Page 24 of Her Last Breath

‘You don’t know how good it is to see you,’ Melody said, setting the tray down on the large coffee table in front of her.

‘Sorry I haven’t been to see you before, Aunty. I was up on the weekends to look after Mum, so I didn’t have time. I only shifted back properly two weeks ago.’

‘I can’t believe how much you’ve grown – a real looker, even if I am biased.’ Jane felt herself blush. ‘Reminds me of your father, thank goodness.’

‘Now, now, Aunty,’ Jane said, laughing at this jab at her mother.

The two sisters did not get on; in fact they hadn’t spoken for years, after falling out at Ed’s funeral. Jane suspected Melody had made some ill-judged comments about her brother’s suicide. Some things were unforgivable in her mother’s eyes. Despite the antagonism with Maeve, Jane had stayed in touch with Melody through occasional secret visits, cards at Christmas and birthdays, and the odd phone call once she had moved down south.

Jane properly examined her aunt, who was settled on the sofa next to her. Very different in style to her mother, time had definitely worked its hand on her. Gone was the glamorous woman with a Dynasty hangover from her childhood. Her aunt and uncle had seemed so sophisticated to Jane, with their glass-panelled conservatory, annual holidays abroad, shopping trips into Manchester every Christmas, staycations in the Pennines, and theatre trips to London. Experiences Jane had fleetingly as a child. Usually from this house.

She remembered the decorations, Santa’s grotto, the hot chocolate treats in Manchester City Centre. The long weekend staying in a rented cottage in the Lake District. And London – it was the first time she had gone – to watch a musical production of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It felt like such a rush, overwhelming, like another world. Full of people and the perfect place for her to run to when she was older.

The woman in front of her, despite the clownish make-up, looked haggard, worn down. She felt sad for her aunt, living alone in this big house. Her husband, Phil, had left to start a new life with someone else. Unsure of the details, Jane recalled a rather sobering call with her aunt in which she skirted over the separation. Instead, she thought of her own father leaving, then moving to New Zealand with his new wife, when Jane was a teenager.

Jane didn’t blame him. Her mother had made his life hell too, after Ed died.

‘You really are like your father. Same dark hair, blue eyes. He would have been so proud of you.’

Jane tried to keep her emotions in check. She hadn’t spoken about him in years.

‘Did you see him?’ Melody asked curiously. ‘After he moved to New Zealand?’

‘No.’

‘I’m sorry for you.’

‘We were planning a big trip,’ Jane continued, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I was going to spend my summer holidays there. Only he died before I got the chance.’

The car accident had been a terrible shock to everyone. One moment, she had a dad, and then in the blink of an eye, she didn’t.

‘Poor child. To be so abandoned like that.’

‘He left me money in his will,’ Jane said defensively. She dialled it back. ‘I mean, I got to go to university because of him, because of what he gave me.’

‘The men might leave, but that doesn’t mean we stop loving them. Even now the idea of being with another man would feel like betraying Phil. I’d take him back in a heartbeat.’

Melody sipped at her drink, Jane suspecting there was more than just lemonade in her glass.

‘I wish your Stuart hadn’t left you like that,’ Melody added wistfully.

Jane felt a jolt at the mention of her father’s name, tears suddenly filling her eyes. It felt like an age since anybody had called him that. Her mother refused to speak about him.

‘Your life might have been different if he had stayed. Although I suppose Ed’s suicide was too much for all of you …’

Jane wiped tears from her face, her pain escaping her.

Melody leant forward, holding Jane, letting her cry in her arms.

Jane felt as though she had been holding back her grief for three decades and finally was getting the release she so needed, because Melody was there to put her back together. She sobbed bitterly, crying for the little girl who had lost her brother, her father, her whole world. She didn’t deserve that and it wasn’t fair that no one had stepped in to save her.

Chapter 14

Conflicting emotions pulsed through her, as Jane stared into the darkness. The backyard was visible through the kitchen window, the microwave whirring in the background, warming the lasagne Melody had cooked for her. She felt utterly spent. The memories that Alice’s death had opened were heightened by visiting her aunt and she felt as though the rusted wreckage of her past had been dumped on her chest, constantly squeezing, making her feel a thrum of anxiety that wouldn’t go away.

Jane remembered the aftermath of Ed’s death. Pleading with her mother and father to believe her, insisting again and again that Ed had gone into the water first. Alone, and scared, crushed by the loss of her brother, she was further isolated by being cast as the one responsible for his death. She remembered the nights she had cried herself to sleep, praying that someone would believe her, recognise that what she was saying was true. That someone would recognise her pain and just hold her. But no one had wanted to go there. Even her father had taken the easy route, accepting the story her mother foisted on them.

One day Maeve had slapped Jane over and over, told her that if she ever repeated the lie about Ed going into the water first, she would send her off to an orphanage. She never spoke of it again.