Page 114 of The Edge of Always

‘Zadie’s my girlfriend now,’ Mae announces.

Mum lets out a sigh.

‘I always said it, didn’t I, Clive, that Mae would turn out to be a lesbian? And she’s so beautiful, too. What a waste.’

It would be neat to say that we had some sort of a heart-to-heart here, a great big family reconciliation where we said all the things that have been left unsaid for so long. But maybe that’s not real life and things don’t always get wrapped up neatly, because we don’t do that. There’s no collective clearing of the air. We just carry on. Because maybe it’s okay for our relationship to just be okay.

I don’t know who laughs first. I have a horrifying feeling that the giggle I hear might have come from Eyebrow Clive. But then Mae is laughing, I’m laughing so hard that I have to lie back down, and Emmett is smiling.

Finally, Mum is laughing; I don’t even know what we’re laughing about anymore. Probably the fact that life is so ridiculous, if you think about it. It’s often hard, and it’s often completely absurd until it isn’t, until it’s over. So maybe the trick to it all is to laugh as much as you can, as hard as you can, until you really can’t laugh anymore.

‘So this is it, you’re leaving then?’ I ask Emmett. We’re standing on the edge of the cliff, our cliff, though there’s no caravan park behind us, but the sea crashes into the rocks, and the wind… it’s just like it was twenty years ago.

I can’t think of another reason for Emmett to bring me here, back to the beginning of the end.

‘You know,’ he says, looking off in the distance, along the cliff, ‘this is what I think Earl painted, this scene. Behind the portrait of you, I mean.’

I nod. I’ve thought that too. ‘Except The Edge was the caravan park, not a cliff edge. I like that we’re maybe the only people who knew that.’

I hadn’t told my Deathers that, not in the blog I’d uploaded after I got out of the hospital a week ago. Mae and Emmett had taken turns watching over me at the cottage, but I’m better now, or relatively so, so it must be time for Emmett to leave again.

‘I think maybe it had a double meaning.’ He looks out at the sea. ‘You know, it seems daft that I hated it so much here. It’s really beautiful.’

It is, I’ve always thought so. It’s early morning and there’s a hint of autumn mist across the ground – the gradual winding down before winter.

‘You didn’t hate the place, just your situation.’

‘I was angry.’

‘You were super angry,’ I laugh. ‘But you had good reason to be. What you went through, Emmett, it wasn’t right. I knew that, but I didn’t acknowledge it. Not properly back then. I thought I could make you better, but it doesn’t work like that.’ He’s turned to face me, and the way my hair blows out behind me, it’s precisely what it was like all those years ago. I brace myself for what he’s about to say, sure that the pain of it will be etched onto my heart forever.

‘It wasn’t easy for either of us. We neither of us had enough love from the people who were meant to love us the most.’

I look out to sea. It still comes with a side of guilt, the thought that my childhood was lacking. After all, I was incredibly privileged in lots of ways. But two opposing things can both be true. I was privileged and deprived at the same time.

‘I never told you, did I?’ Emmett carries on. ‘What happened that night I left the cottage, after Earl died.’

I shake my head, waiting for him to talk.

‘I just sort of stumbled around at first. I was so confused, like I couldn’t believe what had happened. I didn’t want to go to The Edge and see Earl’s caravan, and I couldn’t come back to yours, so I went to the studio in the garage eventually. You know Earl walked home that night he died? I’ve no idea how he managed it. But he must have left the garage door unlocked. That was when I saw the painting.’

I’m crying again.

‘It was so beautiful. Even then, when I was so angry, and stupid with it, I recognised that it was a beautiful painting. There was a note with it too. For me.’

‘A note?’ This is new information. Emmett reaches into his pocket and pulls it out, gripping it hard against the wind.

‘Can I read it?’ I ask him.

He nods and hands it over.

Emmett, I am leaving you this painting – let it guide you home. You will do extraordinary things, Emmett, of this I am sure. No one, I suspect, will write about me. But if they do, I hope they say that you are my most outstanding achievement. When you are ready, go home, Emmett. My boy, I will see you in whatever awaits us on the other side. EJS.

I’m sobbing now, for everything we lost, and everything we could have had but didn’t.

‘He wanted you to come home,’ I say, eventually.

‘He did. But I don’t think that he meant to Northumberland.’