Page 34 of I Know How This Ends

“Right.” Winnie gets close, lets go and puts her hand tentatively on the tree trunk. “Um. How do I do this?”

I bend down next to her. “I think you just say whatever you want.”

“OK.” She takes a deep breath. “I miss you, Mummy, even though I don’t remember you because I was a baby when you went. I

have all your photos, though, and you were so pretty. We don’t talk about you very much because it makes Daddy sad, but I

want you to know that my favorite color is purple too.”

My eyes suddenly go all wet and misty: this answers that question.

“So... that’s all I have to say.” She coughs lightly. “Oh! And Granny has a puppy and it peed on my bed. But it’s OK. I’m

not mad anymore. We washed my pajamas. They have dinosaurs on them.”

She glances at me and I nod sagely: important information to impart.

“And maybe I’ll come back?” She’s cautious, clearly feeling guilty. “One time? If Margot brings me?”

I dip my head in acknowledgment, unable to speak.

“Then that’s it for now.” Winter puts her hand back in mine and uses the other to pat the tree. “Bye, Mummy. Sleep well.”

Quietly, we walk away.

But something in me feels changed, has shifted, like the opening of a flower.

“I ’ m sorry!” Henry rattles through the door at nearly midnight. “Sorry, sorry!”

“Sssshhh.” I flap my hands. “She’s asleep. I bored her into unconsciousness by reciting every type of cloud I could think

of.”

He puts his arms around me. “Show me your magical ways.”

“Lenticular,” I murmur as he kisses my neck. “Altostratus. Stratocumulus. Altocumulus. Nimbostratus. Mammatus...”

“A whole new type of sheep,” Henry says, kissing my mouth. “I’m into it.”

“Good.” I kiss him back. “Because that’s how I plan on boring you into obedience too.”

“I am ready to do whatever you tell me.” He laughs, then pulls back. “Margot, I realized what I did while I was on the train

home. I’m such an idiot. Is Winnie OK?”

I lift my eyebrows. “She tried to run away, actually.”

“Of course she did.” He sighs. “If it helps, she does that when I won’t let her stay up late to watch cartoons, so don’t take

it too personally.”

“I didn’t.” I laugh. “I like her a lot. You have a very sweet, very precocious and clever child on your hands.”

“Ha.” Henry physically expands, as if I’ve just blown air into the top of his head. “I really do, don’t I?”

“Yes. You should be proud.”

“Honestly,” he shrugs, “I think she just turned up like this, fully formed. I’m not sure how much of it I can take credit

for. God, that shift was a nightmare. It was just me, and suddenly everyone wanted lasagna.”

Henry sits with a plonk on the sofa and rubs his eyes.

“Henry...” I say slowly, trying to find the words. “Do you realize that...”

Winter knows exactly where you put her mum’s ashes and she really needs you to take her there sometimes, so she can connect

to her.

Not now. I’ll bring it up at some point in the future: he’s way too shattered to be discussing the delicate topic of his complicated

grief process now.

I pause and he looks up. “Do I realize that...?”

“This is our third official date.” I smile at him warmly. “And I had a lovely time, thank you. It turns out you don’t actually

need to be there for it at all, which is handy to know.”

He laughs loudly and I widen my eyes and look pointedly at Winter’s bedroom.

“Sorry.” Henry puts his hand over his mouth. “You’re right. This is only our third official date and I ran off and left you

with my verbose little daughter. On a scale of all the dates you’ve ever been on, how bad was this one? Give me the truth,

I can handle it.”

With a wave of affection, I stand in front of him. “Oooh, bad.”

“Really bad?”

“So, so bad.” I gesture downward. “I wore a brand-new dress and you have barely commented on how lovely I look, which makes you very, very impolite and no gentleman, sir. You haven’t even noticed that I

swish .”

To demonstrate, I swing side to side and rotate slightly so that my skirts spread out.

“Wow.” He widens his eyes. “You really do.”

“It’s wasted on you.”

“Not wasted. Never wasted. Wait—can you do a full circle?”

“I believe I can.” I grin and turn slowly, like a rotisserie chicken. “Yup, look at me go.”

“Blimey.” Henry leans forward and grabs my hand. “I have never, and I say this with all sincerity, seen a swish that impressive. You did not tell me that you swish professionally. Nay, at an Olympic level.”

There it is: nay can go with alas and woe is me . I think we know why Winter is Winter, and she didn’t just turn up “fully formed” at all.

“I know, right?” I grin. “I am quite the catch.”

He pulls me onto the sofa and kisses me firmly, hands on either side of my face, and I feel my insides go gooey like marshmallows

held over a flame. The way he’s holding me is like he’s found something infinitely precious in a charity shop and can’t risk

letting it go in case someone else picks it up and takes it away from him.

“Good thing I caught you, then.” Henry smiles into my face and flexes a hand in front of me.

I see his large, tanned hand, the hand in my very first vision, and realize it is already so incredibly dear to me.

“Told you I was good with my hands. Would you like to stay the night, or have you had enough of this family for one day?”

I look around the lovely flat, with its gray walls and its photos and its warmth and its beautiful, big-hearted occupants,

one now snoring sweetly into her purple pillow.

I have not had enough. I’m not sure I ever will.

“I’ll stay,” I reply as calmness spreads through me. “But if you make me clean the oven in the morning, you’ll be bloody paying

me overtime.”

“Deal.” Henry laughs. “Best cleaner I ever didn’t employ.”

I slip out in the morning before Winter wakes up.

While my budding friendship with her is going better than I’d hoped, I don’t want to push it. Or, frankly, explain to a six-year-old

why I’m still wearing the same clothes and my hair looks like I’ve been caught in a tornado and whipped around like spaghetti.

“Good luck,” Henry says while he’s collating Winter’s school packed lunch (more leftover lasagna). “Not that you’ll need it.”

I stare at him. “Good luck for what?”

“The interview.” He lifts his eyebrows in exasperation: no wonder Future Margot’s constant questions about where we are and

what we’re doing don’t throw him. I’ve clearly never been the sharpest tool in the woodshed. “You know, the one you kept interrupting

sex to tell me about, which was highly erotic. Just before you popped in that blindingly attractive mouth guard.”

“Oh!” Oops. “Yes. I’m quite the seductress.”

“Very much so.” Henry smiles and bops me on the nose with his finger, which I find bizarrely validating coming from him. “Just

go and blow them all away with your amazingness, Meg.”

“Like a hurricane.”

“Exactly.” Henry laughs and kisses me. “The sexiest hurricane I have ever seen.”

Except, just like a hurricane, by the time I reach home I’m coated in a thin layer of water. The motion of the train has made

me feel nauseous, my underarms are drenched, the back of my neck is running with sweat and it even feels like my toes are

soggy, which is inexplicable but true nonetheless. I’m boiling and also shivering all over. With inconceivable effort, I manage

to get into my house after three attempts of smashing my key against the lock and then try my hardest to make it to my bedroom.

It suddenly feels a billion miles away and moving further off with every step, like some kind of mirage.

Giving up—too hard—I lie down on the sofa with a pillow over my face.

Far away, I hear my phone beep.

Beep again.

Too far.

I close my eyes and promptly pass out.

“Margot?” The doorbell rings. “Meg? Are you in there?”

Blearily, I try to lift my head.

It’s dark and I let out a small squeak: it feels like I’ve been dipped in a vat of acid and now my entire body is disintegrating,

organ by organ.

How long have I been home? A while. Hours or days? I’m still wearing my red dress, no longer either swishy or puffy. I can

faintly remember getting up to pee and instead vomiting before lying on the bathroom floor for a nice long while with my face

pressed against the tiles.

“Mmmmm,” I groan, trying to get up three times and failing.

“Open the door, Margot. Come on. You can do it.”

I finally manage to roll onto the floor and lift myself up by holding on to the coffee table. Desperately, I aim for the front door and realize I have never tried this hard at anything in my entire life.

Shivering, I finally manage to heave it open, already out of breath.

Henry takes one look at me, grabs a navy coat off the hook by the door and wraps me up in it. I don’t have the energy to ask

questions like how is he here? What day is it? Did I even give him my address? None of this makes sense. Honestly, I don’t

really give a crap at this point: I might actually be dying.

“Shit,” he says, holding a hand against my forehead. “You’re burning up.”

I nod weakly: yes, I do appear to be on fire.

“Right.” He picks me up. “You’re coming with me.”