“Oh,” he said, embarrassed. He must have left the door open earlier, when he’d rushed out, and hadn’t noticed on his way back in.
“There must have been some rain?” she said. “The Tara road was near-flooded.”
“Wicked,” he said, the wet and cold still in his bones. He didn’t want to talk about any of that. He wanted to talk about her and the kids and their night. The small, ordinary things. “Well, how was the film?”
“Let’s just say the cinema had its own fair share of waterworks,” Tricia said wryly.
“Oh?” Billy said.
“The whole film was about this amazing, beautiful racehorse,” Anna said. “And then he went and died at the end, right in the middle of this big race. His heart just burst, like kaboom and he was gone. It was horrible.”
“Yeah,” Ivor said. “Even John would have cried if he was there.”
Billy gave a small laugh.
Ivor yawned. Anna’s hand also rushed to her open mouth. “Off to bed with the two of you,” Tricia said. “You’re exhausted.” Too tired to protest, they kissed her good night.
Anna kissed Billy’s cheek. “Night, Dad.”
To Billy’s surprise, Ivor also kissed him. “Night, night.”
“Night, Anna, night, son, sweet dreams.”
They went upstairs. “Are they okay?” Billy asked.
“It was a right heartbreaker.” Tricia held the kettle under the running tap.
“I’ll go up to them.” He turned back to her in the doorway. “Are you all right?”
She looked at him, her expression soft. “Yeah. You?”
His fingers rubbed at his forehead. “Yeah.”
She noticed the cuts on his hand and frowned. “What happened?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.”
“I saw your village and those toys in the garage,” she said. “I picked them up and put them back on the table.”
He took a sharp breath. “Thanks, but that’s all finished. It … it wasn’t real.”
She nodded, her lips pressed together. “Go on up to them. I’ll make us tea.”
Upstairs, he tucked in Anna. “Get a good night’s sleep, you hear?”
“I can’t stop thinking about that poor horse.”
“It was just a film,” he said.
“Everything’s always reminding me,” she said.
“It’ll get easier.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so,” he said.
“Night, Dad.”
“Do you want me to stay for a bit?” he asked.
She yawned, long and loud. “No, that’s okay, I’m practically asleep already.”
He smiled. “All right, good night.”
“Good night.”
He moved into the boys’ bedroom and fussed with Ivor’s pillow, just to be with the boy. “That all right for you?”
“Maybe we’re supposed to keep getting reminders, so we don’t forget?” Ivor said.
The knot in Billy’s chest doubled. “We’ll never forget Michael.”
“I don’t mean Michael. I mean … you know … dying.”
“I don’t understand,” Billy said.
“We get reminders about dying, so we don’t forget to make the most of living.”
Once again Billy marveled at the mind of a child, his child. He kissed Ivor’s forehead.
*
In the living room, only the TV lit the dark. From his sunken armchair, Billy watched the lies play out on the screen—actors pretending to be other people. Tricia watched from her usual spot on the couch. They sipped at the last of their tea.
Billy’s arm lay on the cushion of his stomach, his fingers sneaking at his sides again, pinching and worrying a tire of fat. To hell with it. He would join Overeaters Anonymous. It needed to be done. He felt nervous, but also relieved. His almost surrendering at lunch today had unnerved him. He could no longer deny he needed more help than Denis and the nutritionist could give.
He saw himself getting down on his knees in front of everyone in his first meeting and saying, Here I am, this is me. The vivid image should make him think he was going crazy, but instead it calmed him. He was done with pretending, and hiding. He wanted to be seen at last, to be no more or less than himself.
“How did everything go with the filmmaker?” Tricia asked.
“Not good. I won’t be working with him after all.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shrugged. “I’ll find someone else.”
Their attention went back to the TV.
“Sometimes I want to die,” Tricia said, her voice faint. “Just so I can see him again.”
He powered off the TV, letting in the dark, and moved next to her on the couch. He risked putting his arm around her. “Don’t say that, you’re scaring me.”
“I don’t mean it, not like that at least, I just miss him so much.”
“I know.”
When next she spoke, he heard the ache of the young girl in her. “Right after my mother died, I hit her chest with the side of my fist, trying to make her heart work again. ‘Beat,’ I told it.” She let her tears fall. “I pressed my hand to Michael’s heart, too, in his coffin.”
“Shhh, shhh.” Billy tried to draw her closer, but she resisted.
Breathless, her sharp inhales made her head jerk. “‘Beat,’ I said, even though I knew it was stupid. Pointless. Like after all these years I’d learned nothing. I just kept saying it. Just kept begging. ‘Beat. Beat.’”