Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
I run to the bathroom and press toilet paper to my nose. Blood is smeared down my chin. I think I might be sick, but it passes. I hold on to the side of the bath. Are all my memories wrong? Dad watched the stars. Dad ran to the sea. Dad told stories. Those memories are still true. Mum was detached. Mum was cold. Mum’s voice sailed above his in arguments. But was that because she was crying? No, Mum wouldn’t cry. She didn’t even cry when he died. Yes, he could be reckless, and yes, he occasionally drank too much, but he wasn’t a bad person.
I replace the red tissue with fresh sheets.
And she’s speaking to me like I’m this child, like I don’t know anything, but I’m the one who was with him that day! I may have rewritten smaller details, but I never rewrote that. If anyone deserves to be angry…
The tissue soaks through. I replace it again.
And then she has the audacity to accuse me of putting him on a pedestal! I had no choice! There wasn’t even a funeral! All those years of silence. I didn’t have photos. My grandparents wouldn’t talk about him. Catherine was always more interested in talking about Mum. No one spoke about my dad apart from Louise. And her voice was so loud.
But what does that mean? Did I kill my mother to save my father?
There will be a knock at the door.
Ask yourself what you really want.
I breathe low and deep as the darkness turns pink. Both realities can be true. The vase is red and so it can’t be blue, but once it could have been blue and so it still exists somewhere, floating around a dead galaxy in perfect blueness. I open my eyes to my hands. The same hands that twenty-one years ago gripped the seat belt and wondered if he was going to come back and take me for ice cream.
It’s time to grow up and remember things as they happened.
B Y THE TIME I got home, I had decided to meet him for Patrick’s birthday. It meant something that he was inviting me, and I needed to see this through. I touched up my makeup and ran a straightener through my hair. He would tease me again, but there was no time to change, so my THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE T-shirt would have to do. Mum rang on schedule as I was leaving, but I turned my phone to silent.
At Whitechapel, there were delays on the district line. The station was heaving, and there was a group of drunk men wearing football shirts and chanting. I passed through the barriers and looked for him. He was standing in the middle of the platform with his feet over the yellow line. He was wearing his denim jacket and his black jeans. I remembered seeing him outside my front door holding a birthday cake, but then I remembered how Steph had helped him to make it.
I weaved through the crowds and squeezed until I was standing just behind him, close enough to see the white threads in the rip in his jacket. I went to tap him on the back but stopped.
I considered how he might feel when he saw me. So much of my happiness depended on his expression. Would he frown or smile? If the former, I would dance on the eggshells of the evening and try to please him like there was a gun to my head. The latter, I would be happy but know that it wouldn’t last, would clutch the happiness like it was a bird in my hands until it suffocated. And he would tell me that it was my fault, that I killed the bird, but he would have been the one who put it there, placed his hand over mine, and squeezed.
A rumbling began in the tunnel. The lights of the train became visible. A receipt blew across the tiles. The football men shouted. I thought about every cruel thing he had ever done or said, and yet without thinking, I put my hand on his back and pushed.
Oh my god.
First the sound of metal, like screaming, then a hard sound, like a slap, like life leading you down a child’s road map over a bridge of Sellotape and drinking straws, like London Underground apologizes for the delay to your journey.
What have I done?
The platform drew a uniform breath as he was sucked beneath the train. All the pieces of him that I loved were destroyed. The mole on his forearm and the glint in his eye. The items in his pockets and the smell of his cooking. His favorite songs and the sound of his laughter. His reading glasses and the gray in his hair. His silver chain and his plans for his weekend. His unpublished book and his unspoken words.
Here you go, Mum, look what I made you.
The panic was contagious as everyone fled, and in the push, I tripped. My phone skidded, and the heel of a shoe kicked back against my collarbone. But I made it out under the stars just as the sirens came wailing, and I ran all the way home.
I removed my clothes and left them by the wardrobe. I should have destroyed them—they were evidence—but they still smelled like his hug from earlier. My phone screen was smashed. That was evidence too. Not that it mattered, because they would watch the security footage and see that he was pushed. By his girlfriend? By his ex-girlfriend. He always said that she was crazy. Patrick would be waiting for us at the party. He always liked you, Enola. He was always rooting for us. I couldn’t think about that now. I wanted to call Ruth. She would know what to do. Go to the police? Turn myself in? What do you do when there is a body? What do you do when someone is dead? I needed her to comfort me. I needed her to tell me my school shoes were cool. I needed her to help me drag the body across the kitchen floor.
I put on my Mario Kart T-shirt and got into bed. I told myself that it would be better in the morning. I would have some time. When the police arrived, I would be ready.
M Y NOSE HAS STOPPED bleeding! I wash the blood from my hands and return to the bedroom. The books are all over the floor, but I don’t want to tidy them. I don’t want to do anything. I am exhausted. My body is aching from falling at the station. My mind is aching from the truth. That he is dead. That I killed him. That he asked for it. I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment. The pillow is cold, and Dad is driving, but he won’t say where we are going. Can we go for ice cream after? They’ll be here soon, they’ll be here soon, they’ll—
S HIT .
Someone is knocking at the door. Or did I imagine it? Then—two definite raps. Here we go. I’m ready.