Page 81 of The Good Boy

“Mum...” I say and there must be something in my voice,because she puts down the kettle and crosses to me, putting her hand on my arm.

“What is it, darling?” Her voice is kind and soft—it makes me want to cry.

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things recently,” I say. “Since Rory, I’ve been thinking about stuff that I try really hard not to think about, and I think I am ready. To look in the box. You still have it, don’t you?”

“Of course I still have it,” Mum says. “I would never part with it, my love. But are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. If you, Kelly, and Rory will look with me.”

A few minutes later we sit at the dining room table and Mum puts a large, square, pink box on the table. I sit there looking at it, feeling all the muscles tighten in my throat.

“What’s in the box?” Rory asks, sitting next to me.

“All the things I bought for my baby,” I say. “Things I couldn’t let go or look at. So Mum kept them safe for me.”

Kelly stands behind me, her hand on my shoulder. Mum sits down on one side of me and Rory draws his chair nearer to mine on the other. He leans against me, shoulder to shoulder, just as he always has.

“I’m here,” he says.

“We’re all here,” Mum says.

Carefully I lift the lid off the box and unwrap the pink tissue paper that keeps the contents safe. The first thing I take out is a soft cream blanket. I hold it to my cheek.

“We had two of these,” I tell Rory, looking at Mum, who nods. “I spent ages choosing them, because I’d read that you can’t let your baby get too hot or too cold, so I wanted it to be breathable, but also cozy, and for her to feel safe and warm, you know?”

“Yes,” Rory says.

“They wrapped her in this after she was born, she was so tiny. I held her,” I tell him. “She is buried in the other blanket, just like this. Cozy and warm.”

I hold it to my cheek for a moment, closing my eyes as I try to recall the feel of her slight weight in my arms. Carefully I fold the blanket, and setting it aside reach inside the box, taking out a card and opening it to reveal all the evidence I have that she existed in this world.

“Her feet and hands,” I say, tracing the contours of the prints with my thumbs. I look at Mum.

“She was real, Mum,” I say.

“Oh, yes, darling, yes,” Mum murmurs. “Our beautiful little girl. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about her. We lost our little granddaughter, and we lost you too, in a way.”

But there have been too many days when I pushed every thought of her down and down as far as they would go.

There’s a soft white teddy in the box. I take it out and hold it against my chest, and then I reach inside for the last memory. The photograph of me holding her. Eyes wide and dark, uncertain and afraid. That’s the person I’ve been living as all these years.

But when I look at it again, I am amazed at what I see. Amazed at what I could not bring myself to look at for all these years. A young woman, cradling a swaddled baby in her arms, looking at her child. I don’t know what I thought this was a photograph of, but now that I look at it again I can see that it’s a portrait of love. And it’s beautiful.

“Her name was Amelia,” I tell Rory.

“She is really sweet,” Rory says, his chin on my shoulder.

All these years I’ve been carrying her in my heart as if hermemory was a heavy weight. But I had it all wrong. My love for her will carry me. It will carry me through everything, because I know firsthand that love is instant, it is real, and it never dies. And if that’s not magic, then I don’t know what is.

“Sweetheart.” Mum gets up and puts her arms around me. I turn into her shoulder and begin to cry. Rory leans into me, his weight reassuring, a comfort.

“I’m next to you, Genie,” he says. “You’re not alone.”

“You never were,” Mum adds. Suddenly I realize that has always been true.

Chapter Thirty

The sun feels warm through the car window as we drive home in silence and I feel drenched in a kind of calm I have not felt for a very long time. For the first time Rory is sitting in the passenger seat next to me. After a while he presses the button that slides down the window and leans his face into the breeze, inhaling deeply, his long blond hair blowing back from his face, his eyes closed. When I keep my eyes on the road and don’t look right at him, it’s not some dude that I sense sitting next to me but my dog. My Rory. And I miss him so much even when he’s right here.

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