Elise wrote nothing for long enough and Janet was beginning to get impatient. ‘How about we send it from all of us?’ Janet said.
Elise shook her head. She finally put pen to paper. ‘It’s not right.’ She showed Janet.
I am so very sorry. Olivia was the best, most brilliant, loving and caring friend I ever had. I will miss her so much. And I am thinking of you all.
‘It’s fine, it’s lovely. Come on.’
There were several cars on the road outside the house. More family, Janet assumed, come together in support. Janet pulled in across the driveway entrance.
‘Don’t knock, just post it,’ Janet said. ‘They’ll have all sorts going on right now.’
Elise nodded. She got out of the car, leaving the door ajar, and ran up to the porch. At that moment the front door opened, Ken appeared, showing some visitors out. A couple, the man looked like Ken. His brother perhaps?
Elise stood to one side. The pair left.
‘Elise,’ Ken said. He was white, drained.
‘I just brought this.’ Janet could hear Elise. Then she heard Vivien call from inside. ‘Ken?’ Then louder, ‘Ken? Is that Elise?’
Vivien came to the door. Janet got out of the car, ready to explain they were passing, when Vivien said to Elise, ‘How dare you!’
Elise recoiled as if she’d been slapped. ‘How dare you come to my house when you gave her… you. After what you’ve done.’
Ken was talking, trying to restrain his wife. ‘Vivien, don’t. Just leave her, let’s go in.’ But Vivien was frantic with distress. ‘She wouldn’t have been there if-’
‘Elise.’ Janet reached her, took her arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ Elise, her face bright red, said to Vivien.
‘You stupid little fool,’ Vivien cried.
‘That’s enough,’ Janet said, ‘it wasn’t Elise’s fault. It was nobody’s fault.’
‘Rubbish! If it hadn’t been for your bloody daughter, Olivia would still be here!’
Other people, alerted by the noise, appeared behind Vivien and Ken in the hall. Ken took Vivien’s shoulder, she thrust his hand away angrily.
Janet was trembling with adrenaline, anger bubbling inside but, determined to defuse rather than inflate the situation, she spoke slowly, emphatically. ‘What happened was an awful, awful tragedy. It was an accident. It could’ve been Elise who died, or anyone else at the party. The girls were there together, they thought the world of each other. You know that.’
Vivien shook her head violently, not wanting to hear what Janet was saying. ‘I’ve lost my child. You have no idea what I’m going through.’
The tiny body, unnaturally still, blue lips, their first baby, Joshua. That raw terror, the endless black grief. Janet said nothing. This wasn’t a competition. She just needed Vivien to stop persecuting Elise. To see how wrong she was. ‘No one forced Olivia to go there, to take what she did. That’s the awful thing about an accidental death, there is no one to blame.’