them, these things of Anna’s – a pile of crap.
In Rose’s room, I hoover the floor, which is covered in glitter from the birthday card she made. I strip her bed, find a few pieces of Lego in the sheets, and toss them into a large box underneath. Her scent lingers on the bedding and, as I make my way downstairs to the washing machine, past Anna’s mound of shoes, I inhale it.
Downstairs, my phone vibrates a message from Theo. A firm friend since we worked together over ten years ago, he’s someone I know I can trust with my mood today.
‘Happy Birthday’ seems all wrong. Costa at 12? X
I read his text and consider saying no. Theo’s probably just on an hour’s break from the surgery, and I should probably be more mindful of my state affecting another. But the thought of a long and lonely birthday stretching before me stops me doing the right thing.
It’s exactly midday and he is there first, two coffees already in front of him, sitting in the booth to the rear of the café, our usual perch for putting the world to rights. The scent of crushed, bitter coffee beans fills the air. It pokes a memory of the day Anna went missing, the day of the Christmas fair.
‘Before I sit down,’ I say. ‘One thing …’
Theo’s eyebrows stretch.
‘I don’t want to talk about my birthday.’
The stretch reaches further, creasing his forehead.
‘Theo?’ I refuse to sit down until he agrees.
‘Okay.’ He pushes a coffee to the opposite side of the table from him and I slide into the booth. ‘So,’ he says. ‘How’re you coping with the fact that today is Anna’s birthday?’
My eyes close slowly.
‘What?’ he says. ‘You told me not to mention your birthday. You never said anything about not mentioning hers.’
I pretend he hasn’t spoken, take a sip of the coffee, make a face, then swap it. ‘Sugar,’ is all I say.
I want to talk but can’t. I want to cry, but only seem to be able to do it in my sleep. An empty but easy silence falls between us. It’s like that with us sometimes. We’ve been friends for such a long time that the quiet doesn’t scare us. Theo rubs his nose with the back of his hand.
‘It’s no easier,’ I finally speak. ‘I swear. Some days – it’s everything I can do to breathe.’ I’m reminded when I hear these words aloud how badly I behaved to Leah. ‘That line about time healing isn’t true,’ I tell Theo. ‘All lies. Time doesn’t heal.’
‘It will. Days like today will always be the worst.’
My head shakes. ‘Today’s bad. Yesterday was worse – the apprehension … It’s like physical pain and it’s all over, every muscle, every nerve ending in my body.’ I grip the handle on the coffee mug so tightly that my knuckles whiten. ‘Before … birthdays, sharing the day together, it was such a special thing, as if she always knew that she was the best birthday present I ever got.’
He sips his coffee, his silence letting me know he gets it, then deftly changes the subject.
‘Are you doing anything tonight?’
‘Dinner at Leah’s. Gus is cooking,’ I tell him. ‘But I’ll see how I feel. I’m not sure I’ll go.’
‘You look like you could do with a hug.’
My eyes dart around our local Costa. ‘No thanks, you’re all right. Granted you’re separated, but you’ve probably got half a dozen patients in here and you’re still a married man.’
‘Hmmm,’ he says.
‘What does “Hmmm” mean?’
‘Nothing. We’re here to talk about you. You want something to eat? You should eat. You’re all skin and bone.’
I refuse food. ‘How’s Finn doing?’ I have found it hard since Harriet walked out on their marriage to understand how she also walked away from their eleven-year-old son.
‘He seems all right. This is the first half-term where he gets parents sharing him. It’ll be strange. You spend more time with him during school hours than I do.’ His smile is half questioning, but it’s not something I’m prepared to get into – not today. Finn is not himself in school, seems attention seeking; but then again, that’s probably only to be expected.
‘Right. I should get back.’ He taps his hands, palms down, on the edge of the table, then stands. ‘You want that hug?’ His eyes, the same colour as the casual khaki-coloured trousers he wears today, rest on mine.
We embrace. He holds me tight. I catch a whiff of his aftershave, and all I can think of is Anna. I close my eyes, pretend that this moment of closeness is with her; pretend that it’s her scent – a floral, sweet one rather than a musky one – that I’m inhaling. I have to stop myself clinging to him.
‘This time last year, remember the night?’ he whispers.
I do remember. A crowd of us went out to celebrate my birthday and I ended up dancing on the table. It was a night for Sean to have Rose, and Anna had called to collect me in a cab after being out with her own friends. ‘Taxi for drunk mother!’ she had called into the pub.
‘It’s good to think of fun times,’ he says.
Theo seems to know the exact picture I have flooding through my brain. He rests his hand on the top of my back and, for a brief second, I think he’s going to say something profound, something that might make a difference – some insight into how I’m going to handle this all-consuming, exhausting, loss. Instead he says, ‘It’s shit, Jess. Nothing I say will make it better, but I will keep on trying.’
His remark’s not profound but, somehow, it helps.
It’s ten forty. I’m lying in bed on the night of my forty-eighth birthday. My mother has left two answerphone messages for me, neither of which I have felt able to respond to. My ex-husband sent me a text telling me he is thinking of me. My only sister is mad at me for walking away from her this morning and cancelling dinner tonight. My beloved granddaughter is in another country with her father and his parents. My friend’s marriage is over and, though he still wants to help me, I’m not sure anyone can. It’s Anna I want to hear from.
I snap a Valium from a pack Theo prescribed. Tonight, I need to sleep.
I’m floating on an airbed on a calm sea, rising and falling with the gentle ebb of the dark blue ocean – the colour of her eyes … I recognize the beach from a holiday we’d taken years ago – Doug, me and Anna. She’s there, on the sand, and she’s waving to me. I’m so thrilled to see her that I slide from the airbed, begin to swim back to shore. All the while, she’s laughing and waving, calling to me, ‘Mama! I’m here!’ And as I swim as fast as my limbs will allow, I’m crying, thinking, ‘She’s not missing, after all. Look! There she is, you can see her.’
I stop swimming, tread water for a moment, am frustrated as I don’t seem to be nearing her. ‘Mama!’ she continues to call. ‘Over here!’ And then I see it,
