Tissues littered the car. Crumpled, tainted with tears and snot and makeup, they were all over the seats and the floor and the dashboard. Becca had another in her hand, ready to blow her nose for maybe the twentieth time. After that, she would have to finally get out of the car.
Her reluctance to leave could not have been more obvious – even after she finally made use of the tissue and moved to exit the vehicle, she merely sat awkwardly with her knees pointed towards the door and her fingers gripping the handle. The door remained unopened for another two minutes before she finally bit the bullet and, to make herself do it, practically threw herself out.
She fumbled with her keys to get them back in her bag after locking the car, then made her way down the short path to the door. With a deep breath, she rang the bell. There was no answer. After waiting for another minute Becca thought about ringing it again, but knew that she’d still get no response.
Charlie was home. He definitely wouldn’t have left the house since his phone call, she was certain of that. Considering how he had sounded over the phone, she wasn’t the least bit surprised that he wouldn’t answer the front door.
From her bag she pulled a single key, separate from the collection she had recently placed inside. It was a spare for the house, given to her for emergency needs. She’d never used it until this time, but she fit it into the lock and opened the door without trouble.
Charlie and Michael had, for the most part, kept a tidy home. Becca knew that the order was almost entirely the result of Michael’s effort, and virtually none of her brother’s. An entire childhood spent with him had taught Becca that Charlie had no mind for neatness, and before Michael it had been her constantly cleaning up after the older Angelo child. Her brother probably never even realised how much had been done by Michael to keep the place clean.
Quickly, Becca checked the downstairs rooms for any sign of Charlie. He wasn’t there, but she did notice that Mr and Mrs Booper’s water bottle was empty, so refilled it at the kitchen sink and returned it to their cage in the front room. The hamsters were hidden away, presumably asleep. While there she also spotted a cup of cold coffee, barely a sip missing, beside the wireless house phone on the table by the sofa.
A sudden thud from upstairs made her jump. She headed towards the stairs and started to rise, but slowly. She was scared. Why was she scared? All she would find up there would be Charlie. Her brother. So why was she scared?
Just before the top a step creaked loudly and she winced, and then quickly berated herself for being so skittish. There shouldn’t be any reason to be afraid.
At the upstairs landing Becca walked past the bathroom and spare bedroom to the main bedroom at the front of the house. Pausing first at the half-open doorway, she pushed on the door and entered.
The first thing she saw was an electric alarm clock on the floor, the plastic casing broken and the display cracked. She guessed it had been thrown hard against the wall, and was possibly what she had heard from downstairs. On entering the room proper, she saw other objects that had met similar treatment – books, CD cases and CDs, and a Nintendo DS were just some of the things chucked by Charlie in his anguish.
Charlie himself was next to the bed, stood in front of the large mirror that hung over the chest of drawers. He was hunched, his hands gripping the edges of the furniture as he stared intently at his own reflection. There was venom in the glare, his eyes eschewing self-hatred as his jaw clenched in disapproval at the sight before him. He was shirtless, his tense muscles standing out from his arms.
Becca could hear how fast her brother’s breathing was, it was so loud. Bordering on hyperventilating, she half expected to see steam come out with the exhales.
This was what she had feared, what had kept her in the car for so long despite knowing she had to go inside: Charlie’s rage.
Becca tried to speak, but her voice caught in her throat. She cleared it, and tried again, though it still came out as barely a whisper.
“Charlie.”
He didn’t look at her directly, but she noticed his eyes flicker towards her reflection in the mirror. She tried to keep speaking.
“Charlie, I… I don’t even know what to say. I want to speak to you and help you but I just don’t know how.”
A minute passed where the only sound was Charlie’s heavy breathing. In contrast, Becca could feel her breaths getting more and more shallow as she stared cautiously. Finally, Charlie spoke.
“You don’t have to say anything,” he told her, through gritted teeth.
“Are you angry at Michael?”
“Why would I be angry with him?” He still didn’t turn to look at her.
“Because,” Becca said nervously “because of what he did. Because he left you like this.”
Becca could see Charlie’s body starting to shake from being so tense. Her own body was stiff with fear, worried at what her brother might do. These episodes of rage were not too common to him, but they never ended well. In his early twenties he had nearly killed himself by striking his fist through a pane of glass that sliced halfway up the inside of his arm. Becca had been with him then, too. Charlie’s girlfriend at the time had been kissing other guys at clubs, and he didn’t find out until he witnessed it for himself.
Slowly, Charlie said “Michael… Michael did what he needed to do. I’m not angry with him, I’m angry with me.”
“You couldn’t have known how he was feeling, Charlie!” Becca told him.
“Why couldn’t I have known?” he spat. “I should have known. I should know the feelings of the man I love, the man I live with, the man I was going to raise children with and fucking marry!”
His voice grew in volume and intensity with every word until he snapped. He raised a fist, growled “I should have known!”, and then struck the mirror. The blow cracked the glass, and Becca shrieked in shock and terror. Before she could do or say anything else, Charlie had punched the mirror again, then once more. Pieces of shattered glass collapsed to the floor or buried themselves in his fingers and his knuckles, but still he raised his fist for another strike. This time, however, Becca was able to call her body to action and rushed forward to grab his arm, her other hand reaching across his chest to hold him back. As they struggled she yelled his name, begging for him to stop, crying as she tried to keep her brother from hurting himself further.
Becca was determined, but her brother was bigger and stronger, his already-greater strength amplified by grief and rage. With a snarl Charlie wrenched free of his sister’s grip, then turned and pushed her hard. She went sailing backwards, tripped over a bundle of clothes on the floor and slammed against the wall with a whimper.
When Becca raised her head to look at him, Charlie’s hardened face fell as guilt washed over him. Her expression was a mask of pain. Her eyes were streaming. Her bottom lip quivered, her last attempt at composure a vase about to shatter.
What had hurt her more than the pain of hitting the wall was the shock that her brother had pushed her like that. He’d lashed out. He’d never done that before, not to Becca. Not to his little sister.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but only an inarticulate noise came out. All of a sudden she was crying uncontrollably, bawling loudly in front of Charlie. Impulsively, he strode forward and made to put his arms around her, but she flinched, turning from him. He jumped back in response; the horror of what he had done striking him as though he had been the one to hit the wall.
“Becca, I’m sorry,” he babbled, shame bringing out the words in a messy jumble. “I didn’t mean to, I was so overcome, it was an accident! I never meant to hurt you, I would never want to hurt you. I love you.”
Unable to think of more to say, he just stared at her as she sobbed, his arms hanging limply at his side. He started to feel the wounds in his hand, the sting of glass embedded in his skin.
Inside he was wondering what to do, what words he could produce to rectify what he had done. Michael would have known what to say. He had always been good with words, especially for dealing with people. Most of the time. Sometimes he’d be doing so well and then ruin it all with one stupid sentence.
But Michael’s not here Charlie started thinking to himself. He’s not here. Not anymore. Not ever again. He’s not here and he can’t help me. I can’t even help him. I couldn’t help him. The best person in my life and I couldn’t help him. A cloud was building in his head, his fleeting vapours of thoughts condensing into something black and delicate. I’m all alone now. There’s no future without Michael. I’ll never survive without him holding my hand. As the cloud grew, he could feel it threatening to break and unleash another storm. This new flood wouldn’t be as destructive as the last one, but just as terrible to witness, and not something Charlie wanted to experience. It definitely wasn’t something he wanted to inflict on his sister. He needed to stop it building. He really needed to stop it from breaking.
“Becca please can you just hold me.” He begged suddenly. “Or I’ll hold you, just,” his voice cracked, “please. I need it. So much right now, I need you so much.”
The desperation in her brother’s voice made Becca look at him again. It was how he’d sounded over the phone earlier. He’d called her almost immediately after the police had informed him of what Michael had done. In a hollow voice, with few words and many pauses, he’d told her what had happened. As he spoke the sadness built and soon took over, so he was just able to beg for her to come before hanging up.
Through tears Becca studied Charlie’s face. He looked terrible. His eyes were red from his own crying, his skin creased and deeply lined. It was as though he’d aged twenty years in the two weeks since she’d last seen him, in the hour since he’d found out about Michael’s death. She couldn’t bear to see him like that.
Slowly, Becca stepped up to Charlie and slipped her arms under his. She held him tight, burying her face into his chest where she continued to cry. In response Charlie wrapped his arm with the uninjured hand around her shoulders, feeling her shake as she sobbed against him. He raised his head to stare at the ceiling, willing himself not to cry too.
“I’m so sorry about Michael, Charlie.” Becca said thickly, her voice muffled from her face being pressed to her brother’s body. “I’m just so sorry.”
Charlie said nothing, but moved his head down to kiss the top of hers.
For a time they stood there holding each other, silent but for the occasional sobs and sniffs as Becca managed to quell her tears. Charlie felt comfortable in his sister’s embrace. He was safe. She could protect him from himself, as she’d done so many times before. The cloud had blown away, its threat gone, at least for a time. As his body began to relax he realised how exhausted he was. His crying and his rage, both of which had consumed him since talking to the police, had taken all of his energy from him.
“I need to sit down.” He murmured.
“Hm?” inquired Becca.
“Gotta sit down,” Charlie said more clearly, slowly detaching himself from her and slumping onto the bed beside where they stood. Becca sat down next to him, looking concerned.
“Are you feeling ok?” she asked.
“Tired. I’m just so tired.”
Becca reach out and squeezed his hand. Immediately, Charlie winced and pulled it back quickly.
“Shit, Charlie, I’m sorry, I didn’t think about your hand! Let me see.”
Unable to resist the authority of a woman seemingly born to be a caregiver, Charlie extended his arm and allowed his sister to examine the wounds.
First wiping her eyes on her sleeve so she could see, Becca gently took his hand and looked closely. Then, lightly, she probed a few cuts with the tip of a finger, making him twitch in pain.
“Lotsa little cuts, but none of them are too bad. I think a few have some pieces of glass in them though, I gotta take them out.” She looked up at her brother. “Where does Michael keep the first-aid kit?”
Taken back for a second, Charlie stuttered, “How do you know it’s Michael’s?”
“Because,” Becca answered, smiling ever-so-slightly, “the only way there’d be one in the house would be if he put it together. You just wouldn’t bother.”
Charlie gave her a tight smile in return. “Yeah, I guess so. It’s under the sink in the bathroom. I think there’ll be some tweezers in the mirror cabinet, if you need them.” As she walked out of the room, Charlie thought about the question she’d asked him. She said ‘does’, he thought. Not did. Michael doesn’t keep it anymore.
While in the bathroom, Becca took the opportunity to blow her running nose and check her appearance in the mirror. She looked like shit, almost as bad as Charlie, though with more ruined makeup. Still, she decided she had more important things to worry about. She opened the mirror cabinet and quickly found the tweezers amidst shaving razors, spare tubes of toothpaste, and dental floss. From the cupboard under the sink she pulled a green bag marked with a white plus symbol – the first-aid kit. After checking it had some wipes and bandages, she took it back to the bedroom where Charlie was waiting.
He was sat in the bed still, with one arm reaching across his chest and gripping tightly to the other. His head was down slightly, his sight seeming to go through the floor and beyond as he stared. Becca thought at how small he looked sat like that. He looked so frail, as delicate as a child. With a forced smile and more than a little false cheer she announced her return.
“I’m back!”
Charlie twisted his head round, breaking from his reverie. He’d been thinking about all he’d had planned for the day, and how none of it would get done now. Just like the plans he’d had with Michael. They were all gone. He might as well go shred the calendar hanging in the kitchen, for all the use he had for it now.
“Ok,” Becca said. She’d wanted to ask her brother if he was alright, but knew it was a stupid question because of how obvious what the answer was. She flicked the switch by the doorway to turn on the bedroom light, and then decided to pull the curtains open wider to allow more sunlight into the room as well. “Just want to make sure I can see what I’m doing,” she explained. Charlie didn’t respond.
Eager to be active and distract Charlie from his thinking, Becca sat down next to him and quickly began to take what she needed from the green bag and laid them out on the bed to use.
First she pulled a cleaning wipe from its packet and did her best to clean the blood from the cuts while also not pressing on those with glass fragments in them.
Charlie hissed in pain. “Sorry,” Becca said.
After a short while she gave up on the cleaning. First throwing the bloody wipe away in the bin, she then picked up the tweezers to tackle embedded shards.
“I don’t know how well I’ll be able to do this,” she said apprehensively, “these aren’t the best implements and I’m not the best surgeon.”
“Just do what you can.” Charlie felt like he didn’t care if the glass stayed in his hand or not. Any pain felt from their continued presence or their extraction was, to his mind, deserved. If the wounds got infected and killed him then all the better.
However, his sister’s fears were unnecessary. Although Charlie winced and hissed as she dug around with the tweezers, it was easy enough for her to pull out all of the pieces and drop them one by one in the bin, which she’d pulled closer for convenience.
“Becca?” said Charlie as his sister worked.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for coming. Thanks for being here. When I needed you.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Charlie. I’ll always be there when you need me.” She looked into his bloodshot eyes. “I promise.”
Charlie turned away from her gaze. After a pause he said “I’m sorry I pushed you.”
Becca continued to dig out pieces of glass as she thought how best to respond. His aggression had hurt her, both physically and emotionally. However, she knew that holding it against him would do neither of them any good.
“It’s ok,” she told him.
Charlie’s voice sounded tortured when he responded. “It isn’t ok.”
“No it, isn’t,” Becca said, a little more forthrightly than she’d intended. “I mean, it wasn’t ok for you to push me. But I’m ok, and I forgive you, Charlie. I do.”
Charlie looked at her for a second with his mouth open, only to turn his head away again without speaking.
“That’s the last bit,” Becca said a minute later, disposing of the final fragment. “I’d better clean your hand again.”
As she used a fresh wipe to clean up the blood, Becca asked quietly “What are you going to do for the rest of today?” It was still only mid-morning.
“I dunno. The police need me to go to the station for some reason. I can’t remember. Sign some things, probably. Then, I spose, I spose I’d better start telling people he’s gone.”
Charlie spoke so softly that Becca had to strain her ears to pick out what he’d said. When she glanced at him she saw two tears making their way down his cheeks, one from each eye.
“Do you need me to come with you? To the police station. I don’t mind. I don’t start work until the evening today.” She was a care worker in a dementia ward. “And if you want, I can make calls for you. If you want me to, Charlie.”
Charlie was just about to answer when they heard the doorbell ring. All of a sudden Charlie looked like a frightened child, terrified at having to deal with more people.
Becca noticed, and said “I’ll get it, don’t worry. You can stay here.” With an affectionate rub on her brother’s shoulder, she got up, left the room, crossed the landing and made her way down the stairs to the front door.
On opening it, she felt like she’d been thrown against the wall again. It was Michael’s sister.
Hazel was the third-born of the Borough children – a couple of years older than her baby brother, a couple of years younger than the next sister, Alana. The eldest, Tim, was close to seven years older than Michael. He was the only one of the four children to have moved out of their home city, instead living in The Peak District to the north. Becca had met Tim so few times that she had briefly forgotten about him; seeing Hazel reminded her of yet another person who would need to be informed of Michael’s passing.
“Oh! Hi, Becca.” Hazel was almost as surprised to see Becca as Becca had been to see her. It was clear that she’d been crying her own river to match the Angelos’s. Becca had been upset enough at the loss of her brother’s boyfriend, but couldn’t imagine the pain of losing her own brother. If it had been Charlie who had died, she may very well have wept an ocean.
“Hazel. Hi.” Becca replied awkwardly. The two had met plenty of times before, and were more than comfortable enough to talk to each other under normal circumstances. However, these were not normal circumstances. Immediately Becca felt tense, anxiety borne of a fear that she might say something ill-thought-out that would return herself or Hazel to tears.
“Charlie called me earlier, to tell me about Michael. I thought I should come over and see him. See how he is.”
Becca bit her lip. “He’s not great.”
Hazel frowned and made a soft noise of sympathy. “No, I wouldn’t expect him to be.” She paused awkwardly for a moment. “Can I come in?”
“Oh! Of course,” Becca replied, feeling stupid. “Sorry. It’s been a strange morning.”
As soon as Becca had said it she felt even more idiotic. Her strange morning couldn’t compare to what Hazel’s must have been like. Even when Hazel gave Becca a tight, knowing smile, the latter woman still knew she’d spoken foolishly. She felt awful for Hazel; this might be the worst day of her life.
When Hazel had entered the house and the door was shut behind her, Becca suddenly said the other woman’s name.
“Hazel?”
She turned to face Becca, who stepped forward and made to hug her. Becca moved slowly enough that it could be rejected easily, but in fact it was welcomed readily. It was the first hug Hazel had received since hearing the news about Michael.
As they held each other, Becca wondered if she should say more. I loved him too? I’m gonna miss him? Both were true. However, neither seemed worth saying at the time. Silence was better.
The embrace went on for a couple of minutes without them speaking. Becca started to wonder if she should say something, and how long the hug would go on for if she didn’t. Luckily, Hazel broke it herself. Looking slightly embarrassed and wiping her damp eyes, she apologised sheepishly.
“You don’t need to be sorry, I promise,” said Becca. “It’s ok.”
“I didn’t mean it to go on so long, but-”
“You don’t need to explain anything. It’s ok.” Becca paused for a second. “Charlie’s just upstairs; I’ll go let him know you’re here. And I need to bandage up his hand, too.”
“Why does his hand need bandaging?”
Becca was just about to answer awkwardly when she saw that Charlie had made his way to the top of the stairs and was watching them.
His body stood slouched, hand clinging to his arm as it had before. Again, Becca thought at how small he looked. She wondered how long he had been there.
“Charlie!” she exclaimed. “I was just going to go get you.”
“Hazel.” He said in a confused tone. Hazel turned to look up the stairs to him.
“I thought I should come see you, see how you’re holding up. How are you doing?” she asked sympathetically.
Charlie stared as though he could barely see her. “I’m okay. I’ve been better.” The understatement was accepted without comment; it was hardly necessary to call him out on it. “What about you?”
Hazel gave the small, forced smile that was becoming ever more common in the house. “The same. What happened to your hand?” she queried, noticing the reds and pinks of torn and bleeding skin.
“I got angry and smashed a mirror with my first.” Charlie replied bluntly.
Hazel was taken by surprise by his answer; she had heard about Charlie’s rage attacks a few times from Michael, but had never been told more than that they happened. To hear him so forthrightly announce the destruction he had caused, and to be able to see the resulting injuries, was a new experience for her. However, she was able to compose herself quickly into the practical woman she had always been.
“Well, Becca, do you want to put some bandages or something on those cuts, and I’ll go make us all some tea?”
Becca murmured her assent, while Charlie continued to stare silently, almost blindly.
“How do you take your teas again? Milk and one sugar each?” Hazel queried. It wasn’t that often that she played tea-maid for them, especially Becca.
Becca turned her head back as she climbed the stairs to her brother. “I have sugar and no milk, Charlie has both.”
“Just one sugar?”
“Yeah, just one for both of us. Thanks, Hazel.”
Hazel watched Becca reach the top of the stairs and take Charlie’s hand. As Becca led him away to patch up his wounds, Hazel sighed softly. Loss was never easy, and she had met few people as devoted to their partners as Charlie had been to Michael. She had thought the devotion had been reciprocated by her brother. Perhaps not. As she thought about it, some part of her began to feel angry that Michael had left her, too. She would never have done that to him.
Suddenly Hazel realised she needed to stop this train of thought before it went too far. There would be time to think about Michael, but right now she was here for Charlie. She headed to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Hazel first filled the kettle from the tap and set it to boil. She then spent a few minutes looking through cupboards for teabags, suitable mugs, and sugar. She helped herself to a bag of her favourite Lady Grey tea, and gave the Angelo’s standard breakfast teas, each with one spoonful of sugar. After filling the mugs with hot water, she moved them all to the dining room table along with a bottle of milk for Charlie to add to his tea. Hazel herself had no milk, but left the teabag in as she drank. She liked it strong.
Sitting alone, she had nothing to do but drink her tea and think to herself. She thought again of her brother – the things that would need doing with the occurrence of his death, what life would be like without him there anymore, and what reason he might have had for taking his own life. Was Charlie abusive? She’d never heard anything of that sort from Michael or anyone else close to them, but who knew what physical or emotional damage his rage attacks might have wrought on her brother. Perhaps it had gotten too much for him. She found it hard to believe, though. Hazel had known Charlie for years now, and he’d never expressed anything other than love for Michael. Similarly, Michael had never shown anything but adoration for Charlie, and had never expressed any doubt in his partner or their relationship. Not to her, anyway. Maybe she would have to ask Alana about it; their elder sister had been closer to Michael than Hazel had. Hazel considered asking Becca, but realised the topic was too sensitive to talk about with Charlie’s sister. Charlie himself?
I could ask him, she thought. But not today. Maybe not for a while. I need to let this go until it’s a better time to talk about it.
Only a few minutes passed before Becca and Charlie made their way downstairs to sit with Hazel; she had barely made a dent in her tea, mainly because it was still quite hot. Charlie moved slowly, lurching like a zombie and still looking as though his gaze was taking nothing in to see. His hand was now wrapped in white bandages, covering the cuts that Hazel would have found herself constantly staring at if their presence wasn’t occluded. Becca gently guided her brother to a chair and sat him down in front of a still-steaming mug of tea. When he stared at it blankly she grabbed the milk bottle herself and added a splash to the drink, stirring it with a teaspoon Hazel had brought along too.
“There,” Becca said when she’d finished stirring and had removed the teabag. “You should drink, Charlie. I bet you’ve not had anything for hours now.”
Charlie tried to shake his head no, but it ended up barely a twitch to the left for a fraction of a second before his head swung back to face forward at nothing. He had barely had a sip of his morning coffee before the house phone had rung. Confused about who would be calling him on a Tuesday at nine in the morning, he had answered apprehensively.
When the officer had introduced himself, and explained that he was calling about a Michael Borough, Charlie found himself heading to the front room and falling back down on the sofa. As the man had spoken, Charlie had felt as though his head was being held beneath a lake. The words the officer said didn’t sound like words at all, just garbled sounds that made no sense. Several times Charlie had to ask for him to repeat himself, and he was just able to hold his head out of the water long enough to properly listen to the previous sentence. Once that one was over, though, he became suddenly submerged again and missed the next one. Charlie wasn’t sure how long this water cycle went on for.
After the call was finally over, Charlie had sat there for a time unmoving, unable to think. After a while he had found himself able to press the buttons on the phone to call his sister and beg her to come over. Immediately after he thought of Michael’s sisters, and called Hazel. That had been a difficult conversation.
“Michael’s gone,” he’d told her. “He jumped into the gorge, Clifton Gorge, from The Suspension Bridge.” He’d managed to stop himself crying, but the words still kept getting caught in his throat. He’d apologised. He’d told her he had had no idea that Michael had been planning it. The more he’d said, the worse he’d felt. Eventually Hazel had stopped him talking and thanked him for telling her. When he despairingly said that he still needed to tell Alana what had happened, Hazel told him not to and said she would tell her sister herself. He thought of that now.
“Did you tell Alana?” he croaked to Hazel, who looked surprised at the question.
“What? Oh, no, I haven’t told her yet.” She fidgeted with the cuff of her sleeve. “I don’t think it’ll be good to tell her while she’s at work.”
Alana worked as a teacher in a secondary school. The kids she taught were almost as important to her as her own children. For years, being able to shape the lives of younger generations was something Alana had wanted to do, and now she was doing it. Hazel knew that her sister would be beyond annoyed at herself if her low mood affected how well she was able to teach and interact with her students. Because of this, the now-youngest Borough child decided that she would wait until school had finished before telling Alana about Michael. There was a possibility that Alana would get annoyed at not being told straight away, but she would also understand Hazel’s reasoning.
“I’ll wait ‘til she gets home before I tell her.” Hazel frowned suddenly. “We’ll have to tell Reuben and Holly.”
“They really liked Michael, didn’t they?” Becca asked, as Charlie clumsily drank his tea.
“They adored him. I- ” Hazel’s voice caught. “I really wish we didn’t have to explain to them that Uncle Michael isn’t coming back.”
Becca frowned too. “Do you think they’ll understand?”
“Reuben should. He’s been through the death of family members before. Although, not like this.” Hazel paused. “It’ll be hard to explain it to Holly. She’s not even three. And she’s lost her favourite uncle.”
Hazel swallowed, appearing to be on the verge of tears again. Becca reached across the table and held her hand, squeezing it. Looking up at her, Hazel squeezed back.
“So many people to tell,” Charlie whispered, taking them by surprise again. “Every time I think about it I realise there are more and more people who need to know.” He looked to his own sister and Michael’s sister in turn. “Do you think he realised how many people he connected with in his life? How many people are going to be devastated on hearing he’s gone?”
There was silence for a time, and then Becca slowly spoke. “I guess, maybe, when you get to that point, that extreme feeling of not wanting to be around anymore, maybe you find a way to block out those things that could hold you back.”
“Or you become blind to it,” Hazel put in, and Becca nodded in agreement to the possibility.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Charlie. His face contorted as he felt himself about to cry again. The display was painful for Becca and Hazel to watch. “I thought he was happy now. I really did.”
With these words he laid his head on his crossed arms on the table, and wept afresh. In response, Becca took her hand back from Hazel and wrapped an arm around him. She whispered apologies to him and squeezed with her arm, while Hazel watched the two awkwardly and thought to herself. Maybe Charlie really didn’t know why Michael had taken his own life. He seemed as confused by it as she was. Still, she decided that she would try talking to him about it more in the future. Michael was her brother. She deserved to know why he’d left her, and everything else, behind like that.
After a time, Charlie’s crying waned and soon ceased. His tea, barely drunk, had gone cold. Hazel offered to make more for him, as well as for Becca and herself.
When the tea was made, Becca brought up again the need to inform people of Michael’s passing. After insisting to Charlie that she would make some of the phone calls for him, he made a short list of people who he felt would deserve being told first.
“I don’t know all their numbers though,” he said, when he’d written the last name. “Most are in my phone, and I think the rest should be in the address book by the house phone.”
Becca dutifully ran upstairs to grab Charlie’s mobile phone from by his bed, and then took the address book full of contact numbers off the table in the front room where the charger for the house phone sat.
“It’s off,” said Charlie, when his sister had handed him the phone and sat down next to him again. He looked confused.
“Shouldn’t it be?” Hazel asked.
“I never really turn my phone off, and I don’t think I did last night.”
Perplexed, he held down the power button to turn it on and waited a minute while it booted up. All of a sudden the phone buzzed and chimed at the same time in his hand.
“Some texts from you, Hazel,” he explained, skimming the messages she’d sent asking if he wanted her to come over. “And…” he paused, staring at the screen. His jaw was set.
“What?” Becca asked tentatively.
“A missed call from Michael. And a voicemail.”
It was like the world had stopped. Charlie’s gaze was locked on the device in his hand, while Becca and Hazel seemed frozen in their seats as they looked at him. Different, consuming thoughts occupied the minds of each person.
What if the voicemail explains why he left us, thought Hazel.
Are we going to hear him as he’s falling, as he’s about to die?, thought Becca.
Could I have stopped him doing it if I’d been able to answer the phone?, thought Charlie. Did he call me to try and talk him out of it, but got no answer? Did he die thinking I didn’t care?
The scene remained paused until Hazel cautiously spoke.
“Charlie.” She swallowed. “Are you going to listen to it?”
He started shaking his head, swinging it from side to side like a sorrowful pendulum.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
He was starting to panic, guilt blocking his ability to think properly. Becca grabbed his hand in both of hers and pulled it towards her, trying to pull him over the wall he was stuck behind. She was worried about where this reaction would lead her brother.
“Charlie. Charlie! Look at me.” She tugged on his arm until he turned to her, his expression morose. “You don’t need to do anything now. You can save that for tomorrow. You can save it for next week. But right now, so soon after it happened… I don’t think you need that now.”
Charlie stared at her. Suddenly he wrenched his hand from her gentle grip and stood up. Becca shied back in her seat, afraid he was going to push her again or hit her. Hazel was still in her seat, completely stiff. Her eyes were wide as she stared.
“I need to know!” he explained to his sister. “If I don’t find out now, I’ll never be able to stop thinking, worrying about it. This is going to fucking eat me, Becca.” He still looked miserable as he spoke, nearly yelled, but Becca noticed the new resolve in his eyes.
“What do you think you’re going to hear?” she asked quietly.
“It might be,” he paused, “what if he called me because he needed me, and I didn’t answer? What if I might have been able to talk him out of it if only my fucking phone had been on?
“I need to know,” he continued, forcing his voice to soften. “Wondering about it is just gonna eat me.”
Becca sighed. “I just worry about you. What if that is he why he called? Are you going to feel any better then? And what if it’s something completely different, maybe even something worse?” She was thinking of the noises of terror a person might make when taking a three-hundred-foot drop.
“I need to know,” Charlie repeated, simply.
Becca said nothing. If her brother didn’t want to be convinced, there was no point trying.
For the first time since asking Charlie about the voicemail message, Hazel spoke.
“Charlie.” She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “Can I hear it too? I would like to hear my brother’s last words. Hear him speak for the last time.”
Charlie stared at her for a second, then nodded.
Becca, however, wanted no part of it.
“I can’t listen, I don’t want to hear it. You two can tell me afterwards what it is, if he says anything, but I just can’t.”
“Becca, what’s wrong?” Charlie asked.
“I just don’t want to listen, ok? I’m gonna go sit on the stairs or something. Let me know when I can come back.”
She rose from her seat without looking at the other two and left the room. Quickly she climbed the stairs almost to the top and sat herself on the penultimate step. She buried her face in her hands, praying to all the trees and mountains of the world that the phone call would turn out to be nothing more than a pocket dial, that the voicemail would only offer the sound of rustling and background noise. She just wanted her brother to be spared any more pain.
Back in the dining room, Charlie was calling his voicemail to listen to the saved message. He listened to the options offered to him. After making sure it was on speakerphone so Hazel could hear as well, Charlie placed his phone on the table and pressed the corresponding number on the keypad to play the message. Hazel was still sat down, watching Charlie, who remained standing.
A woman’s voice came from the phone, robotic-sounding words pre-recorded and spliced together to create the sentence.
“MESSAGE 1. SENT TODAY AT SIX FORTY TWO AM.”
“Charlie,” came Michael’s voice, suddenly. Hazel sat up and stared at the phone as though it was her brother. Charlie tensed, his hand gripping the back of a chair.
It was possible to hear Michael as he spoke, but the sound of his voice wasn’t clear because of the wind interfering with the microphone. Hazel and Charlie strained their ears to catch every possible word.
“Charlie, I turned your phone off. I really didn’t want you to answer. I think, now, it might be too late for this to just be talked out. It needs doing. It needs doing, Charlie. Fuck. I hope at least some of this can be understood.
“What it is, Charlie, it’s not that I don’t think you love me. It’s really not. And it’s definitely not that I don’t love you. It’s that I don’t think you should love me. I, I can’t, I don’t know how you possibly could. When I’m everything that I am, and nothing that you see me to be. Nothing that anyone sees me to be. And the weight, the fucking weight of that deceit has become so unbearable that I just…” Michael paused to breathe in, and then heavily out, “I can’t keep on living anymore.”
The speaking stopped, but the call was still going; the sound of wind and heavy breathing was coming through the phone.
“I need to go now, Charlie. I love you. Never think… I love you, Charlie. I do. Goodbye.”
The robot voice returned offering voicemail options, but neither Charlie nor Hazel were listening. Hazel had a hand across her mouth in an attempt to stifle any sounds she made, and her whole body was shaking as she cried.
Charlie seemed to have lost his place in the world. He staggered backwards as though falling down a slope, only to hit the wall after a few steps. Pain burst in the back of his head, but he was so distracted he barely felt it. Then, like an ancient tower crumbling and collapsing, he slid down to the floor. Thinking of everything he had just heard from his dead lover, he pressed his hands to his face and sobbed.
After the voicemail options had repeated for the third time, Hazel made herself reach out and press the red button visible at the bottom of the screen.
The call ended.
ns 15.158.61.55da2
