To a casual observer, not much happened between the death of my mother and the moment I put my plan into action. A person who ran into me in that decade or so would’ve come away thinking that I was a fairly mediocre millennial. In some ways, I was. I lived on with Helene for a year or so, which was good, since she was away a lot and I had loads of time to myself. It was testament to her fundamental unsuitability at being a guardian that she thought it was OK to leave a recently bereaved teenager alone so often, but I never complained. I like being by myself, other people so often enrage or annoy with their inane small talk and fumbled attempts at meaningful connection. When I was 14, Helene told me that she’d been offered a job in Paris and felt like it was time to go home. She held my hand and insisted that she would stay if I wanted her to, but that Jimmy’s parents had offered me a room and were delighted to have me. She looked genuinely distressed, and I felt it would be unseemly to jump at the chance and start packing up my stuff then and there, so I squeezed out a tear and looked at the floor while I told her that she must take the job. I would miss her, I said, but I couldn’t live with the guilt if I stopped her from a new opportunity. In truth, Helene was a nice enough lady, and I cherished the link she gave me to my mother, but I was itching to get on with life and start working towards my plan, and Helene, with her limited connections and resources, would not be able to assist me in any meaningful way. Jimmy’s parents, for all their discomfort with their own privilege, lived in a world where doors could open if you knew the right people. I felt confident that they could help me in some way. I had nothing to lose at least, knowing nobody of any importance and having no advantages of my own.
A month later and my bags were packed. The fish and I took a taxi over to Jimmy’s house. Helene was in the midst of packing up her life for the move back to France and fairly frantic, so I took the opportunity to grab the box she’d hidden under the bed. I assumed she wouldn’t miss it, but I wasn’t too concerned if she did. The files were about me and my family, and I doubted she’d want to cause a scene – by the time she realised, she’d be across the Channel and immersed in a new life. Jimmy and Sophie welcomed me at the door, their dog Angus nearly knocking RIP out of my hands as he jumped up to lick my face.
‘We’ve made you a welcome dinner, Grace. Vegetable lasagne, and Annabelle has made dessert.’ Jimmy rolled his eyes at his mother.
‘Can she at least see her room before she’s made to sit down and eat that mess of a cake?’ He grabbed my bags and leapt the stairs, two at a time, as I thanked Sophie and waved at Annabelle, busy in the kitchen with a piping bag. His little sister was a spindly and nervy 11-year-old. I hadn’t seen her recently, but Jimmy had informed me that she was already in analysis. Sophie was very keen on juvenile therapy, unsurprisingly. I sincerely hoped she wasn’t going to suggest it to me, and made a note to pretend that the school was already providing a counsellor if she did.
My bedroom was on the top floor, under the eaves and across from Annabelle. Jimmy was on the floor below （this was the first place I had lived with floors and the climb from the kitchen to the bedroom already seemed tiresome）， which he explained was no accident. Annabelle and he had swapped rooms the week before after Sophie and John had panicked about Jimmy and me sleeping on the same floor. Although nothing was said explicitly, I could imagine them getting in a lather over a bottle of red wine one night, discussing things like consent and hormones and whether their home would be a comfortable environment for a vulnerable girl. They needn’t have worried, though I thought Jimmy was a nice boy and valued his friendship immensely, I’d always thought he looked a bit like a potato from some angles （the root vegetable likeness mostly dissipated later in life, thankfully）。 And anyway, normal teenage distractions like sex and alcohol didn’t appeal to me. I wasn’t going to be one of those skunk smoking layabouts who dithered about university and went backpacking to delay having to deal with adult choices. I wanted to get on with it all.
After I’d dumped my bags and caught up with Jimmy, we went down to eat. John had just got home, and was pouring a glass of red wine with one hand and absent-mindedly pulling off his tie with the other. He turned to greet me, kissing me on the forehead and rubbing my shoulder before Sophie handed him a stack of plates for the table. The embrace left me feeling slightly odd. Jimmy’s family were so affectionate with each other, his mum and dad were always hugging, or holding hands, and nobody seemed to find it invasive or annoying. There was always someone around in this house, something cooking, the constant noise of daily life. I didn’t mind John’s embrace, in fact it felt nice, warm, gentle. But it niggled, perhaps because I realised that I’d missed out on this stuff. That thought angered me. Normal – I wasn’t used to normal, however much Marie had tried to give me some semblance of it. I wondered if this family set-up was something I’d learn to love, whether I too would hug and kiss without a thought, whether I’d forget the time I spent with my mother and lean into this new life. The idea had appeal, but I’d have to guard against going soft. The Latimers are lovely people, and I was glad to be living there, but if I embraced their way of life too enthusiastically I’d risk ending up reading the Guardian, working in the arts, and buying people organic British wine for Christmas. A lovely warm bath of a life, apart from the embedded guilt and the glaring hypocrisy that Sophie exhibits so well, but totally pointless.