Page 78 of Her Last Breath

‘The meat was burning, smoke coming from the oven. I was a mess, my hair stuck to my face with sweat, the vegetable pans bubbling away. He just came up behind me and said he didn’t want to stay for dinner. I didn’t have the patience and I snapped at him, told him it wasn’t up for discussion. Sunday was sacred. As long as he was alive and I was alive, he had no choice.’

Jane didn’t remember a single incident when her mother might have raised her voice to her brother. She gripped Maeve’s hand, willing her to go on. Her head was already pounding from the images swirling in it.

‘He said he was going out, to a friend’s house. He didn’t want to have dinner with Melody and … him.’

Nothing but Maeve’s raspy, difficult breathing filled the gaps between them. Jane’s own breath caught in her throat.

‘I told him that he had to, they were his aunt and uncle, and he’d never had a problem before. What was wrong with him? He insisted, was being difficult. He was screaming in my face, then he shoved the tray from my hands, the burnt lamb falling to the floor. God forgive me, I couldn’t control myself – I lashed out and slapped him.’

Turning her face away, Jane didn’t want to witness the regret and guilt on her mother’s face.

‘I don’t think I ever raised my hand to him before that day,’ Maeve said.

‘I wish I could say the same.’

‘Yes, well you came with your own demons.’

She pulled Jane’s hand until it sat over her heart. Jane could only hear her own heartbeat pounding in her head, her body reacting to the affection she had craved for so long, now being given to her so freely.

‘What did he do?’

‘He was shocked at first, stood staring at me, as though he was in disbelief. I was dealing with the meat, brushing off invisible dirt, trying to salvage my dinner. I kept glancing at him and he just stood there. That made me more angry so I started shouting at him again, told him to grow up and behave himself.’

Her mother began a coughing fit Jane gave her water, helping her sip through a straw.

‘Then what happened?’

‘He swept everything from the table onto the floor, smashed a plate. I told him he was possessed, that he needed to be taught a lesson. Just wait till your dad gets home, he was going to get the beating of his life. And he would sit with his aunt and uncle, eat his dinner and enjoy it. He said he wished they were dead, that they were evil. I told him he was insane. He said they hurt him, they touched him. I told him he was a lying, foul creature for making such things up. We argued, then he ran into the bathroom and vomited.’

Jane tried to remember what Sunday this was. How could mother and son have disguised such a big row from her?

‘You were out with your father, picking up dessert,’ her mother explained.

‘You didn’t believe him?’

‘No. I didn’t even think about what he had said. He might as well have said they were from Mars or ate cats for dinner. I thought he was reacting to my slapping him, trying to get a rise, having a teenage tantrum. That he wanted to assert himself by stopping them from coming over, and when that failed, said those horrible things. I thought he was just …’

‘Lying?’

She nodded. Jane pictured Ed. Troubled and traumatised, finally gathering enough courage to tell his mother what had been happening to him. Only to be told that he was making it up, he was the evil one.

‘How could I believe that of my sister and her husband? I grew up with her, knew her better than anyone.’

Would Jane have believed it if anybody had said the same about Ed? She would have made a thousand excuses for him before she did.

‘He had been behaving so badly. The accusations in his school reports, the fights, the suspension. I put it all together as him going through a change, turning into a teenager. This just proved to me what his teachers were telling me. I didn’t know what to do, felt alone in having to do something. Your father was no help.’

Jane felt the sting, as though someone had physically winded her. The last vestiges of her past were slowly being pulled apart, brick by brick. Her heroes exposed, her villain asking for empathy. She felt lightheaded, the heat of the room, the lack of food and too much caffeine short-circuiting her nervous system.

‘I didn’t think anything about it. Until …’ Her mother’s tears broke now. ‘I was thinking through everything, trying to understand why he would do this to himself. What was he going through that would mean he thought that to do that was the only option? Looking for those tiny windows when I could have done something, helped him? And that came back to me, that fight, what he had said. Six weeks before he died. And I knew then, that’s what it was.’

Jane let her cry, the sobs loud, echoing off the hard brick walls.

‘I felt like it was my hands that had held him under the water, watching as his lungs filled, the life draining away from him.’

Jane shuddered despite the heat of the room, as though she was at the side of the lake again. Her mother turned her eyes to her, full of tears.

‘I couldn’t protect him, Jane. And I couldn’t have him condemned. I didn’t want to believe that he took his own life, I couldn’t. The only peace I would ever get was to do what I did. Say he was a hero, that he tried to rescue his baby sister. I couldn’t let my son be denied heaven, couldn’t say he killed himself.’