Filling In

Trigger warning: Death of a child

Ruth considered how to phrase the question before she arrived. It was a strange request and she wanted to make sure she didn’t stumble. She wondered if Theresa had ever heard one like it before. It came out carefully, as she’d rehearsed it after copying, deleting and moving phrases around on her laptop.

The decor wasn’t what she expected. Sterile and simple, like an operating theatre crossed with a sauna. Bare white walls, leather chairs surrounding a small round table with a box of tissues. She expected excess; candles, tapestries, the smell of incense.

Theresa nodded. She wasn’t what Ruth expected either. She wore a tight black boatneck top and soft black leggings, like a chic yoga mum. Copper hair straight to her shoulders, the brightest colour in the room. Perfect pale skin, makeup so artfully applied it didn’t seem like she was wearing any, only lush black eyelashes, an army of spiders curving up toward her brows.

‘Do you have the object?’ Theresa asked.

Ruth pulled the toy out of her handbag. Roger Rabbit, named because of the alliteration and because it sounded better than Robert Rabbit. Floppy ears and grey fur matted slightly around the middle.

Theresa took it from her and wrapped her arms around it. ‘Oh, wow, very full.’ She closed her eyes.

Ruth twisted in her chair, making a slight squeaking sound. Theresa didn’t move at all. Ruth stopped herself from asking if everything was okay, if it was working.

Theresa opened her eyes. ‘Right. I do see something. A university, an older one, courtyards and stone buildings. Bicycles.’ Maybe Cambridge. Johnny would have been thrilled.

‘Is she there?’

‘Yes. Beautiful, sweet, but very serious. Driven, wants to prove herself.’

‘And… anyone else?’

‘He has dark hair, almost black. Sporty, a lot of energy, can’t sit still.’

‘That doesn’t sound like Ellie,’ Ruth said.

‘No.’ Theresa had her hand on Roger’s side, neat, shiny fingernails visible through the fur. ‘He’s called James. Something to do with Scotland.’

‘He’s Scottish?’

Theresa shook her head. ‘Maybe.’

She paid Theresa with the debit card because Johnny studied the credit card bill line by line but not the bank statements. The exchange felt sordid, like buying an illegal substance in an alleyway even though Ruth had never bought anything illegal, alleyway or anywhere else. She paused at the doorway, readying a story should she see anyone she knew.

When Ruth got home, she went on the internet, each search more unhinged. James was a common name. Scotland was brimming with Jameses. She did some maths. What years would Ellie be at university? Allowing for a gap year, an age difference of three or four years either way. She had no idea where to go next. Cul de sacs and dead ends. She stopped searching for possible Jameses and looked for facilities, success rates and added up potential costs. Just to get an idea. Nothing could be done now anyway. James was too young. She checked that too. There were lists of Guardian articles, legal milestones, stories of people who’d done it or who’d considered it. But no story exactly like hers.

She typed another phrase on an unnamed word document. Cut and pasted it, read it under her breath. But it wasn’t the words, it was choosing the right time to tell Johnny her plan.

She needed to cook dinner but couldn’t think of what to make. Something requiring no effort. Will once inhaled chili but now he refused to eat it, saying he never liked it. Was his about-face a normal childhood quirk or a way to remind his parents that he was here?

The therapist they went to, Lottie, who looked at her with no expression, asking about quality time, told her the family needed to talk through the grieving process. Like it was a formula. First this comes, then that follows. No, those stages of grieving came all at once, in the biscuit aisle of the supermarket, late at night trying to sleep, when Will referenced Ellie like she was still here. We should go to soft play. Ellie likes the ball pit. See if Twix is at the stables for Ellie to ride. Ruth trying frantically to put a smile on top of her scream.

She was in action mode this week, writing the speech for the charity lunch, arranging to volunteer at the hospital where Ellie stayed, caging her life with schedules. Better than mornings where she was so spent she couldn’t get out of bed, angry at Will for hovering in the doorway in his Bluey pyjamas, his needs, small and large, impossible to meet.

She didn’t tell Johnny about Theresa. Instead, she had lunch with Lisa, her least judgemental friend.

‘How are you?’ Lisa asked after the waiter brought their food. Ruth bristled whenever anyone asked how she was. How was she supposed to respond? Miserable actually, totally broken. And how are you? She knew people meant well, they cared and it was awkward to think of what to say to her now. But it still irritated her, like a tiny pebble in her shoe.

‘Oh, well... not too bad.’ Ruth made the effort to put salad in her mouth. It smelt of lime and earth, a tangy kick of scallions or chives. It was promising that she could sense its spice. Most food still tasted of cardboard.

‘I went to a medium last week,’ Ruth said.

‘A medium?’

‘A psychic. Someone who can tell you the future, communicate with those who have passed.’

Lisa looked horrified. ‘Oh, Ruth, no.’

‘No, I didn’t ask to talk to her. But I wanted to know…’ How to articulate what she wanted to say to Lisa. She didn’t have children, her mom and dad were still alive. She’d had a few toxic relationships but she never had to mend her heart every morning, Emptiness and exhaustion too powerful to fight. Think what you want about Theresa’s line of work, she understood. Ruth’s brain finally formed the words to deploy. ‘What her life would have been like.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We froze her eggs in case the treatment damaged her ovaries. If she’d… grown-up, she could have had a family. Used a surrogate or something. We still have the eggs.’

Ruth watched as Lisa attempted to tie the threads. ‘I try, but I can’t stop imagining her future. I mean, I have to imagine it because she can’t have it.’ This rushed out quickly to get beyond the catch in her throat. ‘I wanted to know who she might have met, if she would have married, had children.’

‘What did this medium tell you?’

‘She talked about a boy. At university.’ Ruth stopped talking. She couldn’t share the rest. Lisa could fill in what she wanted to.

Lisa smiled. ‘Ellie was such a great kid.’

Ruth felt the slime rise up and fill her nostrils, water getting thinner behind her eyes. She nodded as an unchecked tear plopped onto her plate. ‘She was.’

Later, as she started toward sleep, she held on to the idea of moving past this devastation. Everyone told her it would happen eventually. No. She would spend the rest of her life noticing the missing milestones, starting primary school, a holiday at Disneyland, her first crush. The framed pictures of Ellie would stay the same while Will’s would change under glass from boy to man. Little pieces of her in a laboratory. Was it so wrong to grab onto that little bit of her future. It was real, it was made up. It was something.

Will woke up with his cheek pressed on the windowpane making his left side of his face flat and numb. The car trudged up Parker Street, caught behind a bus.

‘Nearly there,’ Dad said, looking for a way around the bus, but none to be found on these narrow roads.

‘Sorry, I fell asleep.’

‘No problem.’

‘We’ll have to go around again if the gate’s not open. Park somewhere else.’

‘It’ll be open.’ A tired grey January, but it wasn’t September, where cement filled his stomach as Dad made the turn on Emmanuel Street. The college made a mistake. They would soon figure it out and he would have to go home, humiliated, to plan another future. But he’d survived the first term. He could easily fall asleep in the narrow bed now, his sheets weren’t scratchy anymore. He knew the shortest route to his Director of Studies’ office, that the Junior Common Room would have coffee if he forgot to buy any, not to go to the Fountain even though it was the closest pub to college.

The gate was open. Quicker now to unload the car but it annoyed him that Dad was right. He parked near the chapel and Will rushed out to open the boot. There wasn’t much, just stuff Mum thought he needed. He could have taken the train but Dad loved coming back here, repeating stories in the car about when he was at Caius, a NatSci living at Harvey Court. He slung the last bag over his shoulder when a flash of black puffer jacket appeared on his left.

‘Will!’

‘Hey, when did you get back?’

‘Monday just after New Year. Training.’

Even his hair seemed to be moving. It was slightly messy, not the intentional kind of messy, pulled and pushed and sprayed into shape. The straight black strands just fell wherever. Untucked shirt and tracksuit bottoms, a laundered cotton and brine smell, liked he ran by the river or came straight from rowing.

‘They’ve moved me on to your staircase this term.’ he turned to Dad. ‘I was on V staircase before. The entrance smelled like burning… fur or something. We couldn’t get rid of it.’

‘That does not sound good. Or it does not smell good.’ Dad said. Will was still drowsy, so following the conversation required real effort.

He extended his arm. ‘Hi I’m James. First year, history and politics. How was the drive? I trained it down from Edinburgh, slept most of the way, even though I was trying to read…’

James babbled like an auctioneer most of the time. But he’d toned it down for Dad and Will retained the gratitude you have when you make a friend in a scary place. ‘Accept every invitation in the first week,’ Mum told him before he left. ‘You’ll meet people, find your friends.’ She worried about him being too solitary. Her worry seeped into Will like steady rain into a dry summer garden. Something about him, maybe his youth or his baffled resting face, invited spontaneous advice and random directives.

He’d met James on the walk over to his first lecture. By the time they got to the History Faculty, Will knew he had two older brothers, had gone to Fettes as a day pupil and was on the college rowing team. He did indoor rowing at school and was used to cold early mornings, but not actual water.

The reciprocal questions. Where was he from? Was he the oldest, middle or youngest? Will had learned to live with his ghost but it still shook him if someone new asked if he had any siblings. If he told people he was an only child, a sharp sting in his throat, the betrayal to her and to his parents. If he thought someone was going to become more than a passing acquaintance, he’d tell the truth. I had a younger sister but she died when I was six.

Sometimes Will could feel Ellie so deeply like she’d sunk into his marrow, other times he could go weeks without remembering her. She would be starting sixth form this year. Calculating her age was easy but anything else, her appearance, her interests, was like writing the ending to the mystery novel Charles Dickens was working on when he died. You could fill in the rest, but you’d never be sure you got it right.

‘Should we grab lunch at the Loch Fyne before I head back?’ Dad asked.

‘He means the Little Rose,’ Will said to James.

‘The Loch Fyne’s gone? I used to make my parents take me there when they visited. Ah, well. At least I can still go to Heffer's. James, are you able to join us?’

‘That’s very kind of you, Mr. Chase. I’d love to. I can change if you like.’

‘That’s not necessary, we’ll find a place near Market Square.’

Will shut the boot and heard James laughing at one of Dad’s jokes. Their whole exchange annoyed him. He wanted to finish his nap, unpack, get ready for term, pin his lecture list on the cork board.

Mum would adore James. ‘Such lovely manners,’ she’d coo. He’d help with the washing up after dinner, make charming remarks. He should bring James home for a weekend, maybe at Easter.