The Husband's Secret(54)

            “Wonderful,” said Cecilia, although Rachel saw a shadow of a frown. “Growing up fast. Giving me cheek.”

            “Your eldest daughter,” said Rachel. “Isabel. I saw her the other day in assembly. She reminds me a little of my daughter. Of Janie.”

            Cecilia didn’t respond.

            Why did I tell her that? thought Rachel. I must be drunker than I realize. No woman wants to hear that her daughter looks like a girl who was strangled.

            But then Cecilia said, with her eyes on the road ahead, “I have just one memory of your daughter.”





TWELVE


            I have just one memory of your daughter.”

            Was it the right thing to do? What if she made Rachel cry? She’d just won the Heat ’N Eat Everyday Set and she seemed so happy about it.

            Cecilia never felt comfortable around Rachel. She felt trivial, because surely the whole world was trivial to a woman who had lost a child in such circumstances. She always wanted to somehow convey to Rachel that she knew she was trivial. Any time Cecilia imagined losing one of her daughters, a silent, primal scream would get trapped in her throat. If she couldn’t stand imagining it, how could Rachel actually live it? “Time heals,” Cecilia’s mother-in-law intoned whenever the subject of Rachel’s grief had come up, as if sharing a job with Rachel qualified her as an expert, and Cecilia had thought, I bet it doesn’t.

            Years ago, she’d seen something on a TV talk show about how grieving parents appreciated hearing people tell them memories of their children. There would be no more new memories, so it was a gift to share one with them. Ever since then, whenever Cecilia saw Rachel, she thought of her memory of Janie, paltry though it was, and wondered how she could share it with her. But there was never an opportunity. You couldn’t bring it up in the school office in between conversations about the uniform shop and the netball timetable.

            Now was the perfect time. The only time. And Rachel was the one who had brought up Janie.

            “Of course, I didn’t actually know her at all,” said Cecilia. “She was four years ahead of me. But I do have this memory.” She faltered.

            “Go on.” Rachel straightened in her seat. “I love to hear memories of Janie. Actually, I love to hear her name. It makes other people uncomfortable talking about her. Not me.”

            “Well, it’s just something really tiny,” said Cecilia. Now she was terrified she wouldn’t deliver enough. She wondered if she should embellish. “I was in Year Two. Janie was in Year Six. I knew her name because she was house captain of Red.”

            “Ah, yes.” Rachel smiled. “We dyed everything red. One of Ed’s work shirts accidentally got dyed red. Funny how you forget all that stuff.”

            “So it was the school carnival, and do you remember how we used to do marching? Each house had to march around the oval. I’m always telling Connor Whitby that we should bring back the marching. He just laughs at me.”

            Cecilia glanced over and saw that Rachel’s smiled had withered a little. She plowed on. Was it too upsetting? Not that interesting?

            “I was the sort of child who took the marching very seriously. And I desperately wanted Red to win, but I tripped over, and because I fell, all these other children crashed into the back of me, Sister Ursula was screaming like a banshee, and that was the end of it for Red. I was sobbing my heart out; I thought it was the absolute end of the world, and Janie Crowley, your Janie, came over and helped me up, and brushed off the back of my uniform, and she said very quietly in my ear, ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s only stupid marching.’”

            Rachel didn’t say anything.

            “That’s it,” said Cecilia humbly. “It wasn’t much, but I just always—”