‘Of course you do. None of this has to change your relationship with her if you don’t want it to. She’s still the same person she was two hours ago. I totally understand that you’re upset, but do you honestly think she meant to hurt you by not telling you? Haven’t you ever done something you thought was for the best for your daughter but somehow, inadvertently, managed to upset her in the process?’
Jess thought about the row she’d had with Mia in the car that morning, less than fifteen hours before but already feeling as though it belonged to a different lifetime. When she began to speak again her voice was small and distant as though she were whispering from the far end of a long tunnel. ‘But it’s not just how I feel about Mum. It’s how I feel about Dad and Lily too. So much of what I thought I knew isn’t actually true. And if everything about your past changes, where does that leave who you are in the present?’
‘You’re all the same people, Jess. You just need to make adjustments in the way you think about your family. It’s what we all do, every single day, shifting the parameters, reshaping our expectations. It’s just that this adjustment is a lot bigger than most.’
Jess let Ben’s words settle in her head, rubbing her fingers against her temples. ‘I just don’t know how to forgive her for not telling me. I want to forgive her, I know I have to, that I’ll regret it if I don’t, but I’m just not sure I can.’ She blew her nose, shoved the crumpled tissue into her handbag, pulled out a fresh one.
She detected an expression on Ben’s face that seemed strangely familiar: an expression of independence and self-sufficiency, like a crab’s shell evolved over millennia to protect what was inside. It was an expression she recognised because she’d seen it herself so many times in the mirror.
And then Ben turned to her and it was as though she could see a decision click into place. ‘Forgiveness is a decision, Jess. I’ve done things I never imagined my daughter would forgive me for but over the past few weeks she’s begun to let me back into her life. It’s up to you whether you want to do the same for your mum. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but the decision is yours.’
Ben’s voice had ascended a semitone and Jess couldn’t stop herself asking the question. ‘What happened? With your daughter?’
There was a fractional hesitation, Ben glancing at her, then away again quickly, and it was as though Jess could hear the acceleration of his heartbeat.
‘I had a son, Zach. He was a great kid. Funny and smart and interested in the world. A kid full of curiosity. I know everyone thinks their kids are special but Zach really was different. He just had this way of making people around him feel good.’
Jess watched in silence as Ben rested his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped together under his chin. She tuned out the white noise of other people’s conversations, held on tight to her own memories and focused on Ben.
‘Zach was ten when 9/11 happened. He’d been at school in Brooklyn when the Twin Towers were hit, saw from his classroom window smoke rising out of the buildings. He watched the second plane fly into the south tower, watched both towers tumble to the ground. I still can’t imagine what that must have been like for a child – to see your city under attack, to understand that things you thought were solid and indestructible were weak and defenceless. We lost two of our best friends that day. Zach had known them all his life. It was such a surreal time – I don’t think anyone who wasn’t there can ever really understand. It was like being in a daze for weeks on end, a really bad dream you just couldn’t wake from. There was so much confusion and anger and shock.’
Ben sat stock-still, shoulders hunched high around his neck. Jess remained silent beside him, knowing that sometimes what stories needed more than anything was the space to find their way out into the world.
‘Zach changed after that day. Everything changed, obviously, but Zach’s whole personality was different. Everyone we knew had been affected by 9/11 in some way but … I don’t know … Zach seemed to feel it more deeply than his friends. It was as though the dust from all that debris had got under his skin, filtered into his bloodstream, become a part of who he was. He went from being a gregarious, life-loving kid to someone who was watchful, quiet, wistful. I’d always assumed he’d abhor violence and conflict, hate anything to do with war. I don’t know. Maybe we should have seen the signs, clocked what he was thinking sooner. Maybe then we’d have stood a chance of stopping him.’
Ben paused, ran his fingers through his hair, let his chin rest back on his clasped hands.
‘He told us just before his eighteenth birthday that he was deferring his university place, joining the military, going to fight in Afghanistan. I can’t really describe what a shock it was. Of all the kids in his class, Zach was the last person you’d think would do that. Nicole and I did everything we could to try and dissuade him. We pleaded with him, rationalised with him, showed him the videos and the stats and the New York Times articles. We got angry with him, got angry with each other, but he was resolute. He joined up, did his training, left for Kandahar the day after his nineteenth birthday.’
Ben swallowed hard, his eyes flicking briefly towards Jess’s face, and Jess knew where the story must be heading but she also knew she needed to let Ben tell it. That now he’d begun, she must let him finish.
‘It was seven weeks later that we got a knock on the door. I was chivvying Erin because she was going to be late for school, so Nicole went to answer it, assuming it would be the mailman. As soon as I heard her coffee cup smash on the hallway floor, I knew. It’s weird. You’ve watched that scene so many times on TV, read about it in books, seen reports of it in the newspapers. It just felt unreal, as though we were characters in a film and this couldn’t possibly be real life.’
Jess heard her own intake of breath, felt the air suspended in her lungs, sensing there was more to come.
‘It was an IED. Zach had been manning a checkpoint when a car had driven up with a single driver inside who’d detonated himself. Zach was the only casualty. Two army officers stood in our kitchen that morning telling us how proud we should be, how brave Zach was, how he’d done such a great service for his country, but all I could think about was what had gone through the head of that driver as he’d drawn up at the checkpoint, knowing what he was about to do. What kind of madness made him go through with it?’
Anger bled from Ben’s voice and Jess placed the flat of her hand on his back. ‘I’m sorry, Ben. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.’
She watched him train his eyes on the floor, breathing deeply, as though he didn’t yet trust himself to look her in the eye.
‘You know the thing I find hardest about it? I don’t understand now why I let him go. Why didn’t I just lock him in a room until he’d got the stupid idea out of his system? I look back now and I think, What kind of a father lets his son walk out of the front door and into a senseless war?’
Ben’s voice was low and tight, as though his vocal cords were being squeezed.
‘He was eighteen, Ben. He wanted to make his own decision. That’s what teenagers do. There’s nothing you could have done to stop him.’
‘Isn’t there? It doesn’t feel like that now. Now it feels like I’d strap my body to his and never let him out of my sight if it meant he’d still be here.’