Now and Then Friends (28 page)

“No, of course not.”

Nathan settled on a corner of the sofa with his coloring book, and Rachel and Claire both sipped their tea in surprisingly peaceful silence.

“How did this morning go?” Claire finally asked. “With your mum?”

Rachel grimaced. “Hard. We really need a wheelchair, but there's none available at the moment. Bloody NHS.” She glanced worriedly at Nathan, but he seemed oblivious. “I don't know what we would have done without Andrew. He helped me carry Mum inside.” She closed her eyes briefly. “Not something I want to ever have to do again, in all honesty.”

“I can imagine.” Although she wasn't sure she could. Janice Campbell was a big woman.

“Mum looked so miserable,” Rachel continued, her voice catching. “I'm sure her back is absolutely killing her, although of course she can't say. She's on a million different meds now. I'll never get them straight, and they all cost a mint.” She sighed and shook her head. “Sorry. I don't mean to moan.”

“You have every right to moan, Rachel. It all sounds pretty awful.”

“It is.”

“Will your mum—will she improve? In time?”

“There's no saying. With rehab, maybe a little. But . . .” Rachel paused, her face contorting a little before she took a measured breath. “She's only fifty-one. She could live like this for God knows how long.”

Which meant Rachel could live like this for God knew how long. It was a life sentence, and a very tough one.

“I'm sorry,” Claire said quietly. “Are Lily and Meghan helping?”

“Meghan disappeared this morning and hasn't been back.” Rachel glanced again at Nathan before giving Claire a pointed look. “I don't know when she will be.”

“You mean . . . ?”

This time she looked pointedly at Nathan. “I don't
know.
”

“Look, let me help—”

Rachel raised her half-drunk cup of tea. “You already have.”

“I mean really help. Properly. How on earth are you going to cope otherwise?”

Rachel's face took on a pinched look. “Trust me, Claire, I managed fine before you came along.”

“I know you did. Of course you did. But I want to help, and I have some time.”

“That's what Andrew said.”

Claire jerked back a bit in surprise. “What?”

“He said I should ask you to help. But you went ahead and asked me.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, let me help, then.”

“Doing what? Changing my mother's nappy? Wiping the spittle from her chin?” Her voice rang out, and Claire drew back, shocked, and then even more shocked when Rachel's face crumpled and she started to cry.

“Rachel . . .”

“Don't.” Rachel held her hands up to her face as she drew in several shuddering breaths. “Honestly. Please don't.”

Don't what? Help her? Comfort her? Claire saw Nathan looking like he was about to cry too, and quickly she scooped him up into her arms. “Back into the kitchen, I think. How about another digestive?”

“Ray-Ray . . .” he began, but he didn't protest as Claire deposited him in a kitchen chair and thrust another digestive into his grubby hands.

Then, for lack of anything better to do, she made Rachel another
cup of tea. By the time she brought it into the sitting room, Rachel had gotten control of herself. Claire handed her the tea and Rachel took it, bringing the cup up to let the steam hit her face.

“Sorry about that,” she said, her gaze on the tea.

“You don't have anything to be sorry for, Rachel. Life is hard.”

Rachel just shook her head and then took a sip of tea. Claire perched on the edge of a chair, half listening for Nathan.

“Thank you,” Rachel finally said. “I could use your help. If you wouldn't mind cleaning.”

“Cleaning? You mean, for your housekeeping business?” Rachel nodded, and relief made Claire almost buoyant. “Absolutely. Cleaning is actually something I can do.”

Rachel smiled sadly. “You can do a lot of things, Claire.”

“Well, I'm adding to my repertoire every day. Just tell me when and where. I have Tuesdays free, and on other days I'm finished at the shop at four. I like cleaning, actually.”

“I have noticed that I haven't had to do much up at Four Gables,” Rachel said, and then gave her a proper smile. “Okay, then. Thank you. I can shift some of my jobs to Tuesday and you can start then, and try to tackle Henry Price's horrible loo.”

It had been an emotional roller coaster of a day, and Rachel was ready to get off. She remained in the sitting room after Claire had left, finishing her lukewarm tea and savoring the silence. On Tuesday Claire would take her cleaning jobs and Rachel would try to sort out the home front. And maybe, just maybe, she could figure out some way to move forward. As a family, as well as a person. She wasn't ready to let go of her dreams, buried as they were beneath an avalanche of worry. She just wasn't sure if she could find them again.

The door to the dining room opened and Lily came out, looking subdued. Rachel straightened.

“Mum okay?”

“She's sleeping. I think.” Lily sat opposite Rachel, her hands tucked between her knees. “It's kind of hard to tell.”

“I know.”

Lily was silent for a moment, her hair sliding forward to obscure her face. Rachel didn't press; Lily hadn't visited their mother much in hospital in the last two weeks, because of school, and the reality of Janice's condition had to be a shock.

“She's not going to get much better, is she?” she finally asked, her head still bowed.

“Honestly? I don't know. I've never dealt with a stroke victim before.
But I'm not optimistic.” Rachel abandoned her tea on the coffee table and leaned her head back against the sofa. “I have no idea what the future is going to look like, Lily. Or how any of us are going to cope. But the important thing is for you to focus on your exams. They're coming up soon, and you can't afford to—”

“Don't worry about me, Rachel. Exams seem kind of trivial, considering—”

“But they're
not
trivial.” Rachel leaned forward, her exhaustion replaced by an urgency that was tinged with anger. “Lily, these exams are everything. I know you don't believe me, that you don't even want to go to uni, but trust me, please, that I know better in this case. That I know you want to do better than live here forever and work in the pub or cleaning houses for the rest of your life.”

Lily was silent for a long moment; Rachel couldn't see her face. “I don't have to go to university to make different choices than you and Meghan did.” She looked up, and her blue eyes, the same blue as Rachel's, as their father's, blazed. “There are more options than uni or working in a pub, Rachel.”

Rachel swallowed down the angry words that bubbled to her lips. “Maybe there are, but do they involve making a living? Being independent?”

“Is
that
why you want me to go to uni?” Lily exclaimed. “So you don't have to support me?”

She made Rachel sound selfish, and her instinct was to deny it. She'd sacrificed so much for Lily. This wasn't about her. “It's part of it,” she finally admitted. “Of course it is. We're struggling already—”

“And university costs nine thousand pounds!”

“I don't care about that. There are student loans—”

“If this is about money, I should just quit school and start working.”

“Lily, that is the last thing I want.” Rachel closed her eyes briefly and pushed a hand through her hair, which had fallen out of the messy knot she'd put it in this morning. It had been an unbelievably long day. “Look,
I don't want to argue. I don't think I can take it on top of everything else.”

“I don't want to argue, either. Actually, I want to help.”

“You could help by studying—”

“With Mum.”

Rachel's mouth nearly dropped open at this admission. Lily never helped with their mother; she avoided her as much as she could. To Lily, Janice Campbell had never been much of a mum. She'd just been a woman stuck in bed, draining their resources and time. It was awful to think, but Rachel recognized it as the truth. In those first few years after Janice's accident, she'd been in and out of hospital, often doped up on painkillers. Rachel and her dad had taken care of Lily, and when he'd left it had just been Rachel.

“Really?” she said when she'd finally found her voice. “That's very kind of you, but . . .”

“She's my mum, Rachel. I know it doesn't feel like it—you feel like my mum more than anyone else.” Lily gave her a lopsided smile. “But sitting with her just now, seeing her so helpless . . . it's awful. No one deserves that. And I've hidden from the hard facts for long enough. I want to help.”

“But your exams . . .”

“I'm on study leave for the next two weeks. I can take care of Mum
and
study. You don't need to do it all.”

“Okay,” Rachel said at last. She had more help than she knew what to do with now, and it felt strange. Uncomfortable. “Okay. And Meghan will help too.”

Lily didn't reply, but she didn't need to. Meghan wasn't there, and Rachel had no idea when, or even if, she'd be back.

Not that she actually thought Meghan would abandon her son. Did she? Rachel mulled the question over as well as its impossible answer as Lily headed upstairs to study and she made chicken nuggets for Nathan. Would Meghan walk away one day like their father had? Rachel was half
bracing herself for it, and yet she knew that was unfair. Meghan loved Nathan. She'd chosen to have him, after all. But her sister had always been unpredictable, from her six-year-old sulks to the silent retreat she'd beaten when Janice had fallen, to her choice to have a baby when there was no father in the picture and life was hard enough.

Rachel heard the front door open and then slow, quiet footsteps, like someone was trying hard not to be noticed. Rachel almost let her sister go upstairs undetected; she didn't have the energy for a battle, and that's what every conversation with Meghan ended up being. Besides, Nathan was happily watching the CBeebies channel in the other room; she didn't need Meghan to step up right this second.

The stair creaked and Rachel couldn't help herself. “Meghan.” Silence. “Meghan, I know you're there. Can you come into the kitchen and tell me what the hell is going on with you?”

So it was going to be a battle, and Rachel had fired the opening shot. Meghan slunk into the kitchen, arms folded, face set in a sulk.

“Where have you been today?”

“Out.”

Rachel stared hard at Meghan, nearly twenty-five years old and acting like a stroppy teen. “Come on, Meghan. Give me a real answer. You dumped your son on me for the entire day while I was dealing with Mum. Don't you think I deserve to know the truth?”

Meghan looked away, her greasy hair hiding her face. “I couldn't face it,” she finally said, her voice low.

“It? You mean,
Mum
?”

Wordlessly, Meghan nodded, and Rachel held on to her temper. Just. “You think it's easy for me, Meghan? Andrew and I had to carry Mum into the house like she was a sack of potatoes. And with the way her back is, it can't have been fun for her, either.” Tears started in her eyes, and she brushed them back impatiently, too angry to waste time on crying. “It was hard enough when Mum was bedridden. But now she's . . . now she's practically a vegetable. And you just scarper.”

“I'm sorry.” Meghan's voice was so low Rachel almost couldn't hear it. “I'm sorry, okay? I know I should have been here. But it was too hard.”

Exasperated, Rachel turned back to the tin of beans in tomato sauce she'd been opening, to go with the chicken nuggets she'd shoved in the oven. “Why can't we eat proper food?” she said, and shoved the tin away, sending it spinning and spraying tomato sauce over the counter like drops of orange blood.

“You're the one who does the Tesco order.”

“I
know.
” She took a deep breath, willing the excess emotion down. There was no point to it now; she didn't have the luxury to indulge in tears or sulks the way Meghan did. She never had. “Look, Meghan. Something is going on with you. You don't look well.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I mean it. I know things haven't been easy between us these last few years—”

“Don't you mean ever?” Meghan interjected, and Rachel sighed.

“Fine, ever. I know we haven't gotten along. I know I nag you about work and Mum and Nathan—”

“So basically everything.”

“Yes. Fine. But what I'm saying is we've managed. Mostly. But now I feel like it's all starting to crumble and I need to know why. What I really need is to have you on board, ready to help, but if I can't have that, at least let me know what is going on.” She lowered her voice. “And whether you're going to leave me here with Nathan.”

“Leave?” Meghan stared at her, shocked. “You think I'd actually
abandon
my son?”

“What am I supposed to think? You abandoned him for the whole day without even telling me where you were—”

“That was one
day.
I'd never leave Nathan for good. Never.” Meghan's chest heaved, and her eyes looked wild. Rachel held up a placating hand.

“Fine. I believe you. But tell me what is going on.”

Rachel didn't think her sister would answer. She stayed silent,
chewing her lip, her arms wrapped around her body as if she were cold. “I think it's my fault,” she finally whispered.

“Your fault?” Rachel stared at her, uncomprehending. “What is your fault?”

“Mum's stroke. It's my fault.”

A big part of Rachel wanted to dismiss Meghan's concern, tell her she was being ridiculous, but she also felt the cold wave of trepidation sweep through her body. “Why?” she asked. “Why on earth would you think that?”

“Because.” Meghan bit her lip hard enough for Rachel to see a drop of blood well on it before she licked it away. “I upped her meds.”

“You—what? You mean you got a higher dosage from the doctor?” A few years ago Janice had switched from Percocet to OxyContin, and then a few months ago her OxyContin dosage had gone from ten milligrams to twenty. But looking at Meghan's face, Rachel knew that wasn't what her sister meant.

“I gave her more OxyContin than was prescribed.” Meghan's voice was low. “That time she said they fell in the toilet? They hadn't. She'd just taken them all.”

“What?”
Rachel's mouth opened and closed as she struggled to find the words, to form them. “Meghan, don't you realize how dangerous that was? OxyContin is a very strong drug—”

“I
know.
But you don't know what it's like—you've never known what it's like—to be home with Mum all day!” Her voice came out in a desperate screech, tears starting in her eyes, trickling down her blotchy face. “How much pain she's in, how hard she has it. How she moans and
begs.
You're never there, Rachel. You think you are. You think you're working harder than anyone, but you're
never there
.”

The accusation in Meghan's voice made Rachel reel back as if she'd been struck. She felt the words like hammer blows, shattering her illusions. She'd thought Meghan had had it easy, lounging around with
Nathan and Mum, watching
Real Housewives
and eating crisps. And there had been some of that. Rachel had seen the evidence herself.

“If you had it so hard,” she asked, “why didn't you tell me? Why did you just give Mum more drugs without even asking?”

“Because you never wanted to know. I know you think I'm lazy. And maybe I am. Maybe I should have worked every night at the pub or somewhere else, but you've never even listened.”

“You've never told me!” Rachel's voice rose to match Meghan's. “How on earth could I know how difficult you were finding things, if you never told me?”

“Because you never asked. You come in every evening moaning about how messy the kitchen is, how Nathan is such trouble, doubting that I've even looked in on Mum. What am I supposed to think? That you'd believe a word I said?”

Rachel sank onto a chair. Her head was spinning and starting to ache. “Tell me when this started.”

“Which part?”

“The OxyContin,” she snapped. “The overdose.”

“It wasn't . . . I didn't think of it like that. She wasn't overdosing.”

“She was having more than her prescription, Meghan. That's called an overdose.”

“But it wasn't like that,” Meghan insisted. “It was just a little extra, to take the edge off. The doctor had upped it once, and he even said he might have to do it again.”

“So you thought you'd prescribe it yourself?”

Meghan's expression hardened. “You really don't know what it's been like. How much pain she's been in.”

“Maybe she hasn't told me because she didn't want to admit she's taking so many damn pills!” Distantly Rachel knew she was being unfair, even cruel. Distantly she recognized the truth of what Meghan was saying, wrapped up as it was in a lot of self-justification. Rachel
hadn't
been
there. Working eight or ten hours a day scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets might actually have been easier than being stuck at home with a fussy baby and an invalid mother. Distantly she recognized that perhaps she'd always known that, and she felt a hot rush of shame.