Seven Days of Us(77)

Andrew


THE KITCHEN, 34 GLOUCESTER TERRACE, CAMDEN, 2:00 P.M.

? ? ?

It had been impossible to talk to Emma when they’d got back to Gloucester Terrace. Phoebe had sat with them in the kitchen for ages, as if she was afraid to be alone, periodically announcing how worried she was. Eventually she’d gone up to her room, leaving Andrew and Emma alone. Last night felt like a dream. He knew he ought to acknowledge the things that she’d said—or at least grovel for hiding the letter. But the image of Olivia being wheeled out of Weyfield on a stretcher, and Emma’s face as she watched, was all his mind could contain. “I’m sorry about before. What I said yesterday,” said Emma, as if she was thinking the same.

Her hair still looked slept on, and she reached up to pat it with one hand. It was a gesture she’d always had, inherited by Phoebe. They both looked straight ahead, through the window to the modest paved garden—so unlike Weyfield’s sprawling lawns.

He offered her his whiskey—she took a sip and handed it back. Something in the gesture felt more intimate than they had been in years.

“You had every right to be angry,” he said. “I wish I’d just shown you that bloody letter when it arrived. Or told you about that night, what happened, at the time. If I’d known then how much trouble it would have saved, but I just, I didn’t want to ruin—”

“Don’t,” she said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It was all so long ago.”

“But you do believe me that it was a one-off, don’t you? That there was never anyone, anything like that afterward? It was just a freak, stupid, stupid mistake.”

“I believe you. I know you, Andrew. Besides, if Jesse hadn’t been there today, I don’t know what . . . I can’t imagine . . .” He put an arm around her shoulders and she let him pull her toward him.

“The thing is, I realized that I’ve kept secrets from you myself,” she said. “And once we got like that, it felt easier to carry on that way. But I shouldn’t have.”

He wanted to ask if she’d really meant what she’d said about how he treated Olivia, but he was afraid of digging up the fight again.

“I should have been more open with you about still wanting to work, after the girls were born,” she carried on. “I know you haven’t been happy at The World for years. And I should have said something, because you just soldier on, and it’s no good. For any of us.”

“It’s not your job to tell me. And besides, those aren’t secrets. That’s hindsight.”

“Maybe. But I definitely should have told you when I found the lump. It was weeks ago. It was just easier not to, to spare everyone, until I had to. It would’ve made it real, when I could barely think about it myself. But it’s still no excuse. And it’s not so different from the things you kept from me. It’s all talking, or not talking. ‘Communication.’” She overpronounced the word to acknowledge that it was the kind of therapy-speak he loathed. How well she knew him.

“I thought about what you said, about Olivia,” he said. “It’s not that I favored Phoebe.” He dropped his voice. “At least, I hope not. It was a difficult time for me, when Olivia was born, reconciling myself to responsibilities here—knowing I ought to leave Lebanon, but not wanting to stop. I was wrong to keep that from you, too.”

“I still knew.”

“I know. I know you did. It’s just that, when I came home, I already seemed to have missed the boat with Olivia. And then it was so easy with Phoebe. We always laughed at the same things. But Wiv never seemed to need me—even to, to like me all that much.” His voice shrank at the thought of Olivia in hospital, and the possibility that he might never be able to make it right.

“Andrew, don’t!” said Emma. She reached up, her arms circling his neck, and kissed him on the lips, as she hadn’t for years. He pulled her closer against him. The reality of her diagnosis, of her death, reared up in his mind with a terrifying force.

“I’m sorry,” she said into his neck. “I should never have said those things about you and Olivia. I was just angry. They aren’t even true. It’s different with every child, every parent.”

He composed himself just in time to hear Phoebe coming downstairs.

“Have you heard anything?” she yelled.

Her singsong brought Andrew back to normality.

“Nothing yet,” he shouted back, relieved to hear his voice back on a baritone keel.

“We’ll call you the second we do, angel,” added Emma. They were still wrapped in each other’s arms, the phone balanced on the windowsill beside them.





Jesse


THE ROYAL FREE HOSPITAL, HAMPSTEAD, 5:10 P.M.

? ? ?

Jesse caught a second of an old brring brrring ringtone before Emma’s breathless, “Hello?”

“Emma, it’s me, Jesse. It’s OK,” he said.

“Oh, thank God. So it’s not Haag?” He could feel her relief down the line.

“Nope. She doesn’t have Haag. So I’m all good, too. It’s over one week since she left Liberia, so there’s zero risk now. We were put in isolation separately, so I had, like, hours alone where I heard literally nothing. And then this nurse comes in and tells me Olivia just tested negative. Man, I was so happy! I was seriously beginning to freak out in this little tent—”