First Born(16)

‘You live downstairs?’ asks Dad.

‘I have the basement studio,’ he says, straightening his back, managing to look at my dad for a second. ‘I run my business down there and I pay market rent,’ he adds. ‘It’s not like I’m living in my mom’s basement.’

Well, it kind of is like that, Shawn.

‘Katie loved this flat,’ says Mum. ‘She used to FaceTime me back in Nottingham – that’s where we’re from – showing me all the original features and the old windows. She was very happy living here.’

‘Shawn. Do you have any idea what might have happened to my sister?’

He doesn’t say anything, he just looks down at his Nikes and shakes his head in an exaggerated movement from side to side.

‘KT have any arguments in here, or out on the street?’ I ask. ‘You know if anyone ever threatened her or yelled at her, anything like that?’

‘No,’ he says, looking at her bed. ‘Nope, zip. I’m sorry.’

I walk slowly to her bed and catch her subtle scent once more and it makes me stop and I lose my breath again.

‘Molly?’ asks Mum. ‘Are you sure you’re all right in here?’

I smile at her gently. ‘Are you OK in here?’

She nods and looks at Dad.

‘If you do think of anyone,’ I say to Shawn, ‘any little detail, can you let Detective Martinez know, please. He’s at the 24th Precinct.’

‘26th Precinct, Moll.’

‘Sure, no problem,’ says Shawn.

The noise of a siren half a street away. Car horns and raised voices.

The landlady returns. ‘That was an enquiry about this actual apartment – you see, we get a lot of demand being so close to the campus. I told them it’s not available right now, but I’ll need to keep them updated. I know it’s a difficult time, but if you’d let me know if you want to keep the place I would be obliged. Katie paid, or rather her sponsorship paid up until the end of next month, but from December first you’ll need to pay rent or else I’ll give it to a new tenant. I hope you don’t think it’s crass of me to talk like this.’

‘We won’t need it,’ says Dad in a defeated voice.

Mum stands up and says, ‘Let us just think about it, would you, Mrs Bagby? It’s all very . . . new, all this. We just need a few days to deal with it all. If that’s OK.’

Victoria nods and says, ‘Sure, take a few days, get back to me when you’ve discussed it.’ She looks at Dad with an expression that says, Let me know as soon as you can. And then she turns to her son and says, ‘Shawn, would you stay with the Ravens and let them out? I need to go meet a business associate downtown.’

‘But I gotta go upload,’ says Shawn.

‘Can that wait half an hour, dear?’

He grunts something and she leaves. Two minutes later he grunts something else to us and says he’ll be back in ten minutes.

‘We’ll organise for her things to come back to Nottingham,’ says Mum. ‘I can sort it out. Get it all shipped and put back in your bedroom. We still keep your bedroom, Molly.’

‘I know you do, Mum.’ I stayed there last Christmas, along with my sister. Two single beds separated by a strip of no man’s land. Two small desks. Two single wardrobes.

‘We’ll get shipping quotes,’ says Dad, more to himself than to us. ‘It might be expensive. I’ll ask Detective Martinez if we can take back some personal items in our checked baggage next week.’

‘I’d like some of her things,’ I say. ‘I want to fly back with them. Her shawl, maybe.’ I walk to the shawl folded over her sofa armrest. I pick it up and hold it to my face and something unlocks inside me. Facing a sofa, facing a wall, the scent in the shawl, it breaks me. Armani Mania. I buckle. My tears soak the loose-weave fabric and I hold it tight to my face and I cry. I’m aware of Mum crying behind me, Dad holding her, saying, ‘Let her, Elizabeth. Just let her.’

The convulsing stops. I sit down on the sofa, the shawl still tight to my eyes. She was my other half. Spouses say that but it’s never true. We were each other’s other half. If we had ever had children they would have been cousins but they would also have been genetic half-siblings, we were that closely connected. We entered this life together. And now she’s gone.

‘I gotta leave soon, so . . .’ says Shawn from the doorway. ‘I need to lock this place up, Mom told me.’

‘Just five minutes, lad,’ says Dad.

‘Sure, no worries. That’s cool,’ says Shawn.

I wipe my eyes on the shawl and take some deep breaths.

‘She loved you so very much,’ says Mum.

And the truth is that Mum is being kind here but she has no real idea how much she loved me and how much I loved her. Our relationship was deeper than she could know. It was something that existed just between us. A private thing. Mum loved us both but she cannot understand the depths of our relationship. Nobody can.

That photo pops into my head. Shawn and KT together.

‘How well did you know my sister?’ I ask him.

He points to his own chest. ‘Wait, what?’

‘There’s a photo of you together on the board in her bedroom.’

‘Molly,’ says Dad.