Really? Christ, just imagine the terrifying photographs they would dig out of the two of us. Fred and Rose West would look like Brangelina in comparison.
I pass the Glastonbury Tor. The sun is beginning its descent and the sky is a pearly gray. Pale gold light shines off the stones and a few sightseers are thrown into delicate silhouette. I pull off the M5 at the next junction and make my way back to the tor. A road back I find a field. From here I can watch the sunset, can see the shadows of the Glastonbury stones shrink and grow in the changing light. I think of Laurel and Poppy in the flickering candlelight of Bonny’s dining table, of their faces open and bright. And then I think again of you and me, inextricably linked for infinity, our faces side by side on the front pages of the newspapers for years to come, and I know that I do not want to be here to see that. I think of Poppy, of her brave face as I held her hands in her bedroom last night and told her the truth about herself, the solid set of her chin as she bit back on her emotions, the tiny nod of her head as she silently absorbed words that no nine-year-old girl should ever have to hear. I think of how she will learn to live without me and I know that she will. I know that she will flourish. I think of my parents in Washington, the purse of their lips, the unspoken words going through both of their minds: We should have left him in the hospital. And I know that this will be my last sunset, this one, here, right now, on Christmas Eve, playing out in violent flames of red and gold across the horizon. And I know that these are my last moments.
And that is fine.
That is absolutely fine.
I put my hand into the plastic bag and I take out the gun.
65
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
Theo and Hanna walk hand in hand through a bower of white roses and baby’s breath. Petals of pastel-colored confetti float around their heads and a tinny recording of church bells peels across the urban streets of Finsbury Park. For a brief moment the sun breaks through the bank of clouds that’s been brooding overhead since early this morning.
Laurel holds Poppy’s hand in hers and watches as her newly married daughter greets her friends and well-wishers on the street outside the church. Hanna’s in pure white and her hair glitters with gems. She looks glowing and golden. Her husband stands beside her handsome and assured, his hand resting gently on the small of her back, his face bursting with pride.
How, she wonders, could she have ever thought that Hanna would be Theo’s consolation prize? How, she wonders, could she have allowed herself ever to feel that way?
After a short while the wedding party, only thirty strong, climbs aboard an old red Routemaster bus. Poppy sits on Laurel’s knee, her hands still clutching the bouquet she’d carried into the church in her role as a flower girl. Laurel loops her arms around Poppy’s waist and holds on to her as the bus lurches forward. Poppy calls her Mama. Not Granny. Not Mum. Not Laurel. Mama. She chose the appellation herself. Poppy is the bravest and most brilliant child. She has cried when she has needed to cry and she has been cross when she has needed to be cross. And she misses Floyd every moment of every day. But mostly she has been the light and the joy, the sun around which Laurel and her family all orbit. Mostly she has just been a miracle.
The atmosphere on board is high-octane and chatty. Bonny and Paul sit together at the front of the bus, Bonny’s extraordinary hat almost entirely obscuring the view through the front window. Behind them sit Jake and Blue. Blue is holding a tiny puppy in a bag on her lap. It’s called Mister and apparently will grow not much bigger than a small rabbit. She and Jake have been fussing over it like a newborn baby since they arrived from Devon last night.
On the seat next to Laurel is Sara-Jade. Poppy had asked if she was allowed to invite her, even though she doesn’t really know Hanna and Theo. And although Poppy now knows that Sara-Jade is not her biological sister, she still wants her to be part of her family.