The Life and Second Life of Charlie Brackwood (The Brackwood Series Book 2) (24 page)

The first to arrive were Russ and Erin. She handed Lucy a teal-coloured pot containing an array of tall bamboo shoots.

“The arrangement of bamboo can have different meanings,” Erin explained, “this one represents happiness.”

Our eyes met and I gave Lucy a playful wink, making sure the others didn’t see.

I handed Russ a beer while I poured a non-alcoholic beverage for myself.

“How is she?” Russ asked, after taking a sip of his ale.

“Better,” I said, “she’s getting there.”

He nodded and took another sip.

“Thanks, bud, I knew I could count on you. There aren’t that many folk I trust.”

“No worries.”

We leaned back against the kitchen counter and watched as Lucy and Erin chatted about feng shui.

“Erin seems like a nice lass,” I said.

“Yeah, I don’t know why we split up before. We’ve been apart so long but it still feels just like it used to. We picked up where we left off.”

I nodded as I glanced at Lucy.

“Yep, I hear ya.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded as I watched Lucy chatting happily.

When the doorbell rang again it was Lucy’s sister Emelia. We had never been that close but I had missed her bubbly personality and it was nice to see Lucy laugh and smile with her. When they disappeared into the kitchen in search of refreshments the doorbell rang again and I opened the door to reveal my parents. I fought to control my emotions, knowing this would be the last time I would see them. They called me Adam and politely told me they were happy to see me before enquiring about Lucy’s health. I told them she was in safe hands and my mother smiled at me.

“I don’t doubt it,” she said approvingly.

As the evening progressed the house began to fill with friends and family I’d not seen in a long time. None of them had any clue as to who I really was and it wasn’t long before I began to feel trapped. After a conversation with my grandma mainly consisted of me lying about every aspect of my life, I decided it was time to put some distance between us. I politely made my excuses to my thoroughly confused grandmother and headed for the garden where I collapsed on a wooden swing I had installed near the treehouse. It was made with Lucy in mind but I decided it was time I got some enjoyment out of my own craftsmanship.

I straightened my legs out in front of me and felt the swing begin to move. Before long the momentum was pulling me higher. My head dropped back and I looked up at the stars. I tried to memorise the sequence of them so I would know exactly what Lucy was seeing when she looked up at night. For some reason the thought brought me comfort.

I heard the glass door to the kitchen slide open and then close. I continued to swing, aiming for the stars I had just memorised.

“I thought that was mine.” Lucy’s voice came out of the darkness.

“Nah, I just told you that.”

She laughed as she approached.

“Everything OK out here?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

She appeared in front of me, arms outstretched. She grabbed the rope of the swing to steady it and then hopped on next to me. I had made the seat big enough for two.

“You sure about that?”

I scratched the stubble on my face and looked at the ground.

“It’s overwhelming to have all the people you’ve missed for so long in one room together.” I glanced at her apologetically. “Not that I’m ungrateful.”

“It’s understandable you would feel that way.”

“They don’t know me.”

“But they can get to know you again, just like I did.”

She put an arm around my shoulders and squeezed comfortingly. I watched her eyes glisten in the moonlight.

“This is a great opportunity, Charlie, a chance to spend some time with them before you have to leave again.” She thought for a moment. “I hate to share you, honestly I do, but I can’t let you go without giving you this chance. Call it a parting gift from me to you.”

I thought about her words for a long time. These people all knew me, deep down they knew who I was. I just had to remind them. Lucy was right. I’d been given a second life for a reason. I needed to take advantage of that.

I leaned closer and kissed her on the lips.

“And the world makes sense again,” I remarked as I leaped up and headed for the house.

“Go get ’em,” I heard Lucy call behind me.

Chapter Twenty-one

As the last guests left a sense of sadness drifted over me. I’d enjoyed every moment of my time with my friends and family and now that they were going I felt empty. Out of the blue, I remembered a conversation I’d had with Russ and began to feel uneasy. I had been meaning to ask him a question about something he had said the morning we found Lucy unconscious. I wanted to broach the subject in as casual a way as possible, so when he mentioned some medication he had been given for his back pain, it seemed like the perfect time to bring it up.

“Have you ever been given any other medication?” I asked as casually as I could muster.

“Pain medication?”

“I was thinking more antidepressants.”

“Happy pills?” His head tilted slightly as he thought for a moment. “Nah, they’re not my cup of tea. Why d’you ask?”

“When we found Lucy unconscious you recognised the name of the pills she had taken. You knew they were an antidepressant so I just assumed…” I let my voice trail off.

“No, I only recognised them because Erin takes the same sort.”

I nodded as his words sank in. He seemed to regret his admission and looked around nervously.

“Don’t tell her I told you that,” he whispered. “It’s just that she likes to come across as bubbly and confident but deep down she suffers from a bad case of anxiety. She was near enough a recluse at one point.”

“I didn’t know that,” I replied sympathetically.

“She’s good at disguising things.”

Before I could reply I felt a hand tap my shoulder. It was my parents, politely informing me that they were leaving. I said my goodbyes and hugged them tight, telling them to take care of one another. When I turned back round Russ had gone. His words still rang in my mind.

Erin takes the same sort.

My best friend had inadvertently given me a suspect. Was Erin genuinely friendly or was she hiding something?

“You look so serious.” Lucy’s voice snapped me back to reality and I realised I’d been staring intently at the front door. I felt her arms envelop me as she hugged me from behind.

“How well do you know Erin?” I asked.

She released me from her embrace and I turned to face her.

“We’re not best buds but I think I know her quite well. Why?” Lucy eyed me suspiciously.

“There’s something worrying me about her.”

“What?”

“The drugs they found in your system.”

“The antidepressants?”

“Yeah.”

“What about them?” Lucy laughed nervously.

“Erin takes the same medication. Same brand, same name, everything.”

“What does that prove?”

“I think she did it, I think she tried to kill you.”

“Charlie, it’s a popular drug. I bet most doctors prescribe it. It’s probably the cheapest one.”

“But you said you didn’t have any antidepressants… that you didn’t know where they came from.”

“I said I thought I’d thrown them away.”

“You
thought
you’d thrown them away? That doesn’t necessarily mean you did.”

“So what’re you saying… that Erin wants to kill me? Do you know how insane that sounds?”

“She has a motive. She’s the only one who has so far.”

“What are you on about?” Lucy was losing patience.

“Russ,” I explained. “You have his full attention, all he cares about is you. The way he checks on you constantly to see how you are… I saw how worried he was in that waiting room, the guy’s still head over heels for you.”

“Oh, come on!”

“Erin sees it, I see it. She wants you out of the picture.” I tried to keep my voice under control but it was getting louder with every word I spoke. “She knows she will always come second to you.”

“You’re crazy!” Lucy exclaimed before turning around and marching towards the kitchen. I followed her.

“Lucy, she is not your friend.”

“Erin’s done nothing wrong.” She wouldn’t look at me.

“Why won’t you listen to me?”

“OK, how did she get in then? Explain that. Bearing in mind that there is no sign of entry on the security footage.”

I thought for a moment as Lucy stared at me angrily.

“The door to the treehouse was open. You didn’t lock it after I left. Plus, Russ has a key,” I mumbled, half to myself.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Lucy exclaimed.

I grabbed my jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and headed for the front door.

“Where are you going?” Lucy called after me.

“To confront her, I can’t let this happen again.”

“Charlie, stop. Listen to yourself.” I heard Lucy’s footsteps follow me into the hall. “How can someone force that many pills down someone’s neck? How can they force them to swallow? Not only that, but I would’ve seen her and I have no memory of Erin being there.”

“She must’ve drugged you… chloroform or something. To knock you out.”

“No, she didn’t!”

“She must have,” I said as I opened the front door.

I was halfway out when Lucy pulled me back into the hallway.

“Please don’t do this.”

“Why?”

Lucy stared at me blankly for a few seconds.

“Why?” I asked again.

She looked away and I grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at me.

“Because it was me, OK?” she said quietly.

“What?” I asked, in a voice I didn’t recognise.

“I did it to myself.”

“What?” I said, more loudly, as I slammed the front door shut and moved towards her.

Lucy shrank back from me as though afraid of what I’d do next.

“Let’s talk in the living room.”

I followed her to the lounge. She sat on the sofa while I paced the room, neither of us wanting to be near the other.

“I’ll start from the beginning.” Lucy took a deep breath. “When Jamie had the accident Erin noticed I wasn’t quite myself. She told me she had some medication that had worked wonders for her. I told her I was fine but she insisted. I put the pills in the bathroom cabinet in the treehouse, away from prying eyes. Well, after a while I forgot about them. I didn’t think I needed them and so the packet went unopened.”

“Did you ever intend to take them?” I interrupted.

“Maybe… as a way out.”

I looked at the floor in silence while I attempted to control my rising anger.

“That day in the treehouse, the day I finally figured out who you are, it was an intense moment for me. I went from seeing you as a man I hardly knew to realising you were the man I should’ve married, the one I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.” Lucy laughed bitterly. “It was overwhelming to say the least.”

She turned to face me as she shuffled closer to where I was sitting.

“I was so happy that you’d returned to me. A part of me that had been dormant for so long was suddenly alive. I had something to look forward to, something to live for. But then I realised, after our conversation in the treehouse, that your return was only temporary.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw her hurriedly wipe tears from her cheeks.

“After you left that night I started to think about the things you’d revealed to me, the things you’d said about Gilly and the life you had with Timmy. I wanted to share that life. I realised that when you left me this time, I’d have no one. Not Adam, the quiet, caring man who was slowly becoming my friend… not you… not Jamie. Nobody.” Lucy clasped her hands together as she watched Snoop’s sleeping body on the rug in front of her. Her next words were so quiet I had to strain to hear them. “I have attempted suicide once before but I ended up in hospital and the doctors there saved me.”

“Why did you do that?” I asked angrily.

“I thought I could let you go but it was too hard. Jamie knew what I’d done. He was at the hospital, he treated me. I asked for his discretion. I was so embarrassed and didn’t want to cause my family any more concern, you know how my mother gets.” Her eyes pleaded for my understanding. “Anyway, he demanded marriage in return. I was so desperate I agreed to it. Like I said, I had no one.”

“You had Russ.”

“But I didn’t have you.”

I clenched my teeth. My anger at Lucy’s actions was already decreasing and I knew I couldn’t stay angry with her for long.

“I regret what I did. I wasn’t thinking straight. All I wanted was to be with you again. We’ve missed so much, so many years wasted.”

The room fell silent as her words hung in the air. I could see that she was watching me, trying to gauge my reaction.

“I told myself it wasn’t self-inflicted. I convinced myself it had to be an attempt on your life,” I told her, shaking my head in bewilderment.

“I’m sorry, Charlie. It really was a moment of madness.”

“It wasn’t just that.” I finally looked at her. “Do you even realise where you would’ve ended up?”

She remained silent.

“If you commit suicide, Lucy, your soul is automatically damned. You’d have spent eternity in the underworld. Without me, without Gilly, and without ever getting the chance to meet Timmy. I don’t know how you could be so stupid.”

“I’m sorry… I wasn’t thinking.”

I turned to her and seized her hands.

“You need to promise me that you won’t try anything like that again when I’m gone. I need to leave here feeling able to trust you.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Lucy said as fresh tears appeared in her eyes.

I hugged her to me roughly and held her there. As she sobbed into my shoulder I whispered to her that it would be worth the wait, if she could just hold on a while longer. After a time the sound of her sobs ceased and her breathing returned to normal.

We stayed that way for a long time and it was only when I realised that Lucy’s breathing had grown heavy that I carried her upstairs to the bedroom we had once shared.

That night a dream came to me in a haze of familiar colours and shapes. I was transported back to the afterlife and the treehouse I had built there to overcome my loneliness. Robert and I were in the middle of playing a game of tag with Timmy, his excited screams filling the air as he tried to get away. Suddenly, he raised an arm and pointed towards the door, where God now appeared, silent and absorbed in the scene before him.

“Charlie, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”

“All right,” I said as God drew closer. He placed an aged hand on my shoulder, his pale eyes trained on mine.

“It’s time, Charlie.”

“The mission is over?”

“Your mission is complete, Lucy is in no danger now.”

“But I don’t understand. I thought someone was trying to end her life.”

“They were. It was Lucy herself,” he said calmly. “I knew that if I brought you back you would explain to her the consequences of suicide.”

“So she will live a happy life from now on?”

“Very happy, I can assure you of that.”

“Is that it then, it’s over without our even saying goodbye?”

“No. You’re not quite done yet. There is still one thing you need to learn.”

“What?”

“You will find out.” He frowned. “But be warned, your remaining time here is short.”

His voice began to fade and his image turned transparent. I looked around me and realised that my surroundings were fading and seemed far away, out of reach. The last image I saw was of Timmy running towards me, screaming for me to stay with him.

Sunlight burned my eyes and I blinked. I looked up and saw Lucy’s face above me. A strand of her hair tickled my nose as she leaned in for a kiss.

“You were dreaming,” she said happily.

“I think I still am,” I joked.

“Such a cheesy line,” she replied as she stood up and disappeared into the bathroom.

We ate breakfast together in the kitchen at the large oak table while sun streamed in through the windows. A ray of light cast a colourful rainbow of colours as it hit a decorative crystal hanging in the window. Lucy had received it as a birthday gift from Erin in the year before my death. Red and green spots of light danced in Lucy’s hair as she went about her usual routine.

Silently, I watched her. As always, she drank her coffee before her orange juice and allowed her toast to go cold before she applied the butter and marmalade. She tested one small corner of her toast before deciding whether it was the correct temperature for the butter. Next she took her vitamins: iron, calcium and vitamin C, always those particular supplements and always in that order. Pre-empting her next move, I retrieved the newspaper from the letterbox and laid it out in front of her. She grinned up at me and I kissed her forehead.

She took a sip of the coffee and made a face. “The coffee is bitter this morning,” she said, before returning her attention to me. “What are your plans for today?”

“I was hoping to catch up with Russ, maybe see if he wants to go fishing.”