Things I Want My Daughters to Know_ A Novel - Elizabeth Noble [49]
“I’m sorry, Mand.”
Amanda shrugged.
“I don’t know what to say, really.”
“I know.”
“What does it make you feel?”
Amanda blew her nose noisily.
“Fucking angry.”
“Angry?”
“How dare she tell me something like that in a letter? That’s what I feel. I’ve spent the last six months—the last year, practically—feeling like shit, like I was a coward for running away. I felt so guilty I couldn’t even open the damn letter she left me. And when I finally do—I get this.”
“Would you rather not know?”
“I don’t know. I’d rather never have known if the alternative was not being able to talk to her about it. Not being able to find out who he was, what happened.”
“She tells you what happened.”
“She tells me whatever the hell she wants me to believe. Sticks it in an envelope and waits to die so she’s not around when I read it. She could say anything she wanted in a letter like that. She knew she wasn’t going to be around to answer my questions.”
“It sounds true to me—what she says and the way she says it…for what it’s worth.”
Amanda looked like she might laugh. She sat back against her chair and folded her arms. “I should have known you’d defend her.”
“I’m not defending her.”
Amanda didn’t respond.
“Listen—Amanda. Honestly, I’m not. I think this is a rotten thing to do. You’re right—she knew she wouldn’t have to answer to it. That’s inexcusable. I’m not defending it. I’m just saying—I read it, and I believed it. You did, too. You’re just too upset to realize it. You know Mum wasn’t a liar.”
“I thought I knew she wasn’t. I thought she was brave, too.”
Lisa thought about Barbara dying. About a face pinched with pain that was rarely mentioned. About a woman so tired that she couldn’t walk upstairs unaided, but who didn’t moan about it. About a mother who listened to Hannah blathering on about some pop song or some homework assignment or some boy even though you could see in her eyes that all she craved was silence. About all the things Amanda hadn’t seen because she hadn’t been there to see them.
“She was brave, Amanda.” She tried to make herself sound gentle. When she replied, Amanda’s voice was just as soft and quiet.
“Not about this.”
“No. Not about this.”
It wasn’t easy to watch Amanda’s pain. Nor was it easy to know how to ease it.
“You should talk to Mark.”
Amanda’s eyes flamed. “No. I don’t want him to know. I don’t want anyone to know. Promise me you won’t tell the others?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want them to know.”
Lisa obviously didn’t look convinced.
“It’s up to me, isn’t it?”
She supposed it was. “Why did you tell me?”
Now Amanda didn’t know why she had. It was a lapse. A crack in her shell. An impulse. But an essentially pointless one. Lisa couldn’t fix it, any more than she or anyone else could.
“Promise.”
Lisa put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I promise.”
Amanda nodded emphatically, obviously underlining the end of the conversation, and signaled at the waitress. “You want another glass? I’m having one.”
January
Hannah
Hannah lay on her stomach across her bed, with her mother’s original journal spread out on the duvet. She’d been reading and rereading it. It had been hard to read, last year, when Jennifer had first given her sisters a copy. She’d read it once and put it away, in the fabric-covered box she kept in her wardrobe, the one with the ballet certificates and the sports day medals. Jennifer had brought the original down for her, before Christmas. This year she could read it more easily. She wanted to. She’d read some bits of it over and over again. It was comforting now, not painful, hearing Mum’s voice in her head. Some of it made her laugh. Some of it made her realize that her mum was even cooler than she’d thought—and she’d always thought she was pretty damn cool. All that stuff about setting up on her own, after she broke up with the others’ dad. How she got the shop started, brought them up herself—that was amazing. She hoped she was half