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Although normally I’d leave her to get herself back on her feet, I wanted to comfort her and tell her that it was time. It was time to move on. Phillip would want her to be happy. Not that she had wallowed all these years, but every year when the anniversary of his death came along she would struggle to keep going. Even after nine years, she still struggled to let go of him.
She would put on this happy front or she’d act like her job—the one she loved so much—was grating on her. But I knew how hard it was to have that encroaching darkness and doom gradually blow in like a weather front and then when it hit it was almost worse than the day itself. I felt it too. I felt it for both my brother—my best friend—and I felt it for my son. That whole belief that it got easier with time was complete and utter rubbish. It didn’t get easier. Time didn’t make it better. And the wound sure as fuck didn’t even try to heal itself. But, what did make it bearable was moving forward.
I should know what to say. I should know how to make it better for her. But the reality was that the only thing I knew was that in trying to make it better, words made it so much worse. They made it hurt so much more because you had to stop and think before you got them out in the open. You had to stop and think before you let them in too. The big problem was the thinking. We already thought about it all a lot. It was the thinking that it was time. It was looking around you and realising that there were other things to live for and latching on to them. She did that every day with Daniel, like I did it every day with Philippa.
It was only now that I wanted to let someone else in, that I wanted to give him all my love that I was willing to move forward. I didn’t want to think about what my life would be like if Theo was here. Because he was here. It wasn’t a what if, it was as simple as I carried him with me in my heart and my soul—in the marrow of my bones and the blood through my veins. He may not be here physically, but his memory was.
I could already feel that impending doom creep towards me as his birthday approached, but at the same time I wanted to feel more than just the sadness and the dank despair. I wanted to feel the love. That undying and unwavering love that had bloomed and blossomed inside me at the same time he had. That love that had annihilated every bit of longing and will to carry on when he didn’t even get to fight. When I didn’t get to fight for him.
That’s where the sadness and the love held you over a barrel. They turned into guilt because if we had been given the option to fight, we might have been able to do something. To save them. But life and fate and all those other entities that everyone chucked life, death and the future up to didn’t work like that. They didn’t give you a choice. They didn’t afford you the move you wanted or needed to win the game.
“I want to ask if you’re okay, Dory, but I know you’re not.” I put the dishwasher tablet in the tray and selected the heavy duty programme. “So it’s really a shit question. And I know we don’t really talk about this. I don’t even know why really.”
She continued wiping down the sides and then drying the sink. “I don’t think we should start now.” She muttered focusing on the stainless steel tap and shining it with some poly roll.
“Maybe we shouldn’t, but you’re struggling and I can’t see you struggle with something, for someone that can never make it better for you. He’s not around to take away the pain, sweetie, he’s not coming back.” Saying those words. Every one of them fell like a stab to my heart.
I wanted my brother back. I would do anything to have him back, but it wasn’t possible. He would never call my phone or knock on my door again. He’d never wind me up about the way I liked to have Brown sauce on my roast dinner or in my bacon sandwiches. He’d never annoy me about Jamie. He wasn’t coming back. He was gone. His body was mostly decomposing on a minefield somewhere in Angola. Whilst his memorial stone sat on our family plot. That was all that was left of him.
She stopped, her face scrunching up into an ugly and blatant portrait of anguish. Her eyes closed as she took a deep breath and her hands busied themselves folding the tea towel she’d dropped in the sink before she turned to me. Her expression was hollow and sullen.
“You think I don’t know that? It’s been almost nine years and every day I look at my son—His son…our son and everyday it hits me that he will never know his dad. It doesn’t matter how many photos I show him or how many stories I tell Daniel about Phi…” her breath caught like saying his name was too much, “Him, he will never truly know how amazing his dad was. He won’t ever know what it feels like to be held by him. He’ll never know what it’s like to be loved by him. So, yes, I know he’s not coming back. Fuck, I knew he wasn’t coming back when he left.”
How could she know he wasn’t coming back? No one could have predicted he was going to get himself killed. She shook her head like I was missing something. Like I wasn’t putting the puzzle pieces together in the right way. What was I missing here?
“He wasn’t ready, Quincy. I wasn’t ready and I was carrying our baby inside me.”
“What?”
She tossed the dish cloth back into the sink. Her hands gripping the edge till her knuckles were white. “I told him I was pregnant and he found the first escape he could.”
“No. No, he was happy about it. He proposed. He had it all planned out. He told me he was happy.”
“Being happy does
n’t make you ready. He wasn’t ready for a baby or marriage. He wasn’t ready to be responsible for a family.” Her eyes swept up to mine. A whole new brand of hurt brazen in her eyes. “If he did want all of that, do you think he would’ve gone to one of the most dangerous places in the world?”
“He wanted to help people. That’s what he did. He helped people…”
“He could’ve helped people here, Quincy. He could’ve done what Jamie and Richard did. He had offers left, right and centre. Offers that could’ve given him a career helping people and let him watch his son grow…with me. But that wasn’t what he wanted at that time.” She looked back into the sink, a lonesome tear spattering on the shiny steel surface. “He was a good man, Quincy, but we both know that even good men make mistakes. Even good men sometimes act like arseholes. They make shit decisions that impact the people that love them the most without even thinking twice.”
I couldn’t even bear to look at her. Her hurt oozed from her pores and smattered into the sink in clear, heavy drops of sadness.
“I didn’t…I never…” I didn’t know. I had no idea. He was my brother and I had no idea. I never even once thought about his decision in that way. “I thought he went because he wanted to help those people before he settled for good.”
“He did want to help those people, Quincy.” She let out a soft sigh as her lips twisted into a bitter half smile. “Even when he was being selfish, he found a way to be selfless. He made it impossible for me to hate him, to despise him, without me being selfish and narrow-minded about it.”
Her tortured gaze bore into mine.
“I’m so sorry, Dorian. If I’d known.” If I’d known—what? What could I have done if I’d known?
“If you’d known, you would’ve been able to do as much as I could—nothing.” She wiped her hands down her face and turned to me. “I probably could’ve guilt tripped him into staying, you know? But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to trap him. I wanted him to be happy. So I let him go. I watched him pack his bag and I drove him to the airport. He didn’t even let me go into the terminal with him. He gave me some blasé kiss and waltzed off.”
Her tortured exhale told me exactly where her train of thought was going to. Guilt. She wished she had stopped him, because if she had he wouldn’t have died.
“It’s not your fault. You did the right thing.” I wrapped my hand around hers and pulled her into a hug as she sobbed quietly into me. “I would’ve done the same thing, Dory, I would’ve let him go.” I would have. Because once Phillip got an idea in his head there was no stopping him or changing his mind.
I stroked her hair as my eyes found Jake’s. He stood in the doorway with a tumbler of golden liquor and lime slices in his hand. His chest heaved quietly as he listened to her teary words.
