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Charlie squinted. She couldn’t make sense of all this.
“You might need to feel guilty for a bit, for it to pass.”
“I feel like I’ve not been there enough for Elda. She’s dealing with all the shit on her own, and I’ve been here, working.”
A.J. held the silence.
“I feel a bit guilty about that too.”
“A bit guilty?” A.J. tilted her head slightly.
“A lot guilty. I feel like I’m just expected to be there at her side, and I can’t really handle it. It’s too much.”
“That’s you trying to fix things again. Do you really need to be there? Has she asked you to fix it?”
“Not really. I just want to be.” Charlie’s stomach churned with confusion.
“You can’t fix everyone, Charlotte. You want to because you couldn’t fix Theresa and you lost her. But your job is not to solve all the problems for all the people you love. Sometimes they need to work things out by themselves. Sometimes it’ll be hard for them, and it’ll feel hard for you.” A.J. folded her hands together.
“I know. You’ve told me before.” A single tear fell down Charlie’s cheek and onto her bottom lip. She had shared her darkest thoughts with A.J., and each time she returned, they came back to the same truths. Charlie wasn’t responsible for Theresa taking her own life, and she couldn’t fix everyone she loved.
Kim’s trouble wasn’t hers to fix, but she could do her best to help. She’d call Joshua and get him to work his brilliant mind on Kim’s lease and the restraining order for the creep she was living with.
But right now, she had to get to Elda—not to fix everything or take anything away. She just had to stand by her side and love her. She hoped she hadn’t already messed everything up.
Chapter Thirty
The death admin was finally done. Elda was proud of herself. Somehow, she’d made decisions about caskets and hymns and only paused momentarily to wonder why she hadn’t thought to ask her nan what she’d wanted just a few weeks ago. They weren’t that kind of family. Death was a ritual that burdened the living.
Today, there was more tidying up to do. She had to close her nan’s bank account and needed papers from the attic. Elda heaved the bottom rung and the weight of the ladders unfolded.She climbed each step steadily, adjusting the spread of her feet to get her balance. She didn’t like heights and wondered whether she should have asked Charlie or Jack to help. Braving the dark, she patted her hand on the dusty floorboards for a switch. It clicked, and the attic was flooded with light.
There were boxes piled from corner to corner. An old rocking horse stood in the middle. She touched the wood, remembering its shape cradling her. Her heart ached with the memory of her nan standing next to her. She dusted off a pine chest and sat down. She’d never really been allowed in the attic as a child. It was baffling how her mum and nan managed to climb the ladders, though they clearly hadn’t been up here for years.
Elda tipped her head back and looked up at the beams above her head. She marvelled at how they had kept the roof up all these years. How do things remain constant, keep going, and stay strong when the world around them is crumbling?
She opened a box to find two vases and a candle holder wrapped in browning newspaper. She could see them on the shelves of her childhood. She turned to a maroon shoe box, peeling at the corners. Inside, she discovered a pair of bulky leather boots, weathered at the toes. They looked familiar, but she couldn’t place them. They were large, far too big for the women in their house.
Elda’s lips parted and the dryness of the attic air clung to the roof of her mouth. Underneath the boots, she uncovered a bundle of brittle photographs. She recognised herself and the man holding her as her father. She stroked the flat outline of his shape, a faint memory stirring at this fresh evidence of their co-existence.
It had been two decades since his name was spoken in the house.
She stood up and lost her footing, and the angle of the roof tilted towards her. Steadying herself, she swallowed back stale air, then began to take in the enormity of the gaping hole in her life. For years, she had been numb to her father’s rejection of her. Deep down, Elda had known all along that her mother was capable of such a hateful distortion of the truth, she’d often questioned whether he really walked away or if he’d been pushed.
But the reminder that he had held her once, cradled her like a normal dad, and that she missed his presence, was ripping her fragile heart in two. She inched down the ladders, and her legs shook as she walked into her mother’s bedroom. She was awake, leaning against propped up pillows, biting her nails.
Elda raised her chin, hoping her mother didn’t mistake her anger as fear. “Why didn’t you tell me you had photos of my dad?”
Her mum’s eyes flared with rage. A cigarette balanced between her fingers and a plume of smoke erupted from her thin, twisted lips. “Get out, Elda. You’ve no business snooping up there.”
Elda’s skin stretched around her knuckles as she fought to stay calm. “You told me he burned all the photos. You lied. Why?” The words had cracks between them, like the pieces of her life.
“Elda, you’re dragging up stuff that you don’t know about. If your nan was here, she’d tell you that he was a waste of time. We were all better off, girl, I promise you that.”
Elda wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily. She doubted that her nan would corroborate her mum’s lies, but she had to accept that they had both kept her father from her. It shook her to think that her nan would do anything to cause hurt. “You said he’d gone without a word and that he didn’t want me. But he was up in the loft the whole time. I wanted to see him.” Tears fell. Elda pushed them to her ears and stayed fixed to the door frame.
“You think you’re seeing something in those photos? It’s bullshit, Elda. He was a conman. He made me believe that he loved me too.” Spittle gathered at the corners of her cracked lips. “He didn’t love you. He hated both of us. He didn’t love you on a Friday night, a Saturday night, or a Sunday night when he was drunk at the club or touching up barmaids.” She stabbed the air with her pointed finger.
Elda nodded at the ceiling, bit her lip, and tasted her salty tears. She was breaking inside. Every truth she’d ever known about herself was being hurled across the room.
