Page 43 of The Christmas Letter

‘What?’ Holly hadn’t thought it was possible, but she saw his face close off even more as he said it.

‘She has cancer,’ Holly said, her voice level at last, ‘and it’s . . . Well, I don’t know exactly how bad it is because she won’t tell me – but the point is, she’s ill, and she has no one, and I thought that maybe you would . . .’

Jack folded his arms, his jawline tight. ‘Would what, exactly?’

‘I don’t know,’ Holly huffed impatiently. ‘Want to call her? Talk to her? Go to see her?’

‘Well, thanks for delivering the very unsolicited message, but no. I won’t be calling her.’

She looked at him incredulously for a second. ‘But she has cancer!’

‘Yes, I heard you the first time. And I don’t appreciate you trying to make me feel guilty, or inserting yourself into a situation that you clearly don’t seem to understand. I haven’t spoken to Memma in nearly twenty years – she is not part of my life anymore.’

Memma – a childhood name, no doubt. She should have known Emma wouldn’t be granny or grandma. Memma. It sounded like Emma. She could imagine a child’s voice saying it, and the thought of that was enough to send a splinter through her too-soft heart.

‘Jack,’ she said, her voice pleading.

‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t “Jack” me. You have no business trying to drag me back to that – to something I’ve left behind.’ He scraped a hand through his hair in a way that looked painful. ‘And she has no business trying to manipulate me into getting in touch. Jesus, of all the ways—’

‘She didn’t send me,’ Holly said quickly. Shit, maybe she should have led with that – because ok, yes, that looked really bad. ‘She doesn’t even know I’m here. Here with you, I mean. She didn’t send me,’ she repeated. ‘I sent myself.’

He stared at her, then shook his head. ‘That’s worse.’

‘How is that worse?’

‘I don’t know, but it’s certainly not better!’

And just when she thought she’d been doing well, had been keeping so calm, something about his tone made her temper snap, the energy that had been building within her needing an outlet. She threw her hands in the air. ‘For God’s sake, why are you being so unreasonable about this?’

Jack made a choking sound. ‘Unreasonable?’

Holly tilted her chin in the air. ‘Yes, unreasonable.’

‘I’m the one being unreasonable?’ He laughed, the sound pure, bitter cynicism. ‘Yeah, right. You knew, didn’t you? You knew about the crash, even as I was telling you, and you acted like it was brand new information. You already knew my dad had died. You were manipulating me, Holly.’

‘I was not!’ But even as she said it, there was a part of her whispering, well, you sort of were. But she shut that voice down – Lily’s voice – because she was doing it for a good reason, wasn’t she? So maybe she could have done it better, but she was just trying to help.

She fought for patience. ‘I knew about the crash, yes, but I was just trying to find a way to—’

‘Did she tell you she was the one driving?’ Jack interrupted, and his eyes darkened – still unreadable, but somehow more so.

Holly went very still. ‘What?’

‘Did she tell you she was the one driving, the night my dad died?’

Holly said nothing, and Jack had his answer.

‘She was driving,’ he said, his voice too calm again. ‘My dad was in the passenger seat. My mum, my grandad and me in the back. She crashed into a tree. We all survived. He didn’t.’

Emma was driving? Emma had crashed the car? But . . .

‘She is the reason my dad is dead,’ Jack said. ‘And then, after making my mum a single parent, she just disappeared on us, left us to figure out how to go on all on our own.’

Holly opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t.

‘She didn’t tell you that part, did she?’ He laughed again – that same ugly, cynical sound.

Holly was still frozen, her mind refusing to catch up with what Jack was saying. Rocks fell, one-by-one, into the pit of her stomach.