The Reunion

was also friendly and outgoing and everyone liked him. If we’d been at an American high school, he’d have been the one voted most likely to succeed, most likely to marry well, get rich, be happy ever after.’
    She lit another cigarette, looked up at Zac who was watching her expectantly, waiting for her to go on. She shrugged. ‘Things didn’t turn out so well for him. It wasn’t his fault, there were… circumstances.’
    ‘Oh. What circumstances?’
    ‘It’s a long story.’
    Zac went back to chopping; he didn’t press the point, he never did. Which suited her perfectly. Never one for analysing the past, she’d always found it less painful to let things slip away. She knew that this was cowardice. It was her way of not facing up to things, her way of shirking responsibility. Most people did, in some way, she supposed: Jen ran away, Dan made up stories and rewrote history.
    Not Andrew, though. It still amazed Lilah, all these years on, that there was never a moment when Andrew had hidden from what had happened. If it had been her, behind the wheel, there is no way in hell that she could have gone to the funeral. But it never crossed Andrew’s mind not to go. Lilah was terrified that there might be a scene – she had melodramatic visions of Conor’s mother flinging herself at Andrew, calling him a killer. Andrew said that if he was asked to leave, he would. But of course no one did ask him to leave. When they arrived at the church, Conor’s mum was standing outside and she’d greeted them like friends, kissing them and telling them how much her son had loved them both. She asked them to sit with her, at the front of the chapel. Lilah could remember walking up the aisle, holding Andrew’s hand, stupidly, drunkenly (because she’d already started, that morning, in the bathroom), wondering if they’d ever take that walk in the opposite direction, with her in white not black. She remembered looking for Natalie before realising that of course she wouldn’t be there because she was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, possibly crippled, possibly brain damaged. She’d stumbled halfway up, and Andrew had caught her arm. She’d turned towards him but he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes were fixed ahead of them. He’d told her not to wear such high heels, they weren’t practical.
    Zac had stopped chopping again and he was looking at her, a small smile on his lips.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing. You just look pretty today, sitting there on your stump, lost in your thoughts.’ She laughed, shaking her head. ‘I think he must have been bonkers,’ he said.
    ‘Who’s bonkers?’
    ‘Andrew. Leaving you for Natalie. I mean, I’m sure she’s a nice girl and everything, bit high strung for my tastes, lovely eyes, I must say, but… compared to you? Absolutely bonkers.’
    Lilah got to her feet, went over to him and kissed him on the mouth. ‘You are lovely, my darling, but you don’t know the half of it.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    She turned away from him, looked down at the house, picture-postcard pretty blanketed in snow, smoke curling from the chimneys. ‘It’s all much more complicated than you think. These things always are. I was hurt, obviously, I was very hurt by everything that happened, but with hindsight, with the wisdom that my advanced years have afforded me, it all makes sense to me that he would fall in love with her.’
    Zac shook his head. ‘I don’t know how you can say that.’
    ‘I was hard to love, Zac. Sometimes, I was very hard to love.’
    He put the axe down and took her hand. ‘You could never be hard to love.’
    Lilah laughed out loud. ‘Oh, you know that’s bullshit!’ she said.
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ he said crossly, ‘you are
not
hard to love.’
    ‘Oh, darling,’ she purred, ‘you are so sweet,’ and she gave him a shy smile, looking up from beneath lowered lashes. She could almost see him melt.
    They walked back down the hill, carrying a basket of wood each. As they passed the barn, they noticed Dan, sitting on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed. He seemed to be doing some sort of yogic breathing.
    ‘Ommmm,’ Zac said, and Lilah giggled.
    Inside the house, Jen had put some music on, something folksy and gentle. She was talking to Andrew, animated: they were laughing, she watched him reach out and place his hand on her belly. Her big brother, that’s what he used to call himself. The sight of them together made Lilah feel happy and bereft all at once;