Page 181 of Pull Me Under

‘I gave up everything,’ Jude says. His voice breaks on everything, and I watch Kit register it – the weight of a word he’s never heard his brother use like this. ‘The future I’d been planning since I was fifteen. Because I thought I owed Dad something. Because I thought if I was good enough, loyal enough, if I just kept my head down and ran the business and never complained – maybe it would make up for you leaving.’

Kit opens his mouth. Closes it. His expression is stricken – not just at Helen’s revelation, but at Jude’s. I didn’t know you felt this way is written across his face in letters ten feet high.

‘Jude—’ Kit starts.

‘Not now.’ Jude’s voice is quiet but final. He turns back to Helen. ‘And it was all for nothing. Because you didn’t leave. You were forced out. And he let me spend twenty years feeling like I wasn’t enough.’

The silence that follows is immense.

Then Helen does something I don’t expect. She doesn’t defend herself. Doesn’t make excuses. She just walks towards Jude, slowly, carefully, like approaching a lion with a splinter in its paw.

‘You’re right,’ she says quietly. ‘I should have tried harder. I should have fought for you. I let fear make my decisions, and you paid the price.’ She stops in front of him. Close enough to touch, but not touching. ‘I can’t give you back those twenty years. I can’t undo what your dad did, or what I let happen. But I’m here now. And I’m not leaving again. Not ever.’

Jude stares at her.

I can see the war on his face. The anger and the grief and the desperate, childlike want underneath it all. The nine-year-old boy who woke up one morning and his mother was gone.

‘I don’t know how to do this,’ he says. ‘I don’t know how to just … forgive you.’

‘I’m not asking you to forgive me.’ Helen reaches up. Touches his face – tentative, trembling. ‘I’m asking you to let me try. Let me earn it back. However long it takes.’

Jude closes his eyes.

And then he’s in her arms.

Not the desperate, clinging embrace Kit gave her. Something quieter. More careful. Like he’s testing whether it’s safe to let himself need her again.

But he’s there. He’s letting her hold him.

And Helen – Helen looks like someone who’s been drowning for twenty years and finally, finally found air.

Lily appears in the doorway.

She’s been watching from inside – I saw her face at the window earlier, pale and uncertain. But now she’s stepping out, arms wrapped around herself, looking at Kit and Jude like they might not be real.

Kit sees her first.

‘Lily,’ Helen says, pulling back from Jude but keeping one hand on his arm. ‘Come here. Come meet your brothers.’

Brothers.

The word ripples through all of us.

Lily walks down the path. Stops a few feet away. She’s trying to look casual, but I can see her hands shaking.

‘So,’ she says. ‘You’re Kit and Jude.’

Kit almost laughs. ‘Yeah. We are.’

‘I’ve seen pictures. Mum has an album.’ Lily glances at Helen. ‘She used to look at it when she thought I was asleep.’

Then Maisie pushes forward, completely unbothered by the decades of trauma swirling around her.

‘Hi! I’m Maisie. Are you my aunt?’

Lily blinks. Looks down at this small, fierce creature with the gap-toothed smile.

‘I… Yeah. I suppose I am.’