They hadn’t been having sex. Ben had been asleep and Jessica had been lying next to him in the darkness, unable to sleep, missing her phone so badly it felt like she’d had something amputated. When she couldn’t sleep at home she simply picked up her phone and scrolled through Instagram and Pinterest until she got tired.
She looked at her scarlet toenails in the moonlight. If she had her phone with her right now she would have photographed her feet, together with Ben’s feet, and tagged it #starlightmeditation #healthretreat #learningaboutkoans #wejustsawafallingstar #whatisthesoundofonehandclapping.
That last hashtag would have made her look quite intellectual and spiritual, she thought, which was good, because you had to be careful not to come across as superficial on your socials.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t record this moment on her phone then it wasn’t really happening, it didn’t count, it wasn’t real life. She knew that was irrational but she couldn’t help it. She literally felt twitchy without her phone. Obviously she was addicted to it. Still, better than being addicted to heroin, though these days no-one was sure about Ben’s sister’s most recent drug of choice. She liked to ‘mix it up’.
Jessica sometimes wondered if all their problems led back to Ben’s sister. She was always there, a big black cloud in their blue sky. Because, apart from Lucy, honestly, what did they have to worry about? Nothing. They should have been as happy as it was possible to be. Where had they gone wrong?
Jessica had been so careful, right from day one. What was that stupid thing her mother said? ‘Oh, Jessica, darling – this sort of thing can ruin people.’
She said that, all frowny-faced, on what should have been the most spectacular day of Jessica’s life. The day that split her life in two.
It was two years ago now. A Monday evening.
Jessica had come home from work in a hurry because she was going to try to make the 6.30 pm spin class. She rushed into the tiny kitchen with its ugly laminate benchtops to fill her water bottle and there was Ben sitting on the floor, his back up against the dishwasher, his legs splayed, phone held limply in his hand. His face was dead white, his eyes glassy. She got down on the floor next to him, her heart pounding, barely breathing, hardly able to speak. The uppermost thought in her mind was, ‘Who? Who?’ Her first thought was Lucy, of course. Ben’s sister flirted with death on a daily basis. But something told her it wasn’t Lucy. He seemed too shocked, and Lucy’s death was never going to come as a surprise.
He said, ‘Do you remember how Mum sent us that card?’
Jessica’s heart contracted because she thought it must have been his mother who had died, and she loved Ben’s mum.
‘How?’ she said. ‘How did it happen?’ How was it possible that Donna had died? She played tennis twice a week. She was healthier and fitter than Jessica. It was probably the stress over Lucy.
‘You remember the card she sent?’ Ben repeated obliviously. ‘Because we were so upset about the robbery?’
Poor Ben. He was obviously mad with grief and for some reason he was clutching on to this memory.
‘I remember the card,’ she said gently.
It came in the mail. It had a cute puppy on the front with a speech bubble coming out of his mouth, saying, ‘Sorry to hear you’re feeling low,’ and a lottery ticket inside. Donna’s message said, You two deserve some good luck.
Ben said, ‘The ticket won.’
Jessica said, ‘What’s happened to your mum?’
‘Nothing. Mum is fine,’ said Ben. ‘I haven’t told her yet.’
‘You haven’t told her what?’ Jessica’s brain couldn’t seem to keep up with the words she was hearing and she was suddenly angry. ‘Ben. Has anybody died or not?’
Ben smiled. ‘Nobody has died.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Everybody is in perfect health.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Well, good.’ As the adrenaline left her body she was suddenly exhausted. She didn’t think she could do her spin class now.
‘The ticket won. The ticket that Mum gave us after the robbery. That was the lottery office. We won the first division prize. We just won twenty-two million dollars.’
She said tiredly, ‘Don’t be stupid. We did not.’
He turned to look at her, and his eyes were red and watery and fearful. He said, ‘We have.’
If only they’d known in advance: you’re going to win the lottery tomorrow. Then they might have acted like proper lottery winners. But it took a long while for it to feel like a fact. Jessica checked and double-checked the numbers on the internet. She called the lottery office back herself to confirm.
It became more real with each phone call they made to their family and friends, and then they finally started doing the screaming and jumping and crying and laughing expected of lottery winners and invited everyone over to celebrate with the most expensive champagne they could find in the bottle shop.
They toasted those pathetic thieves, because if it wasn’t for the robbery they would never have won the lottery!
Ben’s mother couldn’t get over it. ‘It would never even have crossed my mind to buy you a lottery ticket before! That’s the first lottery ticket I’ve ever bought in my life! I had to ask the lady at the newsagent how it worked!’ She seemed to want to make sure that no-one forgot that she had bought the ticket. She didn’t want a share in the prize (although obviously they ended up giving her money), she just wanted everyone to know of her crucial role in this glorious event.
It was like a better version of their wedding day. Jessica felt special. The centre of attention. She smiled so much her cheeks ached. The money made her instantly more intelligent and beautiful and stylish. People treated her differently because she was different. When she looked at her own face in the bathroom mirror that night, she could already see it: she glowed with money. Instant wealth was like the best facial ever.
But even on that first night, even while Ben and his brothers argued drunkenly over which luxury cars to buy, Jessica could sense Ben’s fear growing.
‘Make sure it doesn’t change us,’ he slurred, just before they fell asleep that night, and Jessica thought, What are you talking about? It’s already changed us!
Then there was Jessica’s mother, who acted as if the win were a catastrophe.
‘You have to be so careful, Jessica,’ she said. ‘This kind of money can send people off the rails.’
It was true that there had been some unexpected difficulties with this new life. Some tricky situations they were still trying to unravel. Friendships they’d lost. One family estrangement. Two family estrangements. No. Three.
Ben’s cousin, who thought they should have paid off his mortgage. They gave him a car. Jessica thought that was generous! Ben liked his cousin, but he barely saw him before the win. In the end, they did pay off his mortgage, but ‘the damage had been done’. For God’s sake.
Jessica’s younger sister. They gave her a million dollars but she kept asking for more, more, more. Ben said, ‘Just give it to her,’ and they did, but then one day Jessica went out to lunch with her and didn’t offer to pay the bill, and now they weren’t talking. Jessica’s heart clenched as she thought about it. She always paid the bill. Always. It was the one time she didn’t and, supposedly, that was unforgivable.