Page 96 of People In Love
Nora just looks at him, his hoop earring catching the light.
How do you know, though, she asks. That nothing helps? That talking to someone, maybe, won’t help?
I just know, he says. It won’t work.
I think you’re just afraid that it won’t, she says, and Bren says obviously, Nora! It completely terrifies me, that this is it, for me! That I’ll be running towards just wanting to feelbetter, all the time, and not crazy – I feel crazy, when I think for asinglesecond, so it’s better not to! It’s better to try and find some goddamn relief that isn’t a pill or a psychiatrist, for fuck’s sake! I chooseliving. I don’t want to waste my life here, I don’t want todiein a driveway, or cooped up in a cottage because I can’t go out –
You are not your mother, Nora cuts in, and Bren hits his forehead, repeatedly, with one fist. Hey, she says, and she gets off the swing, takes his hand in her left; lifts his chin with her right.
You told me that most people overthink things, she says. When it’s better to just jump.
That’s different, he says, and when she asks why, he says because that’s about something that is going to happen. But this has happened, already. It’s done.
But everything is always happening, Nora says. How youfeelis happening. How you want to be, in this life that you’re so desperate to live, Bren, that’s happening.
That’s just art school talk, he says, but he doesn’t pull away. Keeps his chin in her hand, regret, she thinks, in his eyes; an apology, even. Love. As real as his jaw in her palm, which she feels for him, too, and which no longer frightens her.
The past matters, she says, thinking back to Robin’s notebook. The things he’d paid attention to that she’d lost sight of, when things got hazy. And she’s going to go on to say that you can’t deal with the present – or the future – unless you let the past in, but Bren speaks first, says he knows she loved him too. His dad.
And at this, Nora takes her hands back. She’d not been thinking of Jon.
I know he was a … great dad, to you, she says, all the same. Looking up at the swallows on the telegraph wire. Three of them, preening, with their long-split tails.
But he wasn’t a hero, she goes on. He was just human. You don’t need him, Bren, for the world to keep turning. Andyou’rejust human, too. You couldn’t have done anything to help him.
You don’t know that, Bren says.
Well, either way, you can’t change it, Nora says, or how you feel about it. And you can’t just force it away, either. You can try and avoid it for another twelve years, if you want. But I’m not sure that ever works out.
Bren pushes the air out of his nose, like he still doesn’t agree.
You said you choose living, she says, and he looks away from her now, towards the farmers’ fields. But being afraid is a part of being alive, Bren.
She waits for him to say that she’s right. To stand and hug her,the way she’d hugged him, not half an hour ago, to be the person she knows is inside, the one she’s always defended and cared about in spite of his sporadic contact and questionable decisions.
Baby steps, she says. Talk to someone. Or just talk abouthim. Use his name.
I can’t, is all he says.
And Nora nods. All the windows and trapdoors of her flung wide open, letting something in, while something else rushes out.
_
Josie is waiting for her when she crunches up the driveway. Is he all right, she asks, shivering, the light lost now, blue shadows spread on the lawn. Her anorak is wrapped around her like a dressing gown, her face drawn with worry.
He’s … emotional, Nora says. He’s gone for a walk.
Josie nods, and Nora stands with her, not knowing what to say.Why spring it on him, like that. Surely you could see he’s not ready.But she doesn’t want to make Josie feel worse than she already does, so she pulls out her phone to text Robin, as a reflex, only to find – strange – three missed calls from his brother.
He’s going to leave again, isn’t he, Josie says, and Nora looks up at her. She’s staring at the green, at the swing set standing empty.
I think so, Nora nods. I’m sorry.
Don’t be, Josie says. I knew he would. Once you were married, or we’d … done what I’d planned.
You’d really planned it, all this time?
Well, yes. As soon as I realised how resistant he was, still. I thought it might help … dislodge some things, for him. For all of us.
