‘I understand why you didn’t, but I can’t tell you how much I appreciate finally knowing. Dare I ask what happened to Trent?’
‘He’d already failed his A levels, lost his university place and had no direction. Noah’s death tipped him over the edge. He lost the plot for a while, getting steadily more dependent on drink and drugs. He stole money from Mum and Dad to fund his habit. They stopped having money in the house so he began stealing from me and our grandparents. That was the last straw and they asked him to leave. They didn’t want to but they hoped it would shock him into getting his life back together.’
‘Did it?’
She shook her head. ‘He couch surfed for a while but, after another friend was rushed to hospital from an overdose, which he survived, he finally woke up and questioned what the heck he was doing with his life. He turned up at The Byre begging for Mum and Dad’s support to get things back on track. He’s since been through rehab and is now training as a counsellor specialising in addiction.’
‘Sounds like he’s really turned his life around.’
‘Took a while, but he got there eventually. I told him it was time you had the full story and he wanted to come with me and tell you himself, but I thought it might be a bit much. If you do want to hear it from him, I can arrange it.’
I thought for a moment. ‘Is he sorry?’
‘Oh, my God! Yes! He often says that he did some really bad stuff in his addiction years but his number one regret has always been getting Noah involved. If he could go back in time and change only one thing, that would be it.’
‘That’s good enough for me. It might be helpful for Trent to talk to me but, to be brutally honest, I don’t think it’ll benefit me. I’ve finally got some answers and it’s time for me to let it go. Can you tell him I accept his apology and I don’t blame him so he shouldn’t blame himself? Tell him to channel that energy into his studies and supporting others in need.’
‘Will do. It’s such a weight lifted. I hate keeping secrets.’ Jessie smiled at me as she wiped away the remnants of her tears. ‘Thanks for being so understanding. Flynn said you would be.’
‘Flynn?’
‘He came to see me yesterday. Didn’t he say?’
‘No.’
Our conversation in the cellar swirled round my mind.Do you still want to know the truth?Flynn had asked, and I’d replied,Yes! Even though there’s nothing I can do about it now, I still want to know who Noah’s new friends were and who gave him the drugs. It wouldn’t answer all my questions but it’d be something and it might help me find a way to shift the blame from me to them and to forgive myself.
Finding out the truth had helped me to shift the blame but not to where I’d expected.
‘Wait a minute! How did Flynn know about Trent?’
‘He found Noah’s phone when he was moving house. There were photos and messages on it and he pieced it together. I don’t know whether he confronted Mum and Dad with it at the time. They never said anything to me if he did. I suspect he didn’t. They’d kicked Trent out by that point and I can’t imagine Flynn would have wanted to add to the trauma they were already going through. He’s too nice to do that.’
Yes, he was. What a gift he’d just given me. I’d told him I still wanted to know the truth and he’d made that happen. Since returning to Willowdale, I’d taken many steps forward in my journey to heal, and a few steps back too, but in the space of two days, Flynn had helped me take two enormous leaps forward. I’d never admitted out loud that I blamed myself and doing so in the cellar had allowed me to finally release my pent-up grief and now the confession he’d asked Jessie to make meant I finally knew what had happened and had accepted that Flynn was right about me not blaming myself.
There were a couple more steps I needed to take. The first was to let my family in. That was long overdue and didn’t scare me. They’d understand. The second step was another leap and it terrified me but, if I didn’t go for it, I’d never forgive myself and I knew the dark places blaming myself could take me. I couldn’t do that again.
41
Even though it was barbeque weather on Sunday, we’d decided on a traditional roast at Derwent Rise. The combination of my outburst in the cellar on Thursday and hearing the truth from Jessie yesterday had helped me move forward more than I’d ever hoped possible and it definitely felt the right time to let my family in.
Trying to explain the past seven years to seven adults at the same time would have been pretty much impossible, especially with the distractions of a baby and a two-year-old. I’d therefore messaged Dad, Georgia and Mark last night to ask if the four of us could talk after the others left. I sent a further request to Georgia and Mark not to mention anything about me being trapped in the cellar as a lot of what I wanted to say to them privately was connected to that.
‘Did Flynn say anything to you when you dropped him home?’ I asked Georgia while we were chopping vegetables in Dad’s kitchen.
‘All I know is that your builder let you down, he was asked to take on the project instead, you got locked in the cellar and you found a wine stash.’
It didn’t surprise me that Flynn had left it there. He’d always been the soul of discretion and would have seen it as my story to tell Georgia – not his.
We had a lovely lunch together and, when Regan, Clarke, Keira, Johnnie and the kids left, Georgia made a round of drinks and we settled in the lounge.
‘I’ve got so much I want to explain,’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about how to tell you this and I don’t think there’s a logical way so I thought I’d start with Mum’s funeral. I don’t know if any of you noticed but I didn’t cry at the funeral, before or after and it wasn’t because I wasn’t upset. It was because I couldn’t cry. The last time I’d had a proper cry was the day Noah died…’
I talked about the bottle of emotions steadily filling and pushing for a way out and how it took being locked in the cellar with Flynn to finally release them. I explained the desperate need to find someone to blame for Noah’s death because I hadn’t wanted to accept that I was to blame – something exacerbated by a young Jessie’s suggestion that I’d made my son feel invisible. I told them what I’d only just admitted to myself this weekend – how I’d pushed Flynn away before he could do it to me when he realised what a terrible mother I’d been for being so involved in my work that I hadn’t noticed my son’s life spiralling out of control.
‘I know now that it was the wrong thing to do,’ I said, ‘but my head was such a mess back then. I couldn’t think straight about anything. Moving out wasn’t enough, dissolving the business and getting divorced wasn’t enough. Everywhere I went, I had memories of Noah and Flynn and they taunted me so I needed to be somewhere I didn’t have memories and that’s why I left.’
‘And why you hardly ever came back,’ Dad said.
