The Reunion

whether you’ll be OK, whether you’ll ever come back.
    I understand why you went, but please come back.
    There is no reason for you to feel guilty. None of this was your fault. It was mine, mine and Andrew’s: we were the ones who were driving too fast. The terrible part of it is that I have escaped without punishment. Without formal punishment, anyway.
    Andrew will not be so lucky. His sentencing is next month. His legal career will be over, though they think he will escape a custodial sentence. Nat is doing better. Still at her parents’ place, but she’s out of the chair most of the time now, which I think is a huge relief. She talks about coming back to London, taking up her old job. I haven’t seen much of Lilah. I don’t think she’s doing too well. It’s hard to tell because she won’t talk about it. She isn’t strong, though. She isn’t strong like you.
    We miss you, Jen.
    I can’t know what you’re feeling, but I know that mixed in with all the grief there will be something else, and I know I am the cause of that. Can I be sorry without feeling regret? Because I can’t, Jen, I can’t regret it, I wish that I could, that I could wish it had never happened, but I can’t. I can’t bring myself to wish for that.
    Please, give me a chance to help you through this, Jen. I just want a chance.
    Come back.
    Dan

Chapter Nine

    THEY WERE RUNNING low on firewood and Zac volunteered to fetch more. Lilah jumped at the chance to go with him, to have a cigarette and get away from baby talk. She’d never been good at enthusing about maternity. Zac went upstairs to get their coats and they went out the back door, past the barn and up the hill, hand in hand, towards the woodshed. They squinted into the sunshine.
    ‘You want to go back for your sunglasses?’ Zac asked her.
    ‘It’s OK,’ she said, raising a hand to shield her eyes. They were looking up towards a clump of trees halfway up the hill, beyond the shed. Suddenly, Lilah stopped dead.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she said, and started to walk again. Just for the briefest of moments, she’d thought she saw someone moving, just beyond the tree line. It gave her a fright. She blinked hard into the brightness, but there was nothing there. No one there. Still, it made her feel a little strange. There was something about those woods, something frightening and yet alluring. She gripped Zac’s hand a little harder; he turned to her and smiled, and kissed the top of her head.
    ‘Beautiful girl,’ he said and at once she was safe.
    Zac filled a basket with logs while Lilah sat on a tree stump and smoked. There weren’t many decent-sized logs left, so Zac opted to chop some more. He took off his jacket, picked up an axe and grinned at Lilah, who was taking pictures with her phone.
    ‘There you go, baby. Very Tom of Finland.’
    ‘Tom who?’
    She just smiled at him and shook her head.
    After a couple of minutes he stopped chopping, wiped the film of sweat from his forehead with the back of his glove. Shielding his eyes from the glare, he looked down over the house and into the valley.
    ‘Gorgeous, isn’t it?’
    ‘Mm-hmm,’ she murmured, but she was looking at him rather than the view.
    ‘Look at it, Lilah! It’s incredible. All this space. This clean air!’ Lilah took a long drag on her cigarette; Zac raised his eyes to the sky. ‘You’re hopeless. I have to say, I agree with Andrew,’ he said, picking up his axe again, readying himself for another swing. ‘Jen’s mad to sell this place.’
    ‘I wouldn’t want to be out here all alone,’ Lilah said, shivering a little. ‘Not in winter, anyway. It’s different in summer, though. It was lovely in the summer.’
    ‘Ah, the fabled summer of… what was it? Ninety-eight?’
    ‘Ninety-five. You were still at school,’ she said, eyebrow arched. ‘Running around in short trousers.’
    ‘And you were with Andrew.’
    ‘I was.’
    ‘He seems like a nice bloke, but I just can’t quite see it, you and him.’
    ‘He was different, then. Very different.’
    ‘Different how?’
    ‘More… alpha. He was very much the alpha male.’
    ‘Andrew? Andrew in the comfy jumper? He was never the alpha male.’
    Lilah laughed, ran her fingers through her hair, flicked her cigarette away. ‘Oh, he was. When we were at university, Andrew was the golden boy. He was gorgeous and clever and good at everything – captain of the rugby team, editor of the college newspaper, all that crap. He