Page 86 of The Key to My Heart

Roxanne’s face crumples and – oh, God, are those tears in her eyes? Roxanne never cries, and I feel an instant wave of shame thatI’vemade it happen. ‘We invite you places, and you make excuses. You’re busy, you’re ill – or you just don’t text at all. You avoid us. You think we’re out to get you, that we’re your enemies …’

I stare at her and I search my head for an excuse, but, actually, I don’t have one and I don’t want to make one up either.

‘Look, I sometimes don’t want to come,’ I say. ‘I have bad days and sometimes—’

‘We all have bad days. And, Jesus, Natalie, I love you. But … you’re a flake. You’re a total flake and you lie to your friends and you throw everything into this bloody Joe, who doesn’t even know you, and here we are, desperate for you, and trying to be there for you—’

‘Oh, well I’msorry,’ I say, and now, my back is up, my defences, like invisible shields, rising. ‘I’m sorry I make you uncomfortable because I don’t let you do for me what you feel you should. To make yourself feel better. So your conscience is clear.’

‘What?’

‘You have absolutely no idea what I have to deal with –battle with– every single day.’

‘Are you … You have no idea either. I lost my job, Natalie. Yeah. Weeks ago.’

‘What?Your job? When? What happened—’

‘Your husband died,’ Roxanne cuts in. ‘And I know this. I really do. And it breaks my heart, so I don’t know what the hell it does to yours. But you have to stop—’

‘Stop? Stop what?’

Roxanne stares at me across the cobbles. ‘What did we get for Lucy?’

‘What?’

‘What did we buy her? For her birthday?’

I stare at her. ‘I don’t … I sent the money, but I don’t—’

‘And Edie. Edie’s so desperate to talk to you, to be there for you …’ She shakes her head sadly. ‘I feel like I don’t know you anymore. You cut people off. You cut people out. Because you’re hurting and the less of us looking in, the better.’

The Uber app buzzes on my phone, and shaking with rage, with upset, with heartache, I walk away to meet the car, leave Roxanne there on the pavement.

‘Natalie!’ Roxanne shouts.‘Natalie!’

I ignore her.

‘Station, yeah?’ the driver asks as I shut the car door behind me.

‘No.’ I say through tears. ‘No, take me to Drayton Road. Number 89. Hoddesdon.’

‘Right. That’s quite a bit further, love, so—’

‘Just take me there.Please.Thank you.’

By the time the taxi pulls up outside Jodie’s, I’m a wreck. I feel like I’m not even in my body anymore. That I’m a hologram, or that I’m in a projection of a film. I’m walking through water. I can’t hear or think or see straight. I stumble up the path.

Nick opens the door, a baggy hoodie skimming his knees, a pair of shorts peeping from the hem. He’s smiling, rosy-cheeked, but it fades, slowly, like a flame going out. ‘Auntie Nat?’

‘Hi. Um …’

Then Jodie appears from the living room in her dressing gown, a glass of wine in her hand, the glasses she wears to watch TV on the end of her nose.

‘Oh! Nat! This is a nice surprise!’

And before I’ve even opened my mouth, I’m melting into tears on my sister’s shoulder, Nick is saying ‘Ah, shit,’ and Carl is appearing out of the kitchen drying a wok with a tea towel and saying, ‘Stop just standing there, son, and get the bloody kettle on.’

‘Blimey O’Reilly,’ says Carl. ‘I would have never seen it coming. I’m usually good with the mysteries, aren’t I, Jode? I guess every twist in ITV dramas. But I wouldn’t have seen that – that it was Joe. All along.’

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