Page 13 of The Perfect Son
“We haven’t lived here long. Have I said that already? Sorry if I have. We don’t exactly have neighbors. I think an elderly couple live in the house nearest to us. I had, still have I guess, plenty of friends in Chelmsford where we used to live, but I haven’t met anyone here.
“I used to say hi to a few school mums when I saw them in the playground at drop-off and pickup. We’d chat about the weather and school stuff. Nothing much. Then the plane crashed, and... well... look at me.” I gesture at my clothes—a saggy T-shirt and a worn cardigan, bobbled and fraying at the cuffs. “You’d keep well away, wouldn’t you? Anyway, I have to learn to cope at some point, right?”
Shelley nods and takes a tentative first sip from the mug cupped in her hands. “You do, but it’s about baby steps, Tess. After my son died, I didn’t wash for days. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed, or get dressed. I just lay there feeling half-dead myself. You’re up, you’re wearing clothes, you’re washing, you have milk in the fridge.”
I’m crying all the time, neglecting Jamie—or, worse, lashing out at him,I think but don’t say.
“No one is expecting you to be all right tomorrow or next week,” Shelley continues. “And you shouldn’t expect yourself to be either. At this stage in your grief, try to focus on achieving one small thing each day, rather than looking ahead to the future. Even if it’s just opening a letter you’ve been putting off.”
My gaze pulls to the post pile beside the microwave. I guess Shelley saw it too. It’s not one letter I’ve been putting off, but all of them.
“Shall we go through them together now? I bet most of it is junk anyway. It might make you feel better just to get them out of the way.”
I bite my bottom lip, torn between wanting Shelley to leave me alone and wondering if this woman with her sleek blond hair and shining eyes, who survived the worst tragedy I can think of, is right. Shelley takes my hesitation as acceptance and is out of the chair, scooping up the pile of letters before I can muster the energy to shake my head.
“I’ll divide them into four piles. Ones that are obviously bills,” she says, dropping a letter down with the red mobile phone logo on it. “Another for what looks like junk, a third for bereavement cards, and a fourth for everything else.”
“Put the cards straight in the bin,” I say. “I can’t look at them. I don’t want them.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “I don’t need reminding.” Nor does Jamie, for that matter.
“How about I pop them all to one side? There may come a time when you find comfort in them,” Shelley coaxes before sliding a few letters toward me.
I won’t ever find comfort in those cards, but I don’t tell Shelley that. My heart is pounding so hard inside my chest, and there is a gale-force panic whipping around my stomach. Most of this stuff is rubbish, so why am I so afraid to open them?
My hands shake but I reach for the first letter. The envelope is plain white with a window, and your name is printed inside. I watch Shelley working her way through one of the piles as the noise of tearing paper fills the kitchen. Her confidence reminds me so much of you, and there’s a smidgen of reassurance in that, enough to make me slide my fingers under the lip and prize open the envelope in my hand.
The letter is from a car dealership, reminding you to book a testdrive of their new Audi. It’s rubbish, and all of a sudden I don’t know why I allowed the post to mount up like this.
I reach for another envelope. This one is addressed to me.
I know the instant the letter is in my hands that it’s from the airline. Their swooping dark logo cries out at me from the top corner. Tears fill my eyes, and even though every part of my being wants to drop the letter—never read the words—my gaze is fixed.
Dear Mrs. Clarke,
Please accept our deepest sympathies for the tragic loss of your husband...
My eyes skip forward.
Further to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) ruling: [... the copilot leaving the pilot alone in the cockpit without another member of the aircrew present, the CAA finds the airline named above negligent]
We are attaching two compensation forms—one for each passenger on your late husband’s booking.
An involuntary noise escapes my mouth and I have to clamp my lips together to stop myself from crying out. How can they even think of sending compensation forms? It feels like a cruel joke. As if there is anything in the world the airline could give me to make it right.
Then it hits me. Two compensations. Two seats. Not one.
Who was the other seat for, Mark? I try to think back. Who were you going with? I don’t remember if you told me. Someone from the sales team, I guess. I wonder for a moment if they had a family too, if they are being missed like you are, but then I push the thought away.I can’t think about all the other people who died that day. All the gory details are still being hashed out in the news, splashed across the front pages, but I’ve stayed away. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to share our grief with anyone.
“Tess?” Shelley says, reaching a hand out toward me. “Are you all right?”
I nod, fumbling with the letter and sliding it into the pocket of my cardigan.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I think I need to lie down.”
“But it’s done—look.” Shelley smiles and waves her hands over the table. “It was mostly rubbish. Two bills that probably aren’t urgent, and these three left—” She pushes them forward. “One looks like a bank statement and the other is from a solicitor’s. I thought it might be to do with Mark’s estate. And this is from the passport office. Feels like a passport.”
