“Yes. So tragic. Thanks for letting me know—I really appreciate it but I’ve got to go.”
I send Cal upstairs to play and I get Phil’s envelope out of my workbag. A cheap watch slithers out and I hold the strap to my nose in case I can still smell my brother. But there’s nothing of him. I pull everything else out—official stuff about his benefits, a handwritten letter to him, and a Forever Friends notebook. I open it and see “I’m Sorry” written in Phil’s childish hand on the first page. Underneath are ten names. I spot mine straightaway. I’m halfway down and he’s drawn a heart by it. I wonder what Phil wanted to apologize to me about. I scan through the rest of the names and recognize two others. One of them has a line through it.
I’m sitting at the kitchen table—in another house, in my head—when Liam comes back from his run.
The front door banging makes me shout with fright and my heart is thumping so hard I think I can taste blood in my mouth, but he doesn’t seem to notice anything.
“I’m all sweaty,” he yells as he jogs past and up the stairs.
I don’t say anything—I can’t speak. I stuff the notebook back into the padded envelope and try to control my breathing.
“I feel better for that,” he says when he comes down. “It cleared my head. How are you doing?”
Cleared it of what? I want to ask but don’t say anything. Never ask questions you don’t know the answers to.
Anyway, I’ve got my own questions to deal with. When Cal gets Liam to play goalie in the garden, I read the letter to Phil. It’s dated December 11, 2018.
I’m glad you came to see me last month. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to write but I’ve been thinking about what you said—I haven’t been able to think about anything else if I’m honest. I know it must have been as tough for you as it was for me. Digging stuff up like that is hard and I think both of us found out painful things. Anyway, I want to thank you for helping me understand the things that happened. I’d like to meet again one day, mate. I’d buy you a pint but I know you’re off the booze—maybe a coffee? I’ll be in touch.
The signature is a scrawl but I know who it is. Now I want to know what they told each other. The painful things they dug up.
Leave it alone, Dee, I tell myself. It’s ancient history. And Phil is dead.
But I know I won’t. Can’t. It’s never over, is it? The past is always there, flickering like our old telly in a dark corner of my head. Most of the time, I can make myself blank it out, but little things—like a song that used to make me cry or the smell of cheap Chinese takeaway, our Friday night treat—make it fizz back into focus. I’ve got a lot of bad memories—my childhood was one long nightmare, really. But this is different. Unfinished business—a time bomb ticking quietly like a second heart in my chest.
I ring Claire and get a number for Phil’s sponsor. And dial.
“Hi, I’m Phil Golding’s sister. I wanted to thank you for helping him.”
“I was happy to—he was a lovely man. And I know he was planning to get in touch with you. Before . . .”
“Thanks for saying that.” I choke on the thought. “I hadn’t heard from him for years but it means a lot. I wish I’d known about the vigil but I didn’t find out until afterward. I hear there were some old friends who came.”
“Well, one. A man he’d only recently reconnected with. Apparently they knew each other when they were in their teens. In London. Actually, he said he was back staying in the same street where they used to live.”
And I’m back there too. Curled up on an old mattress. Waiting for my brother to come home.
NOW
Sixteen
SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2019
Elise
Elise’s Post-its were color coded in eye-watering tones—the only ones available at the paper shop. Screaming pink for Charles Williams, acid yellow for Charlie Perry, and neon green for Pauline. Elise started with the pinks. He’d been Williams until he’d moved to Ebbing, according to the records. Her money was on the “misunderstanding” in London prompting his reinvention as Mr. Perry.
This isn’t your first tangle with creditors, is it, Charlie? Her working theory was that Charlie had done his vanishing act to escape the looming cash crisis and she pictured him sunning himself like a lizard on a Spanish beach. And wondered what name he was using now.
Except he’s got a disabled daughter. Elise had been genuinely touched when he’d mentioned the girl the other day. That emotion had been real. Would he really abandon her? Leave without a word?