Page 7 of Meet Me In Central Park

‘I booked them a trip to New York for my mum’s fiftieth birthday, but there was a crash on the way to the airport and…’ Even after all this time, I still struggled to say the words. ‘They were both killed instantly.’

‘You were driving?’ Harry didn’t wait for an answer and he put his hands over mine. It should have been uncomfortably over-familiar, but it wasn’t. ‘Just because you were driving, it doesn’t make it your fault. It was a terrible accident, that’s all.’

‘I wasn’t driving. Dad was.’ I tried not to picture the mangled wreckage that was all that had been left of their car. I’d seen photographs at the trial, and I hadn’t been able to get the images out of my head since. ‘They were pushed into the wrong lane, by another driver overtaking on a blind bend, and they hit a lorry head-on.’

‘How can any of that be your fault?’ It was an echo of the words I’d heard so many times – from well-meaning friends, my grandparents, and even my counsellor, but the guilt still ate away at me. I’d put them on that road, at that time. Maybe if I hadn’t been so busy at work, and I’d offered to drive them, they’d still be here. I might have reacted differently to Dad, and somehow avoided the crash alogether. Or maybe I’d have died with them. I didn’t want that any more – not like I had in the beginning – but it still felt like the easier option sometimes.

‘I booked the trip, and I chose a flight time that meant they were travelling on a dark road, in the winter. If it hadn’t been icy and almost pitch black, maybe Dad could have steered clear of the lorry.’

‘What about the person who was overtaking? Surely they were the one to blame?’

‘It was pretty clear he’d been taking drugs and probably drinking too, just hours before the accident. But he played up his injuries at the hospital and was taken for an emergency scan; the delay in testing was long enough for the tests to come back inconclusive. By the time they were taken, he was just under the legal limit for both TCH and alcohol.’ I’d learnt the true meaning of hate, when I’d seen the police report on what that man had done and the background to his previous driving charges. I wasn’t stupid, I knew it was his fault, but I still felt I was somehow to blame too. The guilt I felt for booking my parents night flights, just to save a couple of hundred pounds, would stay with me forever. It was money I could have stretched to, but the consequences were so final. And no amount of ‘what ifs’ did any good – they just piled on the pain.

‘Libby, you’ve got to stop blaming yourself.’ Harry hesitated again, and I wanted to tell him that he didn’t need to try and help me, because plenty of professionals before him had tried and failed. But it was like he could read my mind. ‘I’m sure you’ve had threapy to try and work through all this, but I’ve got this friend…’

‘Please tell me it’s not a psychic!’ I cut him off. I’d had all sorts of suggestions since I’d lost my parents, and I’d very nearly gone that far. But I didn’t believe in any of that. It would have done just as much as the counselling seemed to do, and the well-intentioned platitudes of friends that didn’t help either. All I could do was hope that time would eventually make it a little bit easier to live with, because nothing else had and I’d realised pretty quickly that ‘getting over’ my parents’ deaths was never going to happen.

‘No, of course not. Look, I’m sorry, this is probably overstepping the mark, but I’ve seen her do amazing work with people going through the process of grief. She specialises in art rehabilitation and she works out of the Community Center about half a mile from your aunt’s shop. It’s not therapy as such, it’s just using art as a way of getting you to open up. Maybe it’d be worth a try?’ Harry took a card out of his wallet and handed it to me.

‘Dr Paula?’ She sounded like one of those therapists on daytime talk-show phone-ins, offering advice to ‘anonymous from Milton Keynes’, on the unexplained rash that had appeared after an encounter with a stranger.

‘She’s great, I promise, and she does her art rehabilitation work pro bono. You just make a donation to the Community Center she works out of, if you can afford it. She might be able to help, and what have you got to lose?’

‘Nothing I suppose.’ I’d already lost everything, so there’d be no harm in giving it a go. But shoving the card into my coat pocket, I had no real intention of ever visiting Dr Paula’s art class. Fate, it seemed, had other ideas.

4

‘My therapist says I’ve got to break the cycle.’ Madison was threading red and green ribbon around a huge wreath in the shop window as she spoke. It was after closing time, but there was still a long list of things Aunt Dottie wanted us to get through. ‘She said I’ll just spend my life going from one loser to the next, otherwise.’

‘Wow, how old are you again?’ I’d like to have given Madison’s therapist some advice of my own. She shouldn’t be fixating on men of any kind to sort her life out, she should be out enjoying herself. But then I was a fine one to talk about living life.

‘I was twenty last month and I can’t go on like this.’ Madison shook her head, as if she thought time really was running out for her and I had to suppress the urge to laugh. I might only be a decade or so older than her, but it could be a million years for the difference it made and the very last thing on my mind was focusing on finding a partner. Maybe it wasn’t the number of years that separated us, maybe it was the things that had happened.

I looked across at Betty, who rolled her eyes. ‘When I moved up here from Georgia, I didn’t know a soul until I met my first husband. And I was so grateful to him for providing for me. He spent half his life making sure I knew how lucky I was supposed to feel, too. I was so convinced that he was right, I put up with his womanising and drinking for years. Trust me, you don’t ever want to be reliant on a man, sugar. You gotta make your own way in the world.’ Betty had taken the words right out of my mouth, but, unlike me, she could speak from experience.

‘And is this what you want to do, Madison, work in a Christmas shop?’ Aunt Dottie would probably kill me if she could hear me. She’d already said that good staff like Madison were hard to find, but I couldn’t help wondering why a young girl like her didn’t want more out of life. I could see the appeal for Betty, and even for Madison if she ever actually got to run the place and do things her way. But I couldn’t see Dottie ever handing over the reins.

‘I’m gonna go to college eventually – I’d like to teach in an elementary school – but my mom raised me on her own, so there was never any college fund to rely on. I’m supposed to be saving up while I’m working, but there’s always something to pay for. Thank God my insurance covers the therapy, or I’d never get anything saved.’

‘I already told you what you should do, sugar; it worked for my grandson, Tyrell.’ Betty was back behind the counter, packaging up mail-order decorations for delivery. She was like a machine. I’d never seen anyone wrap brown paper parcels so fast. ‘He started at the community college and got half his degree. It saved him thousands of dollars.’

‘I know, Betty, and I’m gonna register next year, I promise.’ Madison didn’t look up from attaching baubles to the wreath. ‘But I’ve still gotta get my head straight when it comes to guys. My therapist reckons it’s all down to my dad coming in and out of my life so much when I was a kid, then disappearing altogether. She recommended I go to an art class at the Community Center on the corner of Tenth and Sixty-First. It’s on tonight, but I really don’t think it’s my kinda thing.’

My ears pricked up at this and I couldn’t help but flush as my mind went back to the conversation I’d had with Harry in Central Park. I couldn’t believe I’d said so much, and to a stranger, too. I’d have to wear a balaclava the next time I went to the park – I couldn’t face seeing him again. Ever. I hadn’t even been as honest with my grandparents as I’d been with Harry and I still had no idea why I’d done it. At first, I’d felt a bit better about finally getting it off my chest with someone who wasn’t paid to listen, or to tell me it hadn’t been my fault. Maybe I’d even believed it for a little while, because when I’d headed back through the park it had been like some of the weight had finally lifted off my shoulders. I’d even laughed, really laughed, for the first time in what felt like forever, when I’d walked past a police car that had looked so different from every depiction of a New York police car I’d ever seen on TV or in a movie. It was tiny, almost like a clown’s car. I couldn’t resist taking a snap of it and I was still laughing to myself when I got back to the apartment above the shop. But then I’d thought about how the one person I wanted to share the picture with was gone, and the lightness I’d felt as a result of opening up to Harry had disappeared instantly. I was back to square one and not sure I’d ever find a way to move forward.

‘And how are my three favourite shop girls today?’ Dannie charged through the door of Candy Cane Lane, ignoring the closed sign, with Rob following on right behind him. ‘You’re going to love us, we’ve got cheesecake!’

‘Sugar, you read my mind!’ Betty put down the tape gun, and lifted the corner of the box that Rob had put down on the counter, along with some paper plates and wooden forks. ‘Peanut butter and banana! I swear, if I wasn’t already married, Rob, I would make you an offer you could not refuse!’

‘I would find it very difficult, Betty. Although Dannie might have something to say about it.’ Rob cut her a large slice of cheesecake.

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Dannie grinned. ‘I’d be willing to swap him for your jerk chicken recipe, Betty. What do you think, have we got a deal?’

‘You know I’ve promised to leave you that in my will, Dannie.’ Betty smacked her lips as she put a forkful of cheesecake into her mouth. ‘Although, I might be willing to betray my Jamaican roots, and my husband, for a man who can make cheesecake this good.’

‘So, what’s the gossip?’ Dannie looked from Madison to me, and back again.

‘We were just talking about the advice my therapist gave me.’ Stepping out of the window display, Madison took a piece of cheesecake from Rob.

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