After the Rain Read online

  ‘Do you go to school with Jack?’

  ‘I do. I was just dropping off a letter to him.’

  ‘Why don’t you give it to him yourself? He’s awake now,’ she smiles. Jack has her eyes.

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I stammer. ‘I don’t want to intrude. Honestly, if you could just give it to him.’

  ‘No intrusion at all. Come on up,’ she says, gesturing to the stairwell.

  Maybe I should have mailed it after all.

  ‘Sure,’ I mutter, following her through the stairwell doors. Her heels slap each step and it echoes through the narrow hallway. I wonder if I should say something before we reach his room. I clear my throat. ‘I’m sorry for everything your family is going through,’ I say slowly and clearly, like I’m reading from a teleprompter or something.

  She turns and smiles, but her lips tremble. ‘Thank you,’ she mouths, barely any sound coming out. Then she takes a deep breath and keeps walking. When we get to the room, a tall man with broad shoulders is standing at the window looking out at the Thames. When he turns I recognize him from the photos on Jack’s Facebook. ‘I found this young lady downstairs at reception. She’s friends with Jack.’

  I reach out and offer a hand to him, like my dad taught me although I’ve come to realize Brits aren’t really handshakers. That seems to be an American thing. ‘Hi, Mr Addington. I’m Alice.’

  He walks over and takes my hand. His handshake is firm and formal. ‘You go to school with Jack?’ he asks me.

  ‘I’m new. I transferred in about three months ago from the US.’

  He nods.

  ‘My dad’s in the military. He’s working with the British Army at the moment which is why we’re here.’

  He nods again, then looks over to Jack, his face hardening. I’m sure he doesn’t want to be engaging in small talk right now, but silence makes me uneasy, especially in a hospital. I clear my throat and take a slow, deep breath. ‘I was there when it happened. I was lucky, I was further away from the blast than some.’ They both look up at me, faces whitening. ‘I saw your son there.’

  Mrs Addington slaps a hand across her mouth but she’s not quick enough and a stifled cry comes out.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring it up. I … I … I should just leave.’ I back up and hit my hip off a table filled with vases. It wobbles behind me. I try to steady it but a vase falls and a loud smash fills the room.

  Jack startles in the bed.

  Did he just jump with the noise? I’m still staring at him, when his parents come over. ‘Careful with the glass,’ his mom says holding out her hand. I slide my palm into hers and step over the broken glass and puddle of water.

  ‘I am so sorry. I am so clumsy. I can’t believe I did that.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, it’s an accident. Besides, I hated those flowers. Who buys baby’s breath? It’s a weed not a flower,’ she mutters picking up the bigger pieces of glass. ‘I’m going to get the nurse to help me with this.’ Jack’s dad follows after her. The hallway is silent again, bar the muffled voice of Mrs Addington at the other end.

  I walk around the bed and pretend to organize the vase of water lilies on the bedside table, pushing the stems deeper into the pool of water at the bottom of the glass. Then I lean in. ‘Jack Addington, you’re busted. I saw that. I know you can hear just fine.’

  He grimaces slightly but doesn’t look at me.

  ‘If you don’t want to talk right now, it’s fine. I won’t tell anyone.’ When I stand back, I push my hands into my coat pocket, my fingers tickling the top of the letter that still sits inside.

  Jack

  That girl – Alice, she said her name was. She knows I’m pretending. Now what? Will she tell my parents? Will people find out and immediately bombard me with their words? Words of sympathy, words of pity, words of guilt. Everyone wants to talk about how they feel, how this is impacting them. I’ve seen my mum hug my dad, Lauren hug my friends, even Nana hugging a nurse. Everyone in my life is seeking comfort and solace from others to get through this, to get through my pain. Yes, that’s right. I’m going through this, not them. It’s my pain, my loss, my grief, my burden. I feel like half these get well cards are for my parents, not for me. People feel sorry for them.

  Why did Alice have to come here and ruin this?

  I just needed a few more days or weeks of the silence. Preferably until I’m out of this bed and in a wheelchair, able to remove myself from a conversation if it’s dripping in sorrow and pity. Not when I’m bedridden and stuck here, forced to acknowledge people’s emotions and uncertainty over the future. I’m still figuring that out myself. Of course I wouldn’t have let it go on forever, I’d never do that to my parents, especially my mum. It’s horrible not being able to have a conversation with her, knowing she’s desperate to hear my voice again. But no one could possibly understand how I’m feeling right now. And speaking about it with those around me will just make things worse. Who else will Alice tell other than my parents? People at school?

  I hope she never comes back.

  Alice

  He’s faking being deaf.

  I couldn’t believe it when I saw him flinch at the sound of the glass shattering. He heard it. He can probably hear everything. Maybe he even heard me the other day. I didn’t even need to write the letter that I spent hours agonising over. The first draft alone took me over an hour and a half. The hand cramps after weren’t fun either. And all this time he’s been pretending!

  At first I was a little annoyed even though I don’t really have a right to be. He doesn’t owe me anything and we don’t really know each other. He’s free to pretend to be anything he wants. But still, I couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed at the situation. Then I felt a little jealous. The thought of temporarily shutting the world out, just taking a few moments to process what happened without other people’s words of sympathy coming at you. I kinda wish I’d thought of that. And finally, after the annoyance and envy subsided, I started to wonder what must be going through Jack’s head if he actually put up that façade and maintained it for this long? Who or what is he avoiding? It sounds strange, but I just can’t shake the urge to go back there. Regardless of all those get well cards, flowers, balloons, social media messages, maybe he doesn’t have anyone to talk to about this.

  ‘Out again? I made marmalade muffins,’ my mom says, leaning against the kitchen doorway with a silver cup of icing sugar in her hand. Her hair is dyed pink again at the ends. She’s had it blue, green and even gray before. She’s a little more adventurous than me when it comes to her appearance. I don’t even experiment with product in my frizzy hair.

  When I follow her into the kitchen, orange zest, honey and cinnamon hits me at the doorway. She hasn’t baked since we left San Diego. She said she couldn’t understand the measurement conversions here so her cookbooks were meaningless. I did point out that there’s such a thing called Google now for things like that. ‘Can I take two away with me?’

  ‘For you and your friend? What’s her name, by the way?’

  ‘Um … Jack.’

  My mom stops, the oven door wide open and turns to me. ‘He’s a boy.’

  ‘Yes, Jack is a boy’s name.’

  She’s still staring at me, the oven light flickering behind her. I walk over and take the mitt from her. Sliding the muffin tray out, I do my best to avoid her open-mouthed stare that’s now turning into a ‘I’m so excited’ smile.

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘No. Definitely not my boyfriend. Just a boy from school. That’s it. We’re not even exactly friends.’

  ‘But you’ve been meeting up with him a lot lately?’

  Oh right. That’s what happens when you lie, you have to continue to lie to protect the original untruth.

  ‘Is there a container or something for this?’ I hold two steaming hot muffins in my hand and wince with the heat. My mom takes them from my hands and folds them in a paper towel. ‘Are these for Jack?’

  ‘I don�
��t know if he can even eat them.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s not exactly … himself at the moment.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You’re asking a lot of questions. Can I go now?’

  ‘One last one.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘How’s your back?’

  ‘Still hurts in the shower but it’s getting better.’

  ‘Now you can go,’ she smiles.

  The muffins have cooled by the time I get from Twickenham to the hospital. The Thames is a little busier today with it being a Friday afternoon. There’s always something in the air on Fridays anywhere you go. That sense of excitement for the weekend, for what’s to come now that school or work is out of the way. That deep breath you take when you look at your watch and it’s officially Friday afternoon, and you know you have two whole days of switching off. New York had it, that feeling. London definitely has it.

  The sun is out today. It’s a little warmer than it has been the past couple of weeks, and more people are eating their lunch outside beside the river. They’re laughing, smiling, sharing plans for their weekends, digesting a busy week of work. The air even smells different. It’s like restaurants start their dinner service earlier on Fridays, start sautéing vegetables, braising beef tenderloins and barbecuing chicken even before opening the doors to their first diner. I used to love Fridays. Mostly because it meant I had two days away from the mean girls at school and the idiot jocks, but also because weekends were a time for me to hang out with my mom. Skype with my dad wherever he was in the world, read, write poetry, get ahead in my studies.

  I’ve only been out of school for three weeks but it feels much longer. So much has happened since I was last there. I feel so detached from that place now, from the trivialities of high school. The past few weeks have been a blur of overlapping days, messed-up routines and erratic eating patterns. The only consistent thing in my schedule the past week has been going to the hospital, even though I’m pretty sure I’m not wanted there. I still have that letter I wrote and even knowing he can hear me if I wanted to talk, I still want to give it to him. Because maybe I just need to, or maybe this is my life raft. Maybe I’m drowning, and nothing in my life can pull me out of the water that threatens to swallow me whole. Except this, whatever this is. Maybe I need this, this distraction, this purpose, to survive. Or maybe I’m just selfish and I need to hear him say it wasn’t my fault so I can leave and never come back again and get on with my life, while he rots in a hospital bed rotating between surgeries and unwanted visits.

  I stop dead in the hospital hallway. The door to 10B is closed and a piece of paper is taped onto it, just above the handle: PATIENT IN 10B IS NOT RECEIVING VISITORS TODAY.

  Jack

  I’ve been refusing food for the past couple of days. People think I’m sick. They take my temperature almost every hour and occasionally check my bloods, probably for infection or abnormality. Whatever they think, it’s working. I heard my mum request no more visits from friends for this week, at least until I’m accepting food again. It’s bought me a few days from Alice, assuming she is coming back which I’m sure she is planning to. I’m still hoping she hasn’t told anyone about my secret. I don’t know why she comes here. We have nothing to say to each other. We were both in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being involved in a terrorist bombing doesn’t give us a ‘common interest’. We’re strangers to each other.

  The door clicks open and I don’t turn. I’ve got quite good at predicting sounds around here and not responding to them – the click of my room door, the ting of the incoming elevator, the whirling of the food trolley wheels, the footsteps of nurses sharing the halls, the faint telephone ring from the hallway receiver. I turn at shadows, movement in my peripheral vision, but not sounds, not anymore. It’s quite easy pretending to be deaf actually.

  ‘Hi, Jack.’

  My mum comes every day. She’s here from the start of visiting hours to the end and sometimes after too. No one says anything to her. Everyone is very respectful to my family. They sometimes let her sleep here too. She curls up in the armchair in the corner. ‘We got more flowers today. These are from your friends and this bouquet is from your PE teacher.’

  Great, more flowers. It’s a good thing I’m not allergic otherwise I’d have been in serious trouble.

  ‘Your cuts are healing well,’ my mum says, edging closer to me. She gently strokes my hair and I visibly flinch to pretend I’ve just noticed her presence. ‘The doctors don’t think you’ll have much scarring at all.’ She takes a deep breath and stops talking. The ticking of the clock on the wall interrupts the silence in the room. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ Her voice cracks. ‘I can’t imagine not having a conversation with you again, never hearing your voice again.’

  My jaw aches and I know I must be clenching hard. I hate hearing her like this. I hate what I’m doing to her.

  Another click. Strong footsteps enter the room, a slight shuffle as they get closer to the bed and an overwhelming smell of coffee and cologne. My dad. He stands at the other side of the bed. ‘How’s he doing today?’

  ‘The same. Temperature is normal which is good. Hopefully he’ll feel like eating again otherwise I don’t know. He may have to receive nutrition through the gastrointestinal tract.’

  Wait, what? OK, I’ll stop pretending now. I don’t want any more needles and intervention.

  ‘OK,’ he says, shuffling away.

  ‘You could say something to him,’ my mum calls.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, you can say something to your son.’

  ‘He’s deaf, Agatha.’

  ‘He’s not deaf. The otolaryngologist couldn’t find any permanent damage to his ears. He thinks it’s just residual ringing or neurological shock which will fade over time. We don’t know how much he can hear. It would be nice if you spoke to him.’

  My dad sighs. ‘What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Say whatever you want. I just want you to say something.’ My mum’s voice is short and clipped. She’s getting frustrated.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ my dad snaps. The door clicks open.

  ‘Is it so difficult for you to speak to your son?’ she demands.

  ‘That’s not my son—’

  My belly churns and recoils like I’ve just been punched. I’m not sure how well I’m pretending at being deaf. Maybe they saw me flinch. Silence fills the space between us all.

  ‘I didn’t mean that. Of course he’s my son, I just mean that I don’t recognise anything about Jack anymore. He’s a shell of who he was.’

  ‘Don’t say that, don’t—’

  ‘Agatha, look at him.’

  ‘Then leave. If you don’t have anything to say to your son, then just leave. Go home.’

  Don’t leave, Dad. Say something, anything. If you say something to me, then I’ll speak. I’ll be honest about being able to hear again. We’ll talk. We’ll have a conversation.

  But the door closes and I know he’s gone.

  My dad’s right. I’m not the same Jack. Our relationship will never be the same again. We see the world together, we climb mountains, we pitch tents in forests and on wild land, we run races, soar on road bikes, swim in open lochs, glide down snowy summits. That’s who we are. Who are we without that?

  Alice

  I know he doesn’t want to see me right now, but I came back anyway. I’m still carrying around this stupid letter, wondering when would be the right time to give it to him. It doesn’t weigh much but I feel it heavy in my coat pocket every day. Sometimes I slide my hand into my pocket just so I can touch it with my fingers and know it’s still there, that there’s words still to be said to him.

  I sit here, gazing out his hospital-room window. My spine pushes into the armchair as I try to straighten up. Mom says I have bad posture. I remember watching a modeling show in America where girls practiced their runway walks while balancing a book on their head. App
arently it’s a technique for improving posture. So I tried it, placed a hardcover copy of Pride and Prejudice on my head and took a step around my bedroom. It immediately fell off, falling forwards, of course, hitting my little toe and carving out a small triangle shape. So I tried again, practicing all day in my room until I could walk in a full circle without it dropping. By that time I had several small ‘corner punctures’ plus a very painful paper cut on my big toe. And it was only then I questioned why I was even doing all that to begin with. It worried me how easily I was duped into conforming, and worrying about my appearance. I wish I could say I stopped wasting my time with these silly trivial things after that, but I didn’t. That year in particular was a collection of silly trivial things to try and better my place at high school. From balancing a book on my head to putting dye in my hair to worrying about my outfit in the mornings. And after Brittany Wilson told me I was ‘paler than death’, I tortured my skin in a sunbed. All I did was surface from that box the brightest red my mom says she’s ever seen on a human being. And I blistered a day later too and had to lather myself head to toe with aloe vera balm. I wasn’t any cooler for my efforts, or the slightest bit more popular at school; in fact, people like Brittany made fun of me even more. The weird bookish, overweight, pale-skinned girl that never stayed more than a year in one place. Starting fresh didn’t help. It just made me relive being the new girl over and over again. Once, I hid in the toilet cubicles for a whole afternoon until my mom came to get me. No, starting fresh didn’t help me at all. I didn’t accumulate friends when I moved, only a bigger school file and a bigger roster of people who didn’t get Alice Winters.

  I’m not sure I even understand myself in this moment. Here I am again, having snuck in through the green doors, past the receptionist who made the foolish error of leaving her desk unmanned to refill her tea mug. I’m completely surrounded by flowers of all shapes and sizes and colours and smells. I wonder if he even likes flowers. Maybe he’s allergic. Many people are. I’m not. There was a girl back in Upstate New York that was highly allergic to flowers, plants, herbs. Animal fur too. And dust and household cleaning liquids, if I remember correctly. Pretty much everything then. But I remember one day our Math teacher got a bouquet of flowers and how a stifled cough quickly turned into a full-blown allergic reaction that needed the school nurse to administer an epi-pen in the class in front of everyone.