Nothing I Wouldn't Do by Sara-Ella Ozbek

Author:Sara-Ella Ozbek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2021-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I crouched down on the tiny ledge of the penis bakery, with my head hanging between my knees and a cigarette burning down between two fingers. The position of helplessness was killing me. I wanted to grab onto someone – anyone – shake them and scream, Just let me fix this!

‘What am I going to do?’ I mumbled at my crotch.

‘Jax, I think it’s time to tell Clara what’s going on,’ said Ned softly.

The thought of delivering the news to Clara down the phone was cryogenically freezing my blood cells. But it was too late for me to descend on Yeotown and cradle her in my arms. She would be preparing to leave for the airport, fresh, flushed and full of eagerness. What if she was taking one last walk by the ravine and tripped over from the shock of the news, cracking her head open and tumbling in to drown? Yes, I was catastrophizing, but with good reason. The situation was, by definition, a catastrophe. And one that I had whipped up, no less.

‘I need to call Alice,’ I said, like a charged felon grasping for one last opportunity for legal support. ‘I can’t tell Clara while she’s all alone.’

‘Are you ever going to tell her?’ Ned asked uncertainly.

It was a good question. When the moment came, would I be able to? I pressed my lips around the end of the cigarette and inhaled forcefully, thinking about the 5,000 cells in my body that were being killed off by that one drag (thanks to Dymfy for that delightful fact). I looked down at the screen of my phone and the two grinning eight-year-olds trapped behind that shield of glass. I wished that I could smash it open, dive in to scoop them up and nurture them as children should be nurtured. I wanted to climb into the bathtub to tell eight-year-old Clara that she was full of capacity to look after herself and tell my eight-year-old self that I was as loveable as anyone else. That I was enough.

But it was too late for any of that, so instead, I dialled Alice, hoping to God that she had a plan that resembled a solution. She answered with a brief, ‘Tell me.’ Alice tended to open conversations with a command.

Suddenly, Ned closed his hand around my wrist. It was the first physical contact we’d had since the night before and the memory of the same hand cupping my shoulder surfaced for a brief second. Then I realized that he was alerting me to the front door opening behind us. Patrick emerged, dressed in linen trousers with a matching shirt.

‘I’ll call you back,’ I muttered into the phone and hung up. I looked up at Patrick, hopeful and pleading.

‘Let’s go talk to young Ed.’

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