Page 154 of Pull Me Under

I’m frozen in the doorway, hand still raised, caught between entering and fleeing.

‘Sorry,’ I whisper. ‘I just wanted to see if you⁠—’

Movement from the bed.

Reuben’s eyes are open.

But he’s not looking at Jude. He’s looking at me. Through me. Past me. To someone else entirely.

‘Helen.’

The word hits me like a physical blow.

‘Helen?’ His voice is a whisper, cracked and searching. ‘Is that you? I knew you’d come back. I knew you would.’

‘Dad, that’s not—’ Jude starts, but Reuben’s eyes are glazed, unfocused, locked on the doorway like he’s seeing through twenty years of walls. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at a ghost.

I can’t move. Can’t breathe. He’s staring at me with tears streaming down his weathered face, and I know – I know – what’s about to happen.

No. No, no, no.

‘I’m sorry.’ The old man is pushing himself up. ‘I’m so sorry. I had to – I couldn’t let you take them. You and him. That Trelawney bastard.’

Jude turns to look at me. Confusion on his face. Expecting to see the same confusion mirrored back.

I can’t give him that.

‘I made you leave. I know. I know what I did.’ Reuben is sobbing now, twenty years of guilt pouring out of him in ragged, broken waves. ‘I told the boys you didn’t want them. You understand, don’t you? I couldn’t let you take everything. But it’s your fault, Helen, your fault. If you’d just stayed away from him, stayed happy with me.’

‘I’m not Helen,’ I stutter, pulse hammering.

‘The letters,’ Reuben chokes out. ‘I burned them. Every one. You wouldn’t stop writing but I burned them all. The boys never knew. They never knew that you still loved them, never knew that I made you leave.’

Tell him, the voice screams inside my head. Tell him now, before he sees your face, before he⁠—

Too late.

Jude’s face. Fuck, Jude’s face.

I watch it happen – the confusion shifting to shock, the shock to horror, the horror to worse. Understanding. The pieces clicking into place.

And then he looks at me.

Really looks.

I try to arrange my features into surprise. Confusion. Anything other than what I’m actually feeling, which is guilt and grief and the terrible knowledge that I’m watching everything fall apart.

I fail.

‘You knew.’ It’s not a question.

‘Jude—’

‘You knew.’ He’s on his feet, moving toward me, and his eyes – his eyes are the worst part. Not angry. Betrayed. ‘About my mother. About your father. About all of it.’ He pushes his fingers through his hair, not even noticing the knots he’s tearing at. ‘My mum and your dad?’ He’s so pale. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

‘Please, let me explain,’ I take a step towards him, but he backs away, ‘I swear I didn’t know. I found letters, Jude, letters between them.’ It’s all coming out wrong, this isn’t the right way to explain, but all these sounds are falling out of my mouth and making words that aren’t right.

‘How long?’ The words rip out of him. ‘How long have you known? Since you came back? Since before you and me?’