IT WAS a long night. Kirsty lay awake and wondered what on earth she’d done. She’d tossed her dignity aside and behaved like a twit. She’d thrown herself at the man.
‘I had fun,’ she told herself, trying desperately to lighten what had happened in her head. ‘And he had fun, too. We were a mature man and woman play-acting for the local gossips.
‘That might be what Jake was doing, but it was far more than play-acting for you, and you know it.’
Sleep wouldn’t come. She rose and padded softly into Susie’s room, as she’d done so often over the last week, and she found her sister staring at the ceiling as well.
‘What’s up?’ she asked, and Susie turned and smiled at her in the moonlight.
‘Nothing’s up, stoopid. That’s the problem.’
‘Huh?’
‘I was woken by Rory junior practising his gridiron,’ she said. ‘Then I had to get up for a pee for the fourth time tonight. And now…I’ve just been lying here thinking that life suddenly seems hopeful again. Just a little bit,’ she said hastily, as if her sister might read too much into her confession. ‘But these last days…it’s been like slivers of light breaking through fog. Just glimpses, but they’re getting longer.’
‘That’s great,’ Kirsty said warmly, perched on her twin’s bed. ‘Depression is such a ghastly illness. I’ve been so frightened for you.’ She lifted her sister’s hand and squeezed. ‘I guess I still am.’
‘You’re thinking the clouds will re-form,’ Susie whispered. ‘I’m afraid they might, too. It’s great that I’m having this…this little bit of happiness but then I remember that Rory isn’t here to share it with me. He won’t see his baby. Then I think I’ve got no right to go on.’
Kirsty had left the door open. Angus left a nightlight on-actually a night chandelier-and now a shadow crossed the door. Susie’s eyes flew to see who it was, and she smiled a welcome.
‘Jake.’
Jake paused in the doorway. Boris was by his side, wagging his tail in greeting. He’d obviously been waiting in the hall for Jake to return and now his tail was sweeping his pleasure.
‘Susie.’ Jake’s voice was warm and caring. ‘Is anything wrong?’ Then he saw Kirsty, and his voice changed. ‘Sorry. You have your personal physician in attendance already. I’m on my way to bed. Come on, Boris.’
‘Come in and join us,’ Susie called.
Kirsty thought, Rats. But it was callous to say
He came instead to stand, looking searchingly down at Susie.
Ignoring Kirsty.
‘You really are all right?’
‘I really am,’ Susie told him. ‘And tomorrow Angus and I have organised to see the physiotherapist you told me about.’
That was a huge step forward, Kirsty acknowledged. Up until now Susie had resisted all attempts to get her moving. But Jake had talked about the physiotherapist who visited town once a week. He’d told Angus Susie would benefit, but she wouldn’t go by herself-and then he’d told Susie that physiotherapy could prolong Angus’s life but he wouldn’t go by himself either. Hey, presto, problem fixed. Together they’d go. Country doctor doing what he did best. Sorting out a multitude of problems with interlacing solutions.
Up until now Boris had been standing by Susie’s bed. But Kirsty had made room for Jake; the spot was vacant and a dog could only stand temptation for so long. He leapt up, realised how comfortable it was and wriggled forward on his stomach until he was near enough to give Susie a long, slurpy kiss.
‘Urk,’ Susie said-and giggled.
It was the best sound, Kirsty thought. It was an amazing sound. No matter what sort of emotional mess this man was making of her head, she forgave him all because he’d made her sister giggle.
It had to continue, she thought desperately. But would it? After the baby’s birth, hormonal changes could propel her further downward, postnatal depression mingling with an existing diagnosis.
‘Susie’s feeling guilty that she’s started to have glimmers of enjoyment,’ she told Jake, jumping in feet first. ‘Rory’s not here to share it. She’s feeling dreadful that she’s here and he’s not, and she’s scared the depression’s going to descend again.’
‘It’s an awful feeling,’ Jake said softly. ‘I know when my sister died, that was one of the hardest things to come to terms with.’
‘Your sister died?’ Susie asked. Kirsty didn’t say anything. It was like he poleaxed her every time he opened his mouth.
‘Car accident when she was sixteen,’ he said briefly. ‘The first time I forgot…my friends dragged me out to a movie and it was a silly, dopey movie where we all ended up drunk on laughter and life and sheer teenage silliness. And I came out into the night and thought, Elly’s never going to see that movie. It was so gut-wrenching that I threw up. My body reacted to mental anguish by physical revolt.’
‘Your friends wouldn’t have understood,’ Susie whispered.
‘I told them I had a stomach upset,’ he told them. ‘Maybe they believed me. They probably did, come to think of it, as how can you know what loss feels like until you’ve experienced it? What followed then was months of pseudo-stomach upsets, and even now I have moments. But I’ve learned…’ He hesitated, glancing at Kirsty as if unsure that he should reveal himself so completely in her presence. ‘But I’ve learned that I can’t not see movies. Or go to the beach, or have my twenty-first birthday or get married and have kids just to stop my gut wrenching. Because it doesn’t help. Grief and loss twists your gut into such a knot that every now and then you just have to let go, let it all out, sob or vomit or kick inanimate objects or whatever you find helps-but you have to do it. If you don’t you stay permanently twisted inside.’
‘I guess that’s what I have been,’ Susie whispered. ‘Twisted inside.’
‘Just a little bit battered,’ he told her, smiling. ‘Not so twisted as you’d noticed. Your walking is going great. Rory would be so proud of you.’
‘He would, wouldn’t he?’ she said, a trifle defiantly. And then she looked from Jake to Kirsty and back again. ‘So tonight, on the beach-’
‘I need to go to bed,’ Jake said, cutting her off. ‘I’ve only just got home. Three house-calls in a row and it’s two a.m.’
‘Tonight on the beach, were you trying to forget something?’ Susie said, deliberately and slowly. ‘Or were you both truly moving on?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Jake said, and cast a glance at Kirsty that accused her of going straight home to her sister and telling all.
Susie caught the glance and smiled.
‘Leave her alone. She hasn’t said a word. But Margie’s sister-in-law was in the car park and the phones have been running hot since. Margie popped in before she went to bed to ask what did I think and wouldn’t it be lovely?’ Her smile was tentative but it stayed fixed. ‘It’s only fair to warn you. I’m simply the first to ask the question.’
‘Well, you’ve asked it,’ Jake said, with another doubtful look at Kirsty. ‘Now I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Susie complained.
‘It’s none of your business.’
That was blunt, Kirsty thought, a bit shocked, but Susie’s smile peeped out again.
‘No. But I’m Kirsty’s twin. I know all her nearest and dearest concerns. Ask your own two if you don’t believe me. How many secrets do Alice and Penelope keep from each other?’
No, but I don’t know the answer to this one, Kirsty thought desperately, and she glanced at her twin and she saw that Susie knew this, too. And maybe that was why she was asking.
‘I have one set of twins in my life,’ Jake said, and there was a trace of desperation in his voice as he responded. ‘I can’t cope with two.’
‘Cut it out, Suze,’ Kirsty said, and there was even more desperation in her tone. ‘Let the man go to bed.’
‘Only asking,’ Susie responded, her intelligent eyes moving from one to the other. She hesitated. ‘Has Kirsty told you about her shadows?’
‘No…’
‘Our mother died when we were ten,’ Susie told him. ‘Our father suicided soon after. Since then, Kirsty’s taken on the cares of the world. She’s looked after me-protected me. She’s taken on her job at the hospice, taking care of
