Page 88 of Before You Say Goodbye

Autumn supposed shewasbeing snobbish. She had been judging them, when she really was no better than her family— no better than anyone. At some point she’d come to believe that she was, but she could see now, despite her anger, they were all nothing more than a victim of circumstance. She could hardly expect anything else from her mother except resentment, the snooty thoughts she’d indulged in had almost certainly translated into facial expressions, and Katherine had become defensive. She was quick to anger, sure, but it was in part Autumn’s fault this time.

Her thoughts moved to Bowie and she wondered what he’d think about the way she’d inwardly judged her mother, about the ego she had grown in his presence, without his permission. He’d tell her she was wrong to look down on anyone.

Autumn was close to apologising, but then Katherine spoke again, and what she said cast all of Autumn’s pity and sensitivity into the wind.

“You’ve given that posh little prick and his family more time and attention in the last six months than you’ve given us, your family, in thirty years. You barely bloody knew them. It was me that gave birth to you, Autumn.”

“Shut up, Mum!” Grief and pent-up rage were swallowing her and she could feel herself losing control.

“It’s ‘Mam’!” Katherine roared back at her. “You’re not posh, you never were and you never will be, so stop talking like you are.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that,” Autumn got to her feet. She moved towards her mother, knowing that all it would do was provoke her. It had been a long time since they had physically fought. They had been quite evenly matched when Autumn was in her teens, but her mother was a fair bit wider now and Autumn was so much thinner. Still, every fibre of Autumn’s being wanted to take everything she felt out on this woman, right here, right now. This woman who had cheated on her father. This woman who had always favoured her sister. This womanwho had made her feel so utterly worthless. This woman who had allowed her stepfather to beat her, who refused to believe she had been sexually assaulted. Who’d been happy to see her leave home because she couldn’t wait to turn her bedroom into a gym. Who’d tried to invalidate everything that Autumn had worked so hard for, hadn’t bothered to read her book, and who cared more about how she pronounced her words than if she was making a success of herself. This woman who still dared to call herself her mother when she barely knew the meaning of the word. This woman who could stand in front of her and insult a family who had supported Autumn more in the last six months than she had in thirty-two years, and the only man she had ever been in love with. A man who had shown her more care and affection in such a short time than this woman ever had. A lovely, sweet, unashamedly kind, dead man.

Autumn was consumed by a deeply dangerous rage. As she lunged at her mother, she wondered what Bowie might think of her if he could see her now. If she had ever dared tell him about her family and the kind of anger they stirred up in her, would he even have believed she had it in her? She knew he wouldn’t. She had once been angry at him for hitting a wall in her presence. She remembered the guilty expression he’d worn that morning when he’d promised her he’d just been overcome with emotion and realised she was being a hypocrite. It only made her angrier at her mother. As far as she was concerned at that moment, this was all Katherine’s fault. Autumn felt her mother’s hand reflexively slap her across her face. Before Autumn could grab her by her hair, Lilly wrapped her arms around her waist from behind and wrestled her out of the room. She dragged Autumn upstairs and into her bedroom, then sat with her back against the door and refused to move, even when Autumn kicked her. Lilly let her scream for a while and then, when Autumn showed no sign of calming down, shouted at her.

“It’s not us you’re mad at, sis,” she said. “Stop it, babe. Please.”

Autumn let herself sink to her knees, holding her hands over her heart and howling, slowly and sadly. Lilly watched her sister cry, her own lips quivering at the rawness of Autumn’s anguish, and then pulled her into a hug.

They held on to one another until Autumn had calmed down. When they eventually found the emotional strength to stand up together, the evening had drawn in and their mother was long gone. Before she left, presumably with Pam, she’d called to warn Autumn that she’d better be gone by the morning. Autumn could come home again only when she remembered who she really was, she’d said. The sisters climbed into bed together.

“You should have chosen the other one.” Lilly spoke wryly into the silence, stroking Autumn’s hair with all the grace of a person unaccustomed to demonstrating affection. “The other brother. You’d still be sitting in a mansion now, instead of here with me in this freezing-cold shithole.”

Autumn rolled her eyes, but didn’t say anything. She knew her sister didn’t mean to be insensitive. There was no need to tell Lilly that the Whittles had begged her to stay with them, that they’d approached her, both collectively and individually, and implored her not to leave. It was hopeless to point out that falling in love with Bowie had been the cataclysmic conclusion to an evening out she hadn’t even wanted, rather than a rational choice she had made. Pathetically, Autumn found herself declaring instead that the Whittles’ home was a country estate, not a mansion. Her mind was racing, but these were the only words she managed to muster.

She wanted to tell Lilly that she’d been feeling deeply depressed and that she needed help. She was desperate to confess to someone, anyone, that grief and guilt were preventing her from sleeping, and that she was already missing Marleymore than was appropriate. She wanted to tell her sister that she’d been spurred by a missing period, sickness, and a strange intuition, to take a pregnancy test. That it had been positive, and that she didn’t know whose baby she was carrying. She thought about the horrified stare and look of judgement her confession would likely induce and shook violently against her sibling’s shoulder instead. Eventually, she encouraged Lilly to go to sleep, then she kissed her on the top of her head, collected her things and took a taxi to the airport in the early hours of the morning, trying to ignore the terrifying truth of what was growing inside her.

* * *

Bowie had only ever been in her apartment twice, but she still saw him everywhere. He was on the sofa they’d made up on, in the bed they’d slept in, and all over the mug he’d thrown up into, which was sitting, clean and dry, on the drainer beside her sink. Autumn held the cup to her cheek and cried for him, before taking it to bed with her. She hid under the duvet, grasping the cup to her heart, and hoping that she might find peace in slumber.

Restless, she thought carefully back to a time when she’d felt depressed like this before, remembering how she’d found it possible to sleep in those days only by imagining that she was no longer alive. Nothing mattered when you were dead, she’d reasoned back then. She allowed herself to pretend for a moment that she did not exist. Nobody knew for sure where she was. She was entirely alone. Again.

She felt herself relax a little at last.

* * *

Autumn’s eyes opened a full forty-eight hours after she’d closed them. She had eight missed calls from Emma andmultiple messages from various members of the Whittle family. Her sister had tried to call her, too.

She was hungry, thirsty, and really needed the loo. Despite an ache in her back that made her want to crawl to the bathroom, she forced herself to walk. She could hardly bear the touch of her T-shirt as it brushed across her breasts. She really wanted to be sick. She’d never known her body to feel so sensitive. Suddenly, she felt incredibly pregnant.

She weed, and then stood under the shower, scrubbing the skin on her stomach viciously as she washed, silently urging the ball of cells hidden inside her not to be real. She stared up at the ceiling, urging the universe to help her out of this mess. She’d heard that lots of women had miscarriages in the very early stages of pregnancy. Whomever he or she belonged to, this baby had been conceived barely four weeks before. Autumn let herself hope that she’d miscarry. It would make everything so much easier. She felt a twinge of guilt.

“Nobody wants you.” She spoke to the foetus lurking in her belly. She sat down in the shower stall, hugging her knees to her chest and wondering what Bowie would want her to do if he were here.Keep it.She could almost hear his voice in her head. There was no question in her mind at all what his response would be. He’d have asked her to keep it even though Marley might be its father. And Marley? She knew right away what he would want her to do, too. It might be Bowie’s, and he would never advocate aborting a part of his brother. She spent less than a second pondering what the others would want from her. He or she was a Whittle. Bowie and Marley’s family would want her to have it, no question, and would love it dearly.

“I don’t want you,” she said, correcting herself. She couldn’t keep it. It was too complicated.

She texted Bluebell to tell her she was safe and in New York, and then stared at her phone, waiting for what she knew was the inevitable. Emma rang her right away.

“Autumn! Is everything all right?” she asked urgently.

“I’m fine,” Autumn said. “I just needed . . .” She paused. What did she need? She didn’t know any more. “Something.” She finished hopelessly.

“Yes,” Emma said. “We understand that, darling.”

“I’m sorry, Emma.” Autumn’s apology was heartfelt. She knew that they’d wanted her to stay close by, but she couldn’t bear to listen to them telling stories and sharing memories of Bowie. She had a baby to abort and needed to do that alone, though she wasn’t sure that she’d feel much differently even if she hadn’t had this added complication. “How is everyone?” she asked.

“Missing Bowie,” Emma said. “Missing you.”

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