Page 7 of The Perfect Son
It’s you. It’s really you. You are standing in our driveway. Your half smile. Your head tilt. I love you. I love you. I love you.
For a split second everything is how it was. The darkness, the fog, the cold, it lifts and I smile. It was all a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. You’re alive and I love you.
And just as quickly, in the very next heartbeat the feeling is gone. Reality hits with the same force as PC Greenwood’s words:“Your husband was on board... There were no survivors.”
It’s not you. It’s your brother. How have I never noticed it before—the similarities between you and Ian? It’s in your eyes—deep brown and a perfect oval shape. I miss your eyes so much. I miss the way you cupped your hands around my face and stared at me with those eyes.
The hair is the same too. Ian’s is shorter, more corporate, more suitable for his partner role at Clarke & Barlow Solicitors—but it’s the same straight chocolate brown as yours.
“Hi, Tess,” Ian says. He steps closer, crushing the final whisper of hope lingering in my imagination. Ian is not tall like you, but is my height, five foot ten, so that when he reaches me, his eyes—your eyes—stare straight into mine.
“Hi.” I don’t know where to look. I can’t look into his eyes, so I pick a place to the right and stare at the white side door with black hinges that leads into the kitchen.
We hug—an awkward, weird kind of embrace where our feet stay rooted and we lean our bodies in. Ian never used to hug me on the few occasions each year when we saw him. It was always a little wave andan “Oh, hi, Tess,” as if I was an odd cousin at a wedding that nobody wanted to invite.
We hugged at your funeral too. I can’t remember if I started it or if Ian did, but we seem to be stuck with it now.
“I’ve been calling you,” Ian says when we pull apart.
“Sorry. I’ve... I’ve had the flu,” I lie.
“For a fortnight?” His tone is incredulous and I don’t know what to say.
“Can we go inside and talk?” Ian strides to the open porch and side door without waiting for a response, leaving me trailing behind like I’m the visitor and this is his house.
My hands are shaking when I push the key in the lock. I’m not sure if it’s the shock of thinking it was you standing on the driveway or the cold making them tremor, but either way I can’t get the old dead bolt to shift.
“Here,” Ian says, moving closer and waving my hand away from the key. “You have to lift the door a little as you turn it when it’s cold like this. It’s always been that way.” The hinges of the door creak and whine as it swings open. Ian strides into the kitchen and I’m left on the doorstep wishing I didn’t have to follow him in.
It doesn’t seem to matter to Ian that he hasn’t lived here for a good twenty years, he still treats the house like it belongs to him, like your mother is still alive and rattling around the place.
He’s my big brother, Tessie. He means well.
Maybe, but he never stopped treating you like a stupid teenager, and me and Jamie like we were a temporary phase of your life.
You’re just as bad. You never gave him a chance either.
I kick my boots off in the nook and pad into the kitchen in my woolly socks. The tiles freeze my feet. The heating has clicked off andthe temperature inside is the same as the outside. Not that it matters. There could be a tropical heat wave in our kitchen and I’d still feel cold.
Ian leans against the worktop by the sink and the window that overlooks our driveway. He stares at the table and my and Jamie’s half-eaten breakfast bowls. My Weetabix have bloated, congealing into one soggy mass. I catch Ian’s frown, the disdain for the mess. He adjusts his tie and stands a little straighter.
“Here,” Ian says. He lifts his hand and for the first time I notice the carrier bag he’s holding. “I bought you some grapes, and some chocolate. I wasn’t sure what you liked.”
“Oh, thanks.”
He looks disappointed and I wonder if I should be more grateful. Maybe you’re right, maybe I never gave him a chance.
“That’s really kind,” I add.
“I’m sorry to ask this, Tess,” Ian says, “but it can’t wait any longer. The thing is, I need that money.”
Money. The word pinballs in my mind. I should’ve known Ian didn’t come to see me, or to ask after Jamie. He’s here because of money. Money he says you borrowed from him.
“I told you, I don’t know anything about any money.”
“Have you looked at the accounts?” he asks.
“No.”
