“Oh, Cat,” she says. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’ve missed you too,” I reply, choking back sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t,” Phoebe says. “It’s all, it’s all just. God, it’s just been so shit. We’re all doing our best.”
This is a very Phoebe thing to say. To try to excise my guilt and remind me that we’re all doing our best is so wonderfully her.
“Tell me about everything,” Phoebe says and I tell her as much as I can. I can’t go into the painful details about the awful days of Anthony’s and Theodore’s deaths. Talking about it still feels like being flayed, and Phoebe loved them too. I can’t bear to see her sadness about them on top of my own. But I tell her about the fertility clinic and the project I’m working on, recording the stories of the Plague. I tell her about the routines of my new life.
I ask the question in return and, as her face flushes with something like embarrassment, I realize for the first time how difficult this is going to be. Phoebe’s perfume still provides primal comfort and I know every freckle and plane of her face. I know every boy who broke her heart before Rory and how she feels about mothering and friendship and life. But she has a family and I don’t.
“Rory and the girls are doing well,” she says quickly. “Rory’s job thankfully has continued without too much disruption. Even after a pandemic, London still needs accountants. I miss my dad a lot even though he died before all of this started. It’s been, yep.” She pauses and my cheeks burn. I’m not the only person who’s experienced loss.
“Evie and Ida miss you, so much,” she says.
I miss them too, although I haven’t allowed myself to think about them properly for a long time. Phoebe’s gorgeous little girls. I was the first person outside of their immediate family to see both girls, in the hospital when Phoebe was still gray with blood loss but dazed with joy. Evie’s my goddaughter. Until all of this, I was a devoted godmother, taking her out to the park or down to the river on her own so we could spend time together and give Phoebe a break. I religiously provided birthday and Christmas presents. I think she probably just hopes they miss me, but it feels nice to be missed. To be wanted.
“Do you want to come to the house? Briefly, maybe? To see them?” The hope in Phoebe’s voice is so strong it overrides the voice in the back of my head that says, “This is too much, too soon.” I want to see Evie and Ida. I want to be the kind of woman who can do this normal thing of spending time with my friend’s family, a family to whom I used to be so close that they felt adjacent to my own.
We talk about everything on the walk over to Phoebe’s house in Battersea. Everything from the films we’ve been watching to the annoying neighbors who blast loud music every day at 7 a.m., ruining Phoebe’s mornings. We talk about the birthday present she needs to buy for her notoriously awful sister-in-law and the restaurants we’re excited to go back to once they open.
We arrive at her house and I desperately want to go home but I also want to see the girls. Post-Plague life is a lesson in contradictions. Phoebe lets us in the house and the cries of, “Mum, Mum, Mum” quickly hush while Evie and Ida hang back, behind Phoebe, eyeing me warily.
“Hello,” I say, horrified by how nervous they seem around me. I shouldn’t be surprised. Evie was only a toddler when I last saw her and Ida was ten months. They don’t know me.
“You might not remember me, I’m Catherine. I’m friends with your mum.” I stick with the present tense. Any explanation of our complex history is best left unsaid. Phoebe magically whisks us all through to her huge kitchen, where Rory is sitting at the dining table on his laptop.
“Oh,” he says, shocked when he sees me. “Lovely to see you, Catherine.” He recovers quickly and his face resumes its usual placid expression. Let’s just say that no one has ever been surprised when Rory says he’s an accountant.