Page 21 of The Perfect Son
“Why don’t you go and start your reading, and I’ll see who it is.”
At the faint tap of the door knocker Jamie scurries upstairs and disappears. I flick on the hall light and heave open the door.
“Hello,” I say to the woman on the doorstep.
“Hi, Tess,” she replies. “I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Denise. I’m the personal assistant for the sales team. I worked with Mark.”
She’s vaguely familiar but it’s only when she steps inside that I recognize her from the sea of faces at your funeral.
Upstairs, the floorboards creak and I hear the tap running in the bathroom.
“I was passing this way,” she says, “and thought I’d stop by and see how you are.”
“Oh... thank you” is all I can think to say as I close the door and try to smile at the woman in her smart gray trouser suit now standing in our hall. “Come in.”
Denise is tall. Even in flat pumps she has to stoop her head of auburn hair under the exposed oak beams as I lead her to the kitchen. She has a round face and her makeup is thick and contoured, but it’s not enough to hide the strain on her face when she smiles at me.
“Sorry to barge in uninvited,” she says, her gaze fixing on our dinner plates. I wonder if she’s a clean freak like Ian.
“No problem,” I mumble. “We’re finished anyway.” I collect theplates and slide them onto the work surface by the sink. I wonder if she’ll sit down, but she doesn’t. I want to ask her what she wants. She isn’t really here to check on us, is she? But every configuration of the question in my head sounds too rude to voice.
“Mark used to talk about you and Jamie all the time,” she blurts. “He... he was so proud of Jamie.”
“Oh.” Is that true, Mark? You were always so worried about Jamie’s school progress, his shyness, his lack of drive. It was one of the reasons we moved. A village school, smaller class sizes. Less disruption.“It’s like private school, but we don’t have to pay for it,”you said when I didn’t want to leave Chelmsford.
Then all at once I see it—recognize it—the look in Denise’s eyes. It’s in the air too, seeping out of her like a bad smell. Guilt.
Denise isn’t here to check on me, she’s here to tell me something.
Oh God. What if she tells me something horrible, something about you that I don’t want to know?
Stop, Tessie.
I can’t.
I stare at Denise’s face and the guilt and sadness. Questions flit through my mind. I want to ask her what she wants. I want to ask her who else died that day. Who else in the office was sitting beside you, the second seat on the plane. I want to ask if she knows what your secret project is—the one you wouldn’t tell me about—but I don’t, because Denise gets there first.
She opens her mouth to say something, then stops. Tears glint in her eyes, causing a shiver to race down my spine.
I shut the kitchen door, leaning my weight against it until the catch clicks into place. Whatever Denise has to say, I don’t want Jamie to hear it. I don’t want to hear it either and I have an almost primal desire to cover my ears and scream and scream until she leaves. Instead Iturn my back to her and flick the switch on the kettle. “Cup of tea?” I whisper.
My hand reaches for the fridge to retrieve the milk. The magnet with Jamie’s school photo on it has fallen off again. Kicked under the fridge when the milk bottle smashed, I bet.
“No thank you, Tess. I won’t keep you. I... I wanted to tell you something at the funeral, but there didn’t seem to be a right moment.”
Acid burns at the back of my throat and my mouth fills with a metallic saliva. I flick off the switch on the kettle and plunge the kitchen into a loaded silence.
“The guilt has been eating me up inside. I’ve tried to come here so many times. I’ve been parked around the corner for the last hour trying to figure out the words to tell you this. The thing is... the event... the event in Frankfurt was canceled.”
“What?”
Tears are dropping from her eyes, and when she speaks it’s in between deep, wrenching sobs that make me want to yank the words right out of her. “An email went out first thing Monday morning from Frankfurt. Half the German office were down with flu so the trip was canceled. It was fine because the main flight wasn’t until ten thirty. But then I remembered Mark was booked on an earlier flight than the rest of us.
“I phoned him straightaway to check he’d seen the email. He was about to board the plane. I heard someone in the background asking for his boarding pass, but I thought he heard me tell him he didn’t need to go. I’m sure he laughed and said, ‘OK,’ but I was still at home packing and my phone signal was terrible. I kept breaking up. I thought he’d heard me but... but then I found out about the plane. It’s... my... fault...”
I stare into the watery eyes of the woman in my kitchen. She stopssniveling and takes a breath in without releasing it. Denise is the reason you are dead. This woman is the reason Jamie no longer has his father.
“I don’t understand. Why were the rest of the team on a different flight?”
