The Writer Read Free Page B

sign that there might be activity nearby. “Either you can come back or you can’t, but I want to know one way or the other. It’s the uncertainty that…”
    My voice trails off.
    This is ridiculous.
    Still, I can’t help myself.
    “Give me a sign,” I add. “Just one thing. It can be something small, but…” I take a deep breath, determined to get to the truth. Deep down, however, I can’t work out whether this is a genuine stab at closure, or further evidence that I’m losing my mind. “Just one sign,” I whisper. “If you’re not still around, I can live with that, and if you are, I can live with that too, but I have to know.”
    I wait.
    Nothing.
    “Hannah,” I continue. “If you’re around, if you can hear me at all…” I turn and look at the patch on the side of the road where, two years ago, their car was destroyed in a head-on collision with a tree. “Hannah, it’s Mummy. If you can give me any kind of a sign at all, now’s the time. Just let me know if you’re there. If you are, we can… We can work something out. You can stay in the house, we can be together again, but I need to know.”
    I look down at my right hand, almost expecting to feel her touch.
    Above, there’s the distant rumble of a plane passing overhead.
    ***
    “I swear to God,” Jacqui says as she refills her wine glass, “this city is getting louder. It’s like, since I got back from Australia, I’ve barely been able to relax. I know everyone’s supposed to be super-wired by all the energy, but it’s, like, mega-tiring trying to keep up. I’m only just thirty, but I feel like this goddamn city is wearing me out.”
    “Not for me, thanks,” I reply, putting a hand over my glass as she moves to refill me.
    “Come on, Beth,” she says with a grin, “live a little.”
    “I don’t really drink so much these days,” I tell her, hoping that she won’t push the matter.
    “Seriously? Bordeaux Beth from our uni days is suddenly a teetotaler?”
    “I’m not teetotal,” I reply, “I just… I stopped when I had Hannah, and I don’t really want to start again.”
    “Don’t you think maybe that’s part of the problem?” she asks. “If you don’t get wasted now and then, how do you relax?”
    “Getting drunk doesn’t relax me,” I continue, taking the wine bottle from her hand and placing it on the table between us. “Other things do. Good food. Movies. Books.”
    Rolling her eyes, she looks over at the third place-setting at the table, and at the empty chair, before looking toward the door.
    “So don’t think,” she adds, turning toward the back door, “that I didn’t notice them .”
    “Notice what?” I ask.
    “The keys.”
    Realizing what she means, I look over at the set of car keys hanging on a hook.
    “Seriously?” she continues. “Beth, why do you still have the keys to that car? It’s been two years…”
    “I must have forgotten to throw them away.”
    “Bull. You keep them around because… Because what ? It makes you feel better?”
    “It’s an honest mistake,” I tell her. “Seriously, not everything has to have some kind of deep meaning. If you want to know the truth, I’ve never thought twice about those keys. I’ll throw them away tonight if that makes you feel better.”
    “Yeah, well…”
    Before she can finish, we both hear the toilet being flushed elsewhere in the house.
    “I hate to sound rude,” Jacqui continues, lowering her voice a little, “but did you really have to invite him tonight? I mean, Beth, what the hell?”
    “What’s wrong?” I ask, slightly amused by her discomfort. “I wanted to have a couple of friends over for dinner, that’s all.”
    “And you count him as a friend? Seriously? Isn’t he more like your creepy neighbor?”
    “He’s not creepy,” I whisper. “If you actually got to know him -”
    “He’s twice your age,” she continues, “and if you ask me, he’s got some kind of unhealthy interest in you.”
    “He was there for