An image of him flashed in her mind, stumbling out of the wake.

Don’t be so fucking selfish.

The words cut through her still now, anger and hurt slicing her insides.

“What do you want?” she managed to get out.

He took a breath, his chest rising and falling under his sweater. “I came to apologize. I shouldn’t have said that, at the funeral.” Cassie felt her back stiffen at the fact he was bringing it up. It was like he knew just where her mind had gone. “I was…I was drinking.”

“I know,” she said shortly, and he winced.

He ran a hand through his wet hair—messy, not deliberately anymore, but from lack of care. “I didn’t know how to get through it without…Anyway, look, it’s no excuse. I didn’t mean it, what I said. I wasn’t—I’m not, I suppose—coping all that well, but I shouldn’t have put that on you.” Honesty. She hadn’t really expected that from him—he’d never been honest with her before, after all.

Cassie made herself meet his gaze, even though she’d rather have looked anywhere else. She knew she looked just as bad as him—if not worse. Her cheeks were hollowed out, she hadn’t washed her hair in days, her complexion was dull, gray. It should have been a comfort, that she wasn’t alone in this. That there was someone else grieving the loss of her brother as acutely as her. But she just couldn’t get there. She couldn’t feel sympathy for him, or invite him to share in her grief, because none of it changed anything. It didn’t change the fact that she blamed him.

“You should have been there.” It came out as a whisper, and Sam frowned.

“What?”

“In Argentina,” Cassie said, her voice a little stronger. “You should have been there, with Tom.”

“I know.”

“You could have stopped it.” Tears were pricking her eyes now, and she didn’t bother trying to blink them away. She expected him to tell her that they couldn’t know that, that accidents happened, that it wouldn’t have made a difference if he was there.

But instead, he nodded. “I know,” he said again, his voice hoarse. He pulled a hand through his hair. “Jesus, Cassie, I know, and there won’t be a day that goes by when I’m not sorry for it.” His eyes were shining like he, too, might break down at any second.

She backed away, shaking her head a little frantically. “I can’t do this. I can’t deal with you right now.”

He took a step toward her, reached out a hand as if to comfort her, but she darted out of reach.

“No!” She was aware her voice sounded high, frantic, but couldn’t stop it. “Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out! I don’t want to see you. I can’t look at you, do you understand? If you hadn’t been so stupid as to get so drunk, so selfish…” she spat his own word back at him, “then Tom might still be alive. So I want you out. Out of this house and out of my life.” She didn’t give him the chance to respond. Instead she grabbed the door and slammed it, making him jump out into the cold and rain so as not to get hit. She saw his face just before the door closed, crumpled, mouth twisted. Grieving. But she would not feel for him. He deserved to feel that way.

Her shoulders were shaking as she took fast breaths, trying to hold it together. Linda came running down the stairs, a towel wrapped around her, hair dripping wet. “What’s going on?” She glanced at the door and then at Cassie. “Are you OK? I heard shouting.”

“There was someone at the door. I told them to leave.” Linda didn’t press, for which Cassie was grateful. She couldn’t tell her that it was Sam there, because Linda knew him too—he was another of the teenagers who’d hung around in her pub, another of the sometime-strays.

There were a few letters sitting on the doormat by the front door, and Cassie bent down automatically to pick them up. She frowned as she handed them over to Linda, noticing that there were several from the same bank. One of them had a stamp at the top. Urgent Correspondence.

“Is everything OK, Linda?”

Linda took the letters quickly, tapping them on the palm of her hand to even out the stack. “Yes, of course, Cassie love, nothing to worry about.”

Linda left to go back upstairs, and Cassie took her place back on the sofa underneath the blanket again. Linda came in after a few minutes, fully dressed, and set a cup of fresh tea down in front of her. Cassie picked it up, grateful for the warmth if nothing else. It was only when she glanced at Linda a second time that she noticed there was something in her hand. An envelope.