Someone Else's Life (19 page)

Holly

“It’s gonna be okay,” Megan says for the millionth time, pouring Ben a glass of milk while I cook pancakes, the butter swirling in the pan making my stomach turn.

“Remember, she’s the outsider here.” Megan squeezes my shoulders. “You and your dad—you’re a rock, you’re solid. Okay?”

A rock
. I swallow. The only rock I’m sure of is the one lodged in my gut, growing every minute they’re alone together.

Suddenly, footsteps pound up the steps outside and I freeze.

“Holly!” Dad cries, rushing through the back door and grabbing me in a hug that lifts me off my feet. “Holly-berry, thank God!”

I can’t breathe, he’s squeezing me so tight.

“I’m sorry I left, Dad—”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m just so glad you’re home!”

I close my eyes, the rock inside me beginning to crumble as his familiar salty smell washes over me.

Home
.

“I’ll just go and shower,” Rosie says, squeezing past. I flinch at her touch, her voice.

“Don’t you want some brekkie first?” Dad asks. “Holly makes the best pancakes.” He grins at me.

“Yummy pancakes!” Ben agrees, his mouth full, and I smile tightly.

Say no, say no
, I pray into the soft folds of Dad’s jacket, clinging on tighter, holding my breath.
Let it just be us
.

“Thanks, but I’m not really that hun—” Her stomach growls loudly and Dad laughs, sending vibrations trembling through me.

“I think your stomach disagrees.” He grins. “Come on, pull up a chair. It’s been a long morning.”

My heart sinks as he slips out of my grasp, leaving me cold suddenly, standing by the stove.

He pulls out a chair for Rosie and smiles at me. “You coming, Holls?”

I hesitate, unwilling to join them, reluctant to leave them alone.

“Wow!” Rosie says suddenly, taking a bite. “These are amazing!” She grins at me.

I look at her. Megan’s right. Remember how Rosie must be feeling—her mother slammed the door in her face, and she’s in a new place, a new country, meeting a new father …

My
father! I slump into a chair and stab a pancake.

“Does your dad never cook you pancakes, Rosie?” I ask innocently. “Dad used to make them for breakfast for me every day when I was little.” I slice a piece off and pop it in my mouth. “Did yours?”

Megan shoots me a look, but I don’t care. I chew without tasting, waiting.

“Actually, no,” Rosie says quietly. “No, my dad died the night I was born.”

“Oh.” I swallow, the pancake heavy as guilt in my stomach. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

She smiles. “It’s okay. I never knew him, and me and Mum did just fine on our own—though she wasn’t much of a cook! She only made pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.”

“Shrove what?” I ask.

“Shrove Tuesday, honey,” Dad replies. “It’s the day before Lent—pancake day.”

“Oh.” I frown. Some stupid British custom.

“Mum tried and tried to make pancakes, but they always stuck to the pan—or the ceiling!” Rosie laughs. “So in the end we had ice cream instead. Ice Cream Tuesday, we called it, courtesy of Saint Ben and Saint Jerry.”

Dad laughs out loud, his mouth full.

“Now, that’s my kind of saint’s day,” Megan chuckles, Ben giggling as she wipes syrup from his chin.

I hack off another piece of pancake.

“She did make mean eggy-bread, though,” Rosie continues.

I frown. “What’s eggy-bread?”

She looks surprised. “Oh, it’s—it’s like um …”

“It’s a bit like French toast, only savory.” Dad smiles. “It’s delicious.”

“Oh,” I say, my pancake suddenly seeming very ordinary. Again with the Britishness!

“Maybe I could cook it for you sometime?” Rosie offers.

Sometime?
Sometime?
How long is she planning on staying?

I take another bite, tasting nothing.

“So, how was the fish market, honey?” Megan asks, sipping her tea.

“Oh, fine, fine,” Dad says. “I showed Rosie all the different kinds of fish, but I don’t think she appreciated them—her nose got the better of her!”

“The stench!” she laughs. “I don’t know how you can bear it!”

“You get used to it.” Megan smiles.

“Actually, I kinda like it,” I mumble.

“I was thinking.” Dad takes another pancake. “Maybe we should take the boat out this morning—see if we can catch anything ourselves?”

I glance at Megan. “What about the restaurant?”

“Oh, I’m sure Pete can cope for one day—he’s always on about wanting more responsibility.” Dad smiles.

I spear another pancake. Great. Dad
never
takes days off work. But now he makes an exception for a day alone with Rosie—how cozy. It’s so unfair. How come she gets to go traveling, to spend the day sailing with Dad—to do whatever the hell she wants—while I have to go to school—when we’re exactly the same age?

“And I think the school will cope without you for a day—just this once.” Dad winks at me. “What d’you reckon, Holly-berry? You up for it?”

I look up, surprised, then hesitate, imagining sitting in a boat with Rosie and Dad all day. I think I’d actually prefer to be at school.

“I’m not sure …,” I begin, reaching for the maple syrup. “I’ve got a swim meet this afternoon, and—”

“Come on, Holly, you love sailing. I can’t go out on my own—I’d be a right Billy-no-mates.”

I look up.
On his own?
“But I thought—” I glance at Rosie.

“Megan and Ben have got a playdate, and Rosie here has got plans with her—her young man. Isn’t that right?”

Rosie nods, smiling as she chews.

“So, what do you say?” Dad grins at me. “Just the two of us? Unless you’re ashamed to be seen out with your old dad?”

I smile at him, the mug of tea toasty in my hands. “Okay.”

“That’s my girl.” Dad winks.

I glance at Rosie, who looks quickly at her plate.

Okay, I think, so maybe I should give her a chance. I take a sip of my tea.

“So, tell me about your mom, Rosie,” I venture, the tea warm and sweet as it slides down my throat. “Besides that she’s not the world’s greatest cook.”

She smiles. “World’s most dangerous cook, more like. I’ve lost count of the number of explosions that came from our kitchen. Once we even had to call the fire brigade!” She laughs. “She was trying to cook potatoes in her new pressure cooker—and it just exploded! We were scraping mashed potato off the ceiling for weeks!” She grins. “But she made it into a game—she pretended it was snow, and we made little potato snowmen and drew faces on the windows—pretty gross, really, but I was only little and I loved it.” She smiles wistfully.

“She made everything fun like that. Like we never had ordinary toast—it was always cut into animal shapes or smiley faces. When it was really burned she’d cut it into bats and pretend it was
supposed
to be black!”

I smile despite myself. “What else? Tell me about her.”

Rosie smiles, chewing thoughtfully. “Well, besides the fact you’re the absolute spitting image of her …”

I feel my cheeks grow warm.

“She used to be a children’s book illustrator—she loved to paint, draw, sculpt—she adored creating stuff out of nothing.”

I think of my driftwood sculptures. So that’s where I get it from.

Rosie grins. “For my fifth birthday I desperately wanted a doll’s house—this fancy one I’d seen in the toy shop, but it was really expensive. So Mum made me one. A gingerbread house. God, it was wonderful. It had fairy lights all round the roof, and the driveway was made of popping candy. It was magical. I loved it so much I couldn’t bear to eat it.”

I smile, imagining it twinkling on the table.

“She used to dance when she was younger, too—she once dreamed of becoming a ballerina, my nana told me.”

Nana?
My heart flips.
I have a nana too?

“She’d run, swim, dance, anything to release her energy—it was boundless!”

My hearts beats loudly. So she was a swimmer too.

“And her sense of humor!” Rosie laughs. “God, the stitches I’ve suffered from her jokes and pranks—she was hysterical. And her fashion sense … Inimitable.” She grins. “Nobody could ever tell my mother what to wear.”

“She sounds wonderful,” I muse dreamily.

“She was,” Rosie sighs. “She really was.”

My heart stops.

Did I hear her right?

I stare at her, my voice a whisper.
“Was?”

Rosie looks up at me, surprise turning to confusion, then fear. She glances quickly at Dad.

“You mean she …” I falter, the words forming hollowly on my lips. “She’s
dead
?”

Rosie looks away.

“My mom is
dead
?” I feel sick, all my resurrected dreams of my mother melting away like last year’s snow, trampled to dirt.
I don’t have a mother. I still don’t have a mother. I never will …

“Holly …” Dad squeezes my arm. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I—”

“How?” I ask suddenly, turning to Rosie. “When?”

She hesitates, and looks at Dad.

“Holly,” he soothes. “Holly, I really don’t think—”

“When?”
I persist, my voice mottled with tears. “She was
my
mother. I have the right to know.” I look at Rosie. “Well?”

“Last month,” she says quietly. “She died just before Christmas.”

I stare at her. So recently. She was alive last month. There’s a DVD in my room, a Christmas present, still in its cellophane, unwatched. She was alive when it was bought—when it was wrapped, maybe. I stare down at the table, at nothing.

“How?” I whisper.

Silence.

“How?”
I demand. Rosie’s looking at Dad, fear etched across her face. “I can’t—”

I slam my fist on the table, making her jump. “Tell me!”

“I
can’t!
”

“Why not?” I yell at her. “What difference does it make? She’s still dead!”

“Holly—” Dad squeezes my hand as Ben begins to whimper.

Rosie looks away. “You don’t understand—”

“Oh, I understand, I understand just fine.” I spit the words at her. “Your family died, so you thought you’d come on over the Atlantic and take
mine?
You thought you’d just waltz over here and pick up a mom in New York and a dad in New England and everything would be hunky-dory?” I lean closer. “Except it didn’t work like that, did it? Your mom didn’t want you. She never did. She slammed the door in your face—”

Rosie flinches.

“Holly!” Dad barks.

“So you thought you’d come here?” I continue. “Third-time lucky? To my home, my
family
and take
my dad
?”

Megan cuddles Ben close as they leave the room.

“It’s not like that!” Rosie’s voice is surprisingly strong, her eyes shining. “It’s not like that—I didn’t even know you existed—I thought you’d died!”

“Well, wouldn’t that have been convenient?” I say, sneering.

“I thought you were dead,” she repeats, “and when I found out you weren’t, I … I wanted to just walk away. I never wanted to hurt you—”

“Then why did you?” I yell at her. “There are plenty of planes leaving every day—you could have left any time! Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why? Because you’d found your dad, and that was all that mattered to you? Screw everyone else—who cares how many lives you ruin?”

“No!”

“Holly—” Dad takes my arm.

“Yes!” I scream at her, shrugging him away. “Yes—you’re a selfish bitch!”

“No.” Rosie’s voice is quiet now, determined. Her eyes meet mine. “You had to know.”

“Really?”
My voice drips with sarcasm. “I just
had
to know that my dad’s not really my dad, that my whole life is one big lie, except—oh, yeah—my mom’s still dead!” I glare at her. “I just couldn’t live without that knowledge a second longer, could I?”

“You had to know—”

“Rosie—” Dad warns.

“She has to know!” Her eyes are desperate, fraught.

“Know what?” I stare at him, icy dread trickling slowly down my spine. “Dad? Know what?”

“Trudie died—” Rosie begins.

“Yeah, thanks, I got that.”

“Of Huntington’s disease.” She looks at me, then drops her eyes to the floor, screws them shut.

Dad sighs heavily.

“What?” I frown, staring at her, at Dad. Have I missed something? “Like I said, what difference does it make?” I look from one to the other insistently. “What the hell is Hunting’s disease, anyway?”

“Huntington’s disease,” Rosie corrects me quietly, her voice strained, her gaze glued to the floor. “It’s a terminal illness—a deterioration of the mind, the body …”

I stare at her, mystified.
So?

She looks at me, her eyes sad, regretful. “Holly, I’m so sorry …”

I don’t breathe. I just watch her eyes well up with pain and regret, my heart poised on a knife edge.

“It’s hereditary.”

Rosie

My words slice through the room, sharp and swift and brutal, leaving everyone deathly silent. Holly stares at me numbly, but I can’t meet her eyes.

“Holly—” Jack whispers. He takes her hand but she doesn’t move.

I stare at the floor, my cheeks burning. Now I know how Pandora felt.

“Sweetheart, it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay,” Jack soothes, stroking her hand.

“How?” She looks at him with the same blank expression. “It’s hereditary … I’m gonna die?”

“No,” Jack tells her, his eyes intense, his voice breaking. “No, you’re not—it’s not even definite you’ve inherited it—it’s just a chance.”

She stares at him. “What chance?”

Jack hesitates, swallows. “Fifty percent. Right, Rosie?” He looks at me.

I nod absently. I feel Holly’s eyes on me but I can’t look.

“That’s all, just fifty percent—you’re just as likely not to have it. Okay, Holly-berry?” he says, his voice infused with determined hope, with fear. “Okay?”

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, remembering those same words being said to me, feeling Holly’s pain as the realization sinks in. I was wrong—it’s not always best to know the truth. Ignorance is bliss, isn’t that what they say? And I’ve just shattered her ignorance, her bliss, her life, with this one foul sledgehammer of truth.

Holly’s right. I am selfish. If only I could have left well alone, walked away …

I scrape my chair back, shattering the silence.

“I’m sorry.” I stand up, my face hot as I stumble toward the door. “I’m so sorry. I’ll get out of your way, I’ll—”

“Rosie …” Jack’s voice is gentle but still stings.

“I’m so sorry.” I flee quickly through the door, running as I hit the steps, the raindrops spitting at my face.

She
had
to know, I tell myself, blinking hard, trying to block out the image of her face—blanched with shock, staring wide-eyed as I ripped her world apart.
She had to know …

Didn’t she?