I lie awake for a long time, going over every moment of our time together again and again. Frederic assuring me there was nothing more to tell me. Frederic’s eyes looking unreadable and guarded. Frederic obsessively playing the piano, unable to relax. God, all the signs were there that he was keeping something from me but I was too naïve to spot them.
Eventually, exhaustion overcomes me and I slip into sleep.
I wake at six a.m. as the room starts to become light and immediately reach for my phone, even as I curse myself for my neediness. To my amazement there’s an email from Frederic, sent just after five.
Evie, sweetheart.
I can only imagine how confused you’re feeling right now. I meant to tell you the truth but I ran out of time. I’m sorry for how things turned out. I never meant for it to be this way.
F
Tears gather in my eyes. That’s it? A few scant lines is all I get, a vague, untruthful I meant to tell you? This is worse than silence. At least before I could imagine that he was ashamed of what he’s done, but this cold, blasé message seems like the sort of thing he’d type out while waiting for a cab to take him to the Eurostar. Even the endearment at the top of the message, which I’d read at first in his gentlest voice, sours and becomes something cheap. Hey, sweetheart. Catch you ‘round, sweetheart. He’s never called me sweetheart in his life.
I stifle a sob and the sound makes Mona lift her head. Her voice is slurred with sleep. “Wass wrong?”
I fended off my sisters' questions last night and they’ve respected my wishes so far, though I felt their burning curiosity. I swipe at my tears and fling the blankets back. Whispering so as not to wake Therese, who’s snoring softly in the next bed, I say, “I’m going back to Oxford. I’ll get an early train or something, I can’t be here right now.”
Mona struggles out from beneath twisted sheets. “Wait a sec. You can’t go by yourself. Let me see if the others are awake.” She picks up her phone and texts someone, Mum or Dad presumably. Her phone buzzes a moment later. “They’re awake. We’ll all go, all right?”
I don’t look up from the clothes I’m stuffing into my overnight bag. I wanted to go alone, my misery and silence unquestioned, unseen. But I suppose there is some comfort in us all going together and my packing slows. “All right.”
Mona picks up one of her platform heels from beside the bed and throws it against the skirting board next to Therese, who awakens with a start. “Oh good, you’re up. We’re all heading back to Oxford now. Would you like first shower?”
It’s seven thirty before the whole family is washed, dressed and down in the lobby. Mum puts an arm around me while Dad checks us out of the rooms. “Have you heard from Frederic?”
I nod and show her the email, not caring that she sees the sweetheart. Everyone knows by now that it wasn’t the book bringing me up to London every week. Her mouth tightens, and I can see she feels the inadequacy of his words almost as much as I do.
Paddington Station is painful to behold, as is the dark green Great Western train that will bear us all home. I’ve become accustomed to associating this place with sweet reunions with Frederic—him lifting me up in his arms as I come through the barriers, his searing kisses goodbye, just one more. All right, I’ll let you go—but first, just one more.
Lisbet slips her hand into mine as we walk along the platform, her face pale and serious, and I manage to give her a small smile though it’s twisted with the emotions I’m holding back.
“Did you and Frederic have a fight?” she asks.
The breath I inhale shudders with unshed tears. “Something like that, Betty-bun.” How to explain to her the humiliation I feel? She’s not a child any longer but she won’t understand the terse cruelty with which Frederic has ended things between us. Is he heading back to Paris today? Is he packing even now? He never even asked to see me. That email is going to be the last word I ever hear from him. A tight, bereft sound escapes my throat.
Mona flashes me a look, and says to our little sister, “That’s enough questions, Bitty-betty. Evie doesn’t want to talk about it.”
Revulsion impales me through my chest. All these stupid nicknames we give Lisbet, like she’s four, not fourteen. Betty-bun, Bitty-betty. We’re making her into the child we want her to be, not the grown-up she’s fast becoming. It’s disgusting. It’s what Frederic did to me. He made me small and stupid so I wouldn’t pick up on the things he was hiding from me. I thought it was because he liked the comfort and happiness it gave me, but that just made it convenient for him. He was the one who told me to be small and cling to him. He was the one who—and I shudder in disgust—gave me the pacifier. Even now it’s buried deep in my holdall, ready if I find a secret moment to put it in my mouth. The symbolism of the object suddenly strikes me: he wasn’t comforting me, he was shutting me up.
We find a free six-seater on the train and I collapse next to the window and rest my forehead on the glass. Now I know how Jane Eyre must have felt when confronted by Bertha Rochester on her wedding day. She’d wandered alone on the moors, her heart breaking. It’s the lies that hurt the most. More than the loss of him, I say to her. Down the passage of years and pages she nods sadly.
Despite my misery and anger I wonder where Frederic is and what he’s doing. How he’s coping with the loss of his voice.
My god, his voice. It was everything to him. Despite my own pain I can feel his, and I know he must be in hell right now. He’ll feel terrible for ruining the show.
But then I remember his perfunctory email and my heart hardens against him. He wanted to bear his loss alone, so let him. I won’t shed any tears for Frederic d’Estang’s career, not after what he’s done to me, making me into a dumb, unquestio
ning baby so that he wouldn’t have to face the things he was afraid of. I’m still that baby now, vulnerable and needy, and everything hurts twice as much in this little place. I trusted him to be careful with me when he put me beyond my limits, but I’ve been struck a killing blow. And I wonder, bleeding to death, why I thought it was safe to let my guard down.
Chapter Nineteen
Evie
“Evie, please. Won’t you tell us what happened? We’re worried about you.”
I look up at my sisters sitting on either side of my bed, dressed in day clothes. Therese has makeup on so I suppose she’s come from university or her internship at the law firm. Glancing at my window I see from the light that it’s early evening, but I’m still in my pajamas. My sticky, crumpled, third-day pajamas.
It’s been nearly two weeks since the opening night of Jane Eyre. I never replied to Frederic’s email and he didn’t contact me again. Don’t I deserve at least the satisfaction of ignoring his texts and emails as he makes a desperate bid to explain? I imagine myself finally replying after the twentieth email and the fiftieth text, being sharp and angry with him, telling him I can never forgive him.