As Justin sprints from the tube station to his house, rain pours from the clouds like a cloth being squeezed. He doesn’t care—he just looks up at the sky and laughs, loving how it feels on his face, unable to believe that Joyce was the woman all along. He should have known. It all makes sense now, her reluctance to make dinner plans, her friend being at his talk, all of it!
He turns the corner and sees the bin, now filled to the brim with items. He jumps in and begins sorting through it.
From the window, Doris and Al stop packing their suitcases and watch him with concern.
“Dammit, I really thought he was getting back to normal,” Al says. “Should we stay?”
“I don’t know,” she replies worriedly. “What on earth is he doing? It’s ten o’clock at night—surely the neighbors will call the cops.”
They watch him whooping and hollering as he throws the contents of the bin onto the ground beside it, seemingly unaware that he’s soaked to the bone.
Chapter 42
I LIE IN BED STARING at the ceiling. Dad is still in the hospital undergoing tests, and will be home tomorrow. With nobody around, I’ve been able to process my life. I’ve worked my way through despair, guilt, sadness, anger, loneliness, depression, and cynicism, and have finally found my way to hope. Like an addict going cold turkey, I have paced the floors of these rooms with every emotion bursting from my skin. I have spoken aloud to myself, screamed, shouted, wept, and mourned.
It’s eleven p.m.—dark, windy, and cold outside as the winter months are fighting their way through—when the phone rings. Thinking it’s Dad, I hurry downstairs, grab the phone, and sit on the bottom stair.
“Hello?”
“It was you all along.”
I freeze. My heart thuds. I take a deep breath.
“Justin?”
“It was you all along, wasn’t it?”
I’m silent.
“I saw the photograph of you and your father with Bea. That’s the night she told you about my donation. About wanting all those thank-yous.” He sneezes.
“Bless you.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to me? All those times I saw you? Did you follow me or…or what’s going on, Joyce?”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No! I mean, I don’t know. I don’t understand. I’m so confused.”
“Let me explain.” I take another deep breath and try to steady my voice. “I didn’t follow you to any of the places we met, so please don’t be concerned. I’m not a stalker. Something happened, Justin. Something happened when I received my transfusion, and whatever that was, when your blood was transfused into mine, I suddenly felt connected to you. I kept turning up at places where you were, like the hair salon, the ballet. It was all a coincidence.” I’m speaking too fast now, but I can’t slow down. “And then Bea told me you’d donated blood around the same time that I’d received it, and…”
“You mean, you know for sure it’s my blood that you received? Because I couldn’t find out, nobody would tell me. Did somebody tell you?”
“No. Nobody told me. They didn’t need to. I—”
“Joyce.” He stops me, and I’m immediately worried by his tone.
“I’m not some weird person, Justin. Trust me. I have never experienced this before.” I tell him the story. Of experiencing his skills, his knowledge, his tastes.
He is quiet.
“Say something, Justin.”
“I don’t know what to say. It sounds…odd.”
“It is odd, but it’s the truth. This will sound even odder, but I feel like I’ve gained some of your memories too.”
“Really?” His voice is cold, far away. I’m losing him.
“Memories of the park in Chicago, Bea dancing in her tutu on the red-checked cloth, the picnic basket, the bottle of red wine. The cathedral bells, the ice-cream parlor, the seesaw with Al, the sprinklers, the—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop now. Who are you? Who’s told you these things?”
“Nobody. I just know them!” I rub my eyes tiredly. “I know it sounds bizarre, Justin, I really do. I am a normal decent human being who is as cynical as they come, but this is my life, and these are the things that are happening to me. If you don’t believe me, then I’ll hang up and go back to my life, but please know that this is not a joke or a hoax or any kind of setup.”
He is quiet for a while. And then, “I want to believe you.”
“You feel something between us?”
“I do.” He speaks very slowly, as though pondering every letter of every word. “The memories, tastes, and hobbies and whatever else of mine that you mentioned are things that you could have seen me do or heard me say. I’m not saying you’re doing this on purpose—maybe you don’t even know it, maybe you’ve read my books; I mention many personal things in my books. You saw the photo in Bea’s locket, you’ve been to my talks, you’ve read my articles. I may have revealed things about myself in them, in fact I know I have.” He pauses. “How can I know that you knowing these things is through a transfusion? How do I know that—no offense—but that you’re not some lunatic young woman who’s convinced herself of some crazy story she read in a book or saw in a movie? How am I supposed to know?”
My heart sinks. I have no way of convincing him. “Justin, I don’t believe in anything right now, but I believe in this.”
“I’m sorry, Joyce,” he says, sounding as if he’s ending the conversation.
“No, wait,” I stop him. “Is this it?”
Silence.
“Aren’t you going to even try to believe me?”
He sighs deeply. “I thought you were somebody else, Joyce. I don’t know why, because I’d never even met you, but I thought you were a different kind of person. This…this I don’t understand. This, I find…it’s just not right, Joyce.”
Each sentence is a stab through my heart and a punch to my stomach. I could stand hearing this from anyone else in the world, but not him. Anyone but him.
“You’ve been through a lot, by the sound of it. Perhaps you should talk to someone. In any case, good-bye, Joyce. I hope everything works out for you, really I do.”
“Hold on! Wait! There is one thing. One thing that only you could know.”
He pauses. “What?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and take a deep breath. Do it or don’t do it. Do it or don’t. I open my eyes and blurt it out, “Your father.”
There’s silence.
“Justin?”
“What about him?” His voice is ice cold.
“I know what you saw,” I say softly. “How you could never tell anyone.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I know about you being on the stairs, seeing him through the banisters. I see him too. I see him with the bottle and the pills, closing the door. I see the green feet on the floor—”
“Stop!” he yells, and I’m shocked to silence. But I must keep trying, or I’ll never have the opportunity to say these words again.
“I know how hard it must have been for you as a child. How hard it was to keep it to yourself—”
“You know nothing,” he says coldly. “Absolutely nothing.
Please stay away from me. I don’t ever wish to hear from you again.”
“Okay.” My voice is a whisper, but he has already hung up.
I sit on the steps of the dark empty house and listen as the cold October wind rattles through.
So that’s that.
PART THREE
One Month Later
Chapter 43
NEXT TIME WE SHOULD TAKE the car, Gracie,” Dad says as we make our way down the road back from our walk in the Botanics. I link his arm, and I’m lifted up and down with him as he sways. Up and down, down and up. The motion is soothing.
“No, you need the exercise, Dad.”
“Speak for yourself,” he mutters. “Howya, Sean? Miserable day, isn’t it?” he calls across the street to an old man on a walker.
&n
bsp; “Terrible,” Sean shouts back.
“So what did you think of the apartment, Dad?” I broach the subject for the third time in the last few minutes. “You can’t dodge this conversation.”
“I’m dodging nothing, love. Howya, Patsy? Howya, Suki?” He stops and bends down to pat a sausage dog walking by with its owner. “Aren’t you a cute little thing,” he says, and we continue on. “I hate that little runt. Barks all bloody night when she’s away,” he mutters, pushing his cap down farther over his eyes as a great big gust blows. “Christ Almighty, are we gettin’ anywhere at all? I feel like we’re on one of those milltreads with this wind.”
“Treadmills.” I laugh. “So come on, do you like the apartment or not?”
“I’m not sure. It seemed awful small, and there was a funny man that went into the flat next door. Don’t think I liked the look of him.”
“He seemed very friendly to me.”
“Ah, he would to you.” He shakes his head. “Any man would do for you now, I’d say.”
“Dad!” I laugh.
“Good afternoon, Graham. Miserable day, isn’t it?” he says to another neighbor passing.
“Awful day, Henry,” Graham responds, shoving his hands in his pockets.
“Anyway, I don’t think you should take that apartment, Gracie. Hang on with me a little longer until something more appropriate pops up. There’s no point in taking the first thing you see.”
“Dad, we’ve seen ten apartments, and you don’t like any of them.”
“Is it for me to live in or for you?” he asks. Up and down. Down and up.
“For me.”
“Well, then, what do you care?”
“I value your opinion.”
“You do in your—Hello there, Kathleen!”
“You can’t keep me at home forever, you know.”
“Forever’s been and gone, my love. There’s no budging you. You’re the Stonehenge of grown-up children living at home.”
“Can I go to the Monday Club tonight?”
“Again?”
“I have to finish off my chess game with Larry.”
“Larry just keeps positioning his pawns so that you’ll lean over and he can see down your top. That game will never end,” Dad jokes.
“Dad!”
“What? Anyway, you need to get more of a social life than hanging around with the likes of Larry and me.”
“I like hanging around with you.”
He smiles to himself, pleased to hear that.
We turn into Dad’s house and sway up the small garden path to the front door.
The sight of what’s on the doorstep stops me in my tracks.
A small basket of muffins covered in plastic wrap and tied with a pink bow. I look at Dad, who steps right over them and unlocks the front door. His obliviousness makes me question my eyesight. Have I imagined them?
“Dad! What are you doing?” Shocked, I look behind me, but nobody’s there.
Dad turns and winks at me, looks sad for a moment, then gives me a great big smile before closing the door in my face.
I reach for the envelope that is taped to the plastic and with trembling fingers slide the card out.
Thank you…
“I’m sorry, Joyce.” I hear a voice behind me that almost stops my heart, and I twirl round.
There he is, standing at the gate, a bouquet of flowers in his gloved hands, the sorriest look on his face. He is wrapped up in a scarf and a winter coat, the tip of his nose and cheeks red from the cold, his green eyes twinkling in the gray day. He is a vision; he takes my breath away with one look, his proximity to me almost too much to bear.
“Justin…” Then I’m utterly speechless.
“Do you think”—he takes a couple steps forward—“you could find it in your heart to forgive a fool like me?” He stands at the end of the garden now.
I’m unsure what to say. It’s been a month. Why now?
“On the phone, you hit a sore point,” he says, clearing his throat. “Nobody knows that part about my dad. Or knew that. I don’t know how you do.”
“I told you how.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“Neither do I.”
“But then I don’t understand most ordinary things that happen every day. I don’t understand what my daughter sees in her boyfriend. I don’t understand how my brother has defied the laws of science by not turning into an actual potato chip. I don’t know how Doris can open the milk carton with such long nails. I don’t understand why I didn’t beat down your door a month ago and tell you how I felt…I don’t understand so many simple things, so I don’t know why this should be any different.”
I take in the sight of his face, his small nervous smile, his curly hair covered by a woolly hat. He studies me too, and I shiver, but not from the cold. I don’t feel it now.
Frown lines suddenly appear on his forehead as he looks at me. “What?”
“Nothing. You just remind me so much of somebody right now. It’s not important.” He clears his throat and smiles, trying to pick up where he left off.
“Eloise Parker,” I guess, and his grin fades.
“How the hell do you know that?”
“She was your next-door neighbor who you had a crush on for years. When you were five years old, you decided to do something about it, and so you picked flowers from your front yard and brought them to her house. She opened the door before you got up the path and stepped outside wearing a blue coat and a black scarf,” I say, pulling my blue coat around me tighter.
“Then what?” he asks, shocked.
“Then nothing.” I shrug. “You dropped them on the ground and chickened out.”
He shakes his head softly. “How on earth…?”
I shrug.
“What else do you know about Eloise Parker?” He narrows his eyes.
I giggle and look away. “You lost your virginity to her when you were sixteen, in her bedroom when her mom and dad were away on a cruise.”
He lowers the bouquet so that it faces the ground. “Now, you see, that is not fair. You are not allowed to know stuff like that about me.”
I laugh.
“You were christened Joyce Bridget Conway, but you tell everyone your middle name is Angeline,” he retaliates.
My mouth falls open.
“You had a dog called Bunny when you were a kid.” He lifts an eyebrow cockily. “You got drunk on poteen when you were”—he closes his eyes and thinks hard—“fifteen. With your friends Kate and Frankie.”
He takes a step closer with each piece of knowledge.
“Your first French kiss was with Jason Hardy when you were ten, who everyone used to call Jason Hard-On.”
I laugh.
“You’re not the only one who’s allowed to know stuff.” He takes a final step closer and can’t move any nearer now. His shoes, the fabric of his thick coat, every part of him, is on the verge of touching me.
My heart takes out a trampoline and enrolls in a marathon session of leaping. I hope Justin doesn’t hear it whooping with joy.
“Who told you all of that?” My words touch his face in a breath of cold smoke.
“Getting me here was a big operation.” He smiles. “Big. Your friends had me run through a series of tests to prove I was sorry enough to be deemed worthy of coming here.”
I laugh, shocked that Frankie and Kate could finally agree on something, never mind keeping anything of this magnitude a secret.
Silence now. We are so close, if I look up at him my nose will touch his chin. I keep looking down.
“You’re still afraid to sleep in the dark,” he whispers, taking my chin in his hand and lifting it so that I can look nowhere else but at him. “Unless somebody’s with you,” he adds with a small smile.
“You cheated on your first college paper,” I whisper.
“You used to hate art.” He kisses my forehead.
“You lie when you say you’re a fan of the Mona Lisa.” I close my e
yes.
“You had an invisible friend named Horatio until you were five.” He kisses my nose, and I’m about to retaliate, but his lips touch mine so softly the words give up, sliding back to the memory bank where they came from.
I am faintly aware of Fran exiting her house next door and saying hello, of a car driving by with a beep, but everything is blurred in the distance as I get lost in this moment with Justin, in this new memory for him and me.
“Forgive me?” he says as he pulls away.
“I have no choice but to. It’s in my blood.” We laugh. I look down at the flowers in his hands, which have been crushed between us. “Are you going to drop these on the ground too and chicken out?”
“Actually, they’re not for you.” His cheeks redden even more. “They’re for somebody at the blood clinic who I really need to apologize to. I was hoping you would come with me, help explain the reason for my crazy behavior, and maybe she could explain a few things to us in turn.”
I look back to the house and see Dad spying at us from behind the curtain. He gives me the thumbs-up, and my eyes fill.
“Was he in on this too?”
“He called me a worthless silly sod and an up-to-no-good fool.” Justin makes a face. “So, yes.”
I blow Dad a kiss. I feel him watching me, and feel Mum’s eyes on me too, as I walk down the garden path, cut across the grass, and follow the desire line I had created as a little girl, out onto the pavement that leads away from the house I grew up in.
Though this time, I’m not alone.
Acknowledgments
THANKS TO MY PRECIOUS PEOPLE for their love, guidance, and support; David, Mimmie, Dad, Georgina, Nicky, Rocco, Jay, Breda, and Neil. To Marianne for her Midas touch and for her “clatter” of vision. Thanks to Lynne Drew, Amanda Ridout, Claire Bord, Moira Reilly, Tony Purdue, Fiona McIntosh, and the whole team at HarperCollins. Huge thanks as always to Vicki Satlow with the incredible HV, and Pat Lynch. I’d like to thank all my friends for supporting and sharing the adventure with me. Special thanks to Sarah for being the godliest of all godlies. Thanks to Mark Monahan at Trinity College, Karen Breen at the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, and Bernice at Viking Splash Tours.