Читать книгу: «The Day I Lost You: A heartfelt, emotion-packed, twist-filled read», страница 2
2. Anna
Raw Honey Blogspot 02/09/2013
I love to sing! Anyone who knows me knows it; whether I’m white-wired into my phone on a Tube full of strangers looking at me oddly, or doing my thing from the back row of the choir. I’m the one in the karaoke bar who doesn’t need to look at a screen to know the words. I’m the one driving along singing at the top of my voice to the radio. I still use the hairbrush as a mic in the mirror. I know. Sad, but true.
My darling daughter (DD) has definitely inherited this need to sing from me. That and long legs. She’s just exhausted me for the last forty minutes; insisting on wearing every hat in my collection (over forty last count) while she sashayed around my bedroom on those legs, singing to Katy Perry’s ‘Roar’. We did the chorus together and she does a good tiger roar, DD; seems to ‘get’ the story of the song; seems to want to tell the world that even at four years old, she’s not going to take any shit from anyone. I love that in her.
Afterwards, we have quiet time. Ten minutes with her in her bed and a book of her choice, where I read fairy tales with hopelessly happy endings that I dare to believe in too. And when she wraps those tiny arms around my neck and whispers ‘Goodnight, Mummy,’ my heart melts.
Mama is right. There’s nothing quite like it. That love that you get from a child; where they look to you for everything, to fill their every need. It’s brilliant. It fills me up. Her laugh, her smile, her giggle, her sunny nature. I am quite biased but she’s quite perfect.
And she’s like her dad: that enquiring mind, those inquisitive eyes, though they’re the same colour as mine, they pucker at the edges just like his. Those eyes were the first thing I ever noticed about Him. That first look, that first day we were introduced, He seemed to stare right into me. I felt exposed, vulnerable. Then He smiled and let me know that whatever it was that He’d seen, there in my soul, that it was beautiful; that I was beautiful and that He could see it.
Comment: Crash-bambam
I’ve just had my first baby and know exactly what you mean about a mother’s love. There’s times I feel totally overwhelmed by it all!
Reply: Honey-girl
Just try to slow everything down and enjoy. It gets easier, I promise!
Comment: Idiotlove
Where’d you meet him, the soul-searcher guy? Know any more like him?! I’m such an idiot in love (note blog name) and have never, ever, felt a connection like that. That thing where you feel someone instantly knows you? You’re really lucky.
Reply: Honey-girl
We’re not together any more, but He was special …
3. Theo
Theo Pope could recall the exact moment he knew his marriage was over. It was the night that Leah had phoned him with the news that Anna and a friend of hers were missing after an avalanche and two people from the ski party had already been confirmed dead. Harriet, his wife of twelve years, had been beside him, folding linen. Shock had registered on her face and she had made the right noises at the news, sympathetic sounds for Jess and her family. The pillowcases were folded into four, their creases pressed down with her palm; all the while, one eye had lingered on her BlackBerry. Theo had thought it odd; remote and detached from the unfolding tragedy.
Johnny Mathis was singing about a child being born on the television. The Christmas tree lights that Theo had been fixing on his lap had fallen to the floor, some twinkling as expected, some stubbornly refusing. He had gone to Jess’s immediately, and when he got back after seeing her and her ex, Doug – both devastated beyond words, both readying to drive through the night to the tiny village in the Queyras area of the French Alps – he had heard Harriet on her phone. She was in the den at the back of the house, oblivious to the fact that he’d come home. He heard her whispered tone, her soft giggle. He imagined her on the other side of the door that he rested his forehead on. She would be sitting back, cross-legged, on the leather sofa. The phone would be in her left hand and she would be playing with her hair with her right; her forefinger rolling some strands of straight auburn hair, round and round itself.
He had opened the oak-panelled door that Harriet had insisted on having two years earlier – a refurbishment plan in their home that he now knew was papering over the cracks. He hadn’t gone in, just stood there under the lintel, and she had looked up, her face frozen.
‘Enough,’ he had said. ‘No more of this. Go. Go be with him. I’m tired of all the subterfuge.’
And she had. Two days later. Two weeks before Christmas. She had gone. To be with him.
Ten weeks later, with February pelting biblical rain against the surgery windows, he gathered the papers he had been reading from his desk and slid them into his briefcase. The first patient of the Saturday morning surgery was due any moment, and he just had time to sit in his desk chair when a knock sounded on the door.
‘Come in,’ he said.
Jess’s head peered around. ‘No, I’m not the scheduled Sarah Talbot. Sorry – I persuaded Sam in reception to let me in first. Perks of being an ex-employee. I’ll be quick, promise.’
He beckoned her in, stood and kissed both her cheeks.
‘You’re soaked,’ he said.
‘Just from the car to the building, it’s fine.’ She sighed aloud. ‘I won’t beat around the bush,’ she said. ‘I need more of those tablets you gave me when … you know. I can’t sleep. And please, don’t lecture me on how addictive they might be. I have bad dreams, Theo. The snow comes to get her and then the sea comes to get me and—’
‘Slow down. Sit down, Jess.’ He pointed to the chair next to his desk.
She sat. ‘I was going to say something yesterday but …’
He nodded as he pulled her records up on his screen. ‘Jess, I’ll give you a scrip for seven days. That’s it. Make an appointment, come in and see me properly. If you don’t want it to be me, see Jane instead?’
Jess nodded. ‘I will.’
Theo looked at his friend: her eyes dark and tired; her hair, which yesterday had been tamed into a thick ponytail, a mass of unkempt wet waves today. He remembered she had refused food. ‘Are you even eating?’ he asked.
‘When I feed Rose. I eat. Really.’ She pointed at her wrist. ‘Mrs Talbot’s waiting. You’ll be late for everyone this morning.’
‘Yeah, well you knew that would happen when you sneaked in.’ He printed the prescription and handed it to her. ‘Come over tonight. Rose is away so you won’t eat at all. Come and have some dinner. I forgot to tell you that I finally got some help at home – we have an au pair and she can cook! Her name is Bea.’ He grinned.
‘Be?’ she asked.
‘Bea, spelt B E A, short for Beatrice. Swedish. Blonde. Gorgeous.’
Jess frowned.
‘I’m kidding. She’s a Spanish brunette who makes a mean chicken casserole,’ he said.
‘Sorry.’ She folded the prescription and put it in her coat pocket. ‘I’m supposed to be at Leah’s. I bailed last night and Gus is determined to cook me a birthday meal.’ Her expression showed she’d rather miss it a second time. ‘I’m just not up for being nice to anyone. Not Leah and Gus, not you and Finn. The phone rings, I jump. I’m a wreck.’
As if on cue, Theo’s desk phone trilled.
‘That’ll be because Mrs Talbot’s getting irate.’ Jess leapt up. ‘I’d better go. Thanks, Theo.’
And then she was gone.
The rest of the morning was so busy, he scarcely had time to breathe. Though he only covered one in four Saturday morning surgeries, lately he had come to almost resent them, feeling that he should be doing fatherly things with his son at the weekend. Finn was probably glued to his laptop, when he should be doing something with him. Something fun. Instead, a morning filled with children and their typical school holiday colds had made his own sinuses tighten.
His eyes rested on the calendar on his desk. A present from Finn years ago, it was a wooden block where each date was displayed on a card. Above it, to the right, was a smaller card for the month and beside that, to the left, another card displaying the whole of the current year. He placed the correct date in the front. Saturday, 14 February 2015. A quick calculation told him it was ten weeks since his wife had left. Ten weeks since Anna went missing. Seventy days during which both he and Jess were beginning to learn how to navigate new lives.
Harriet was now living in a flat close to her office in London, able to walk to the law firm where she’d worked for the last five years. Harriet was now making love to another man in another bed in another bedroom in that flat. Theo tried not to think about it, but when he did, that was the indelible image he saw. Her making love to someone else. Someone else hearing the way she would sigh quietly, then louder and louder until she finally let out a tiny whimper. He wondered if he hated Roland, her lover; if he hated Harriet, or if a tiny part of him was jealous of her freedom. Then he remembered Finn. Finn was now the most important thing, and with his mother only visiting his life these days, Finn was proving to be a challenge.
Theo pressed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, then lifted a gilt-framed photograph from his desk. One of the three of them skiing – but rather than think of his broken family unit, Anna came to mind. Where was she now? His stomach clenched as it always did when he thought of her. He couldn’t help but picture her entombed in frozen snow. He said a silent prayer he remembered from childhood; he prayed to faceless saints whose names he had long forgotten. During the early days, after the accident, he had prayed that Anna had seen that same documentary on television as him; the one that told you to spit at the snow’s surface to see which way was up or down. It would show the way out. She hadn’t come out, so his prayer, over time, had changed to one where he pleaded to the Gods to ensure that she hadn’t felt a thing.
Anna. It was a moment before he realized he had said her name aloud.
He opened the drawer to his left, reached in and searched with his fingertips until he felt them rest on the envelope at the back. Lifting it out, he sat back in his chair, his right forefinger circling his name in her handwriting. It was striking and bold, like her, and slightly slanted to the left. The ‘o’ on the end had a little tail, like a comma, sticking out the top. Theo. Panic rose in his throat and he pushed the letter back inside the drawer, for another day. Some other day.
His patient rota finished, he’d had enough. Wrapping up against the outside elements, he lifted the briefcase. Checking inside one more time, he made sure he had the papers he needed to sign. Harriet had been efficient, her training managing to summarize their legal separation in a mere four pages.
Outside, a thin layer of ice had already formed on the windscreen. He shivered in his thick overcoat, opened his car door and slid his bag across to the passenger seat. Slipping his hands into fur-lined gloves, he gripped the icy steering wheel, started the engine and whacked the heat up high.
A five-minute drive had him parked in his driveway. The house, the home, that Harriet and he had created was a modern, detached, four-bedroom ‘executive villa’, so called by the builder who had built it a decade earlier. It was one of ten sitting in a small, gated community. It was, according to Finn, or more specifically his classmates, ‘posh’.
The herringbone driveway that his car now sat on had been a later edition. The time he and Harriet had spent poring over catalogues, matching the shade of the block to the bricks of the house – ensuring it had been just perfect – all seemed such a ridiculous waste now. Looking through the living-room window, he saw the curtains weren’t drawn. Harriet had always insisted they were, hating to be on view to anyone in the street. Neither he nor Finn cared and the thought made him smile. The curtains, perfectly held back by their matching tiebacks, probably hadn’t been closed since she left. In contrast, a few minutes earlier when he had driven through the street Jess lived in, her drapes had been drawn tight. A hint of a light escaping through a tiny gap at the top was the only sign she was at home.
He wondered if behind those drawn curtains she had been crying, having been unable to since the accident. It was as though, if she cried again, she would have to face the worst. Without tears, there was hope … As he turned the lock in the door, heard the sound of Finn’s laughter from the den, he realized the plain truth was that he would have sacrificed his marriage any day, rather than lose his child.
Bea’s casserole was perfect. She was out at the cinema with her newly acquired boyfriend, so Theo and Finn ate alone at the kitchen table. His son was quiet, the laughter he had heard earlier spent during The Simpsons episode on television.
‘Did you go to The Wall today?’ Theo asked.
‘You know I did,’ Finn replied without looking up from his food.
The Wall, the local climbing club, was Finn’s only outlet for physical activity. It had taken a while to find a sport he was interested in. He hated football, found rugby too rough, thought tennis was ‘a lot of running around after a tiny ball’. Both Harriet and Theo had been relieved and thrilled when climbing was the one thing Finn had stuck at and seemed to love; the one thing that took him away from the solitude of playing Minecraft on his laptop and reading what Harriet had called his ‘nerdy computer books’. Theo worried. His son was quiet and liked his own company a bit too much for a boy his age.
‘How was it?’
‘Okay.’
‘You’re not very talkative.’
Finn shrugged.
‘Did your mum call you earlier?’
‘Yep.’
‘What do you think?’ Theo sat back in his chair and stared; willed his son to look at him.
‘I think I’d prefer not to.’
Theo sighed. ‘I know it’s tough, Finn, but your mum wants to see you.’
‘She always comes here. Why do I have to go there?’
‘She’d like you to, just for one night?’
‘Will he be there?’ Finn finally raised his eyes and Theo held his gaze.
‘No, of course not. No, he won’t.’ He looked away.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’ Theo stood and began to clear away the plates. Minutes later he had already sent the text to his wife.
Finn worried about coming to you. Wants to know that Roland won’t be there.
His phone pinged an almost immediate reply.
Theo, if you want to know if R will be there, just ask?! And no – he won’t. Just me and Finn. All night.
He didn’t bother replying, just followed his son’s slow-moving body as he walked away. Another time Theo would have called him back to help clear the table. Another time, he would have asked him to adopt a less surly manner. But, he concluded, these were new and trying times.
4. Jess
I think, maybe, I’m losing my mind. Earlier today, I had another conversation with Anna while I was in the shower and she was sitting on the loo. She stayed a while and we talked about what we’d do to cover school holidays over Easter and the summer with Rose. There was no mention of a ski holiday with her work colleagues. In these pretend conversations with my daughter, the word ‘skiing’ is banned.
Now, I’m in the ‘perennial plant’ section at Hardacres, my local garden centre. My basket is laden with bulbs and seeds for the greenhouse and allotment at the back of my garden. Just beyond the anemone bulbs to my left, two women are talking about the article that appeared in this week’s local paper; the one that took three inches of column space to let everyone else know there is still no news. I am rooted to the earth just like the iris in the pot I have in my hand. Whoever these women are, they have no clue how cruel it is for me to stand here, to endure their words; they aren’t to know that my grip on reality is a little fragile today.
‘But there’s no body, that’s the horror.’ Woman number one.
‘That’s the worst, the very worst.’ Second voice.
Number one again. ‘Is there nothing new? Nothing at all? I mean, snow melts, doesn’t it?’
Snow melts, doesn’t it? A question I ask myself daily.
Number two. ‘You’d think they’d have found her by now.’
You’d think.
‘I read somewhere that there’s still two bodies missing.’
I will myself to move. There are still two people missing. Anna Powers and Lawrence Taylor, both twenty-five.
‘I don’t know how that poor mother is still standing.’
Me neither.
I place the iris pot back with the others, lay the basket to one side and walk through one of the many tills without as much as a nasturtium seed on my being.
Leah has decreed that I need a puppy. That’s what she does, my sister. She doesn’t ask – she just does. I can’t disguise the panic I feel when I see the tiny creature craning around my legs in her kitchen. Leah ignores my reticence.
‘You didn’t open the box yesterday, did you?’ she asks.
I shake my head, embarrassed that I actually forgot to open my sister’s gift. The pug has a pee at my ankle.
‘It had the papers in it. The papers for Pug here. She’s a thoroughbred.’
‘You mean she’s a pedigree.’
‘That. See, you’re a perfect dog owner already.’
I frown. ‘I don’t want a dog.’
‘Too late. You’re having her.’
‘Jesus, Leah …’ I slump into a nearby chair. It’s uncomfortable, all angular and pointy – like the kitchen, which is an hommage to black granite and stainless steel. Leah’s home is so contemporary, it’s almost futuristic – no hint of a tatty sofa here. We’re in a large open-plan space that spans the width of the back of her and Gus’s home. It’s zoned. Leah is a ‘zoner’. To my far left is the kitchen; in the middle is the huge refectory dining table and Leah and I are in the ‘chillax’ area. One day I’ll find a way to tell her that there is nothing either relaxing or chilling about these chairs.
‘I know you mean well,’ I say. ‘But the last thing I need in my life is something that pees and shits everywhere.’
‘You need something that needs you. She needs you.’
I’m aghast. Genuinely. I cannot believe that my only sister thinks that the hole I have in my life can be plugged by a pug. A dog for a daughter. I can’t even speak.
She hands me a glass of wine. ‘You need someone or something to give all that unconditional love you’re always harping on about, because you sure as hell don’t give any to me.’
‘I have it all reserved for Rose.’
Leah makes a face. ‘Save a little for Pug.’
‘I’m not taking the dog,’ I say as it lines itself up alongside my ankle again. I resist the urge to kick her gently with my foot.
Leah scoops down and picks Pug up in her hands, dumps her on my lap. A little bit of pee dribbles onto my light denim jeans. ‘Her papers are in your name. It’s done. Sue me.’
Two huge brown eyes look up at me from above a flat black nose. Her brow looks knitted with lines. I pick her up to throw her right back at Leah and Pug licks my hand.
‘She likes you.’ Leah sits opposite me, sips her own glass of wine. ‘She needs you.’
‘She needs someone that’ll clean up after her.’
‘She chose you. From some sort of spiritual doggie place, she came and found you.’
Despite myself, I smile, stroke the dog’s back. ‘She looks like she’s frowning, or she’s about to cry.’
‘She is, she’s perfect for you.’
I laugh. ‘You’ll have to take her whenever I’m away.’
‘You never go anywhere.’
‘That could change.’ In my pretend world, Anna, Rose and I are going to see some of the warmer, snow-free parts of the world together.
‘It could. Gus and I will have Pug when you go away if you take Pug home tonight.’
I have no room in my life, pretend or otherwise, for a dog. But I still find myself nodding, thinking Rose will love her. ‘Okay,’ I tell her, and Pug seals the deal with a small, runny shit on my lap.
Gus has prepared the most fabulous birthday meal twenty-four hours later than originally planned. I apologize for cancelling the night before as I sit down, wearing a pair of Leah’s clean jeans, to a sharing platter of melted cheese and artisan bread dipped in sweet balsamic to start. An ex-chef, Gus now runs a successful recruitment consultancy for the catering industry from an office upstairs.
‘So,’ Gus says. ‘We’re going up to Windermere to see your parents tomorrow. Why don’t you come?’
‘Can’t,’ I dip a piece of garlic bread in the cheesy remnants. ‘I have a dog to mind. She’s too young to drive to the Lake District. She gets car-sick.’
‘You’re coming.’ Leah’s eyebrows are arched and her head is shaking. ‘Mum is insisting. You’re ignoring her calls. Please come. Life won’t be worth living if I arrive without you.’
‘Can’t. The drive’s too much for Pug.’
‘I collected Pug from a breeder in Portsmouth for you. She was fine all the way back in the car. Perfectly happy.’
‘You did? Portsmouth? When?’
‘I took your birthday off. Fully intended taking you with me for the day but you fucked off and left me at the school gate. So, I drove there on my own.’
Shit. My face winces an apology. ‘How long are you staying up there for?’
‘Leave at seven thirty tomorrow morning, four hours twenty up, lunch and a quick walk, then same back. Gus is driving. Portsmouth and back was enough to knacker me. Pug will love it.’
I nod, know when I’m beaten, begin to steel myself immediately for my mother’s food and sympathy, for my father’s fragile stares.
‘You have to let them care, Jess.’ Leah reads my mind. ‘They’re grieving too,’ she adds.
Gus is searing the steaks on a hot plate. He turns them over, making zigzag patterns on the flesh. To his right, he stirs a pot of home-made mushroom sauce. Even the sizzle and scent of such lovely food don’t whet my appetite but I will, for his sake, force myself to eat. Pug is asleep at my feet.
‘How’s Theo doing?’ Leah is mashing potatoes with what looks like a half-pound of butter. Fine for her because she won’t eat them. Not so good for my already screaming arteries.
‘He’s okay, busy … Finn starts secondary school in September. Can you believe that?’
‘Yes, but how is he? Theo. How is he doing?’
I know a loaded question when I hear one and turn to look at my sister.
‘Why?’ I arch my eyebrows at her and at the plate of food that Gus has just presented me with. It has the most enormous doorstep of a steak and a mountain of creamy, oozing, buttery mash. There is a serving dish laden with carrots, squash and swede, a celebration of orange vegetables, in the centre of the table.
‘Enjoy, birthday girl!’ he beams.
I smile my thanks.
‘Why, Leah?’ I repeat. ‘You know something I don’t?’ I slice through the steak with the serrated knife.
‘You know what chambers are like. The place is rife with rumours.’
There are times I forget that Leah, as a senior practice manager for a firm of barristers, moves in the same circles as Harriet. I feel immediate colour rush to my cheeks.
‘Ahh,’ she says, seeing my discomfort, ‘so it’s not rumour then?’
I sigh loudly. ‘What have you heard?’
‘That Harriet’s shagging her boss, Roland. That that’s why she left Theo.’
I frown, try to chew my food so I won’t have to confirm or deny anything. Leah’s delicate kick in my shins reminds me I won’t get away with that.
‘Ouch, do not kick me.’
‘Speak. Now.’ She points the sharp end of her knife at me.
‘Ladies, ladies …’ Gus shakes his head. ‘Eat up!’ He looks in my direction. ‘Jess, you need to eat, you’re fading away. And Leah, stop gossiping.’
‘Yes, Leah. Stop gossiping.’ I play with the steak on my plate. ‘Thank you for this, Gus. I’m sorry again that I cancelled last night.’
Gus places his fork on his plate and squeezes my forearm with his hand. ‘Forget about it. I’ve told you – no harm done and you’re here now.’ My hand gives his a reassuring tap. He releases me and lifts his wine glass, tilts it in my direction and smiles. His silent toast to me is all that is needed.
‘Harriet?’ Leah persists as Gus turns his head fully to glare at her.
‘I have no idea if Harriet is shagging anyone,’ I reply.
‘If it’s true, I suppose that means they’re over?’
‘Let’s hope not.’ As I speak the words aloud, I’m not sure I mean them. In the many years I’ve known Theo, Harriet has always been pleasant, always been polite, but she tolerates more than likes me. I’ve sat at her dinner table; we spent last Christmas together, all of us: me, Anna and Rose. She constantly says the ‘right thing’ to me, but more often than not it has a ring of insincerity to it – except maybe after Anna’s accident. She did write me a lovely letter then. My face flushes guiltily as I tell myself off for thinking badly of her, and at the same time hand Pug her first illicit mouthful of steak.
It’s 11.50 p.m. and I’ve texted Theo’s mobile to let him know I’m standing outside his front door. Moments later he opens it, rubs sleep from his eyes.
‘Jess? It’s late … Bloody hell, is that a dog in your hand?’
‘It’s ten to twelve. Happy Valentine’s Day and yes, I’m carrying a dog. Say hi to Pug. Apparently I need a recipient for all my unconditional love.’
‘Valentine’s Day … Really?’ He scratches his head above his right ear, just along the line where his hair changes from black to grey, stifles a yawn. ‘And there are always conditions in love,’ he says.
‘When did you become such a cynic?’ I shiver. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
He holds the door open for me to pass under his arm. ‘Go through. I’ll put the kettle on,’ he says.
I cross Harriet’s threshold close to midnight. As I’m doing it, I know I wouldn’t be if she were still here.
‘I’m sorry for getting you up.’ I look around the huge kitchen as we listen to the beginning hum of the kettle. ‘Have you changed something in here? It looks different.’
‘Just a coat of paint. I did it last week.’
‘Looks good.’ I can imagine him, up a stepladder every evening, the news channel on full blast on the television, trying hard to keep busy. ‘There’s something I want to say.’
He’s dangling a couple of tea bags in two mugs, one in each hand. ‘Hmmm?’ he says.
‘I was at Leah’s earlier, finally got around to eating the birthday dinner Gus planned – anyway, she asked me about you and I realized that I’ve been too immersed in my own life to …’ Pug is pacing Theo’s quarry tiles, picks a spot in the corner near the Aga and squats. I’m there immediately with some kitchen paper from a roll on the worktop. ‘Sorry.’
He hands me a cup of strong, black tea, just the way I like it.
‘Where was I? Oh, I was trying to say I don’t think I’ve been here for you.’
‘Jess, you had Anna to deal with. Have Anna to deal with. Harriet and I—’
I shake my head. ‘It’s not a competition. Friends help each other. I haven’t been around for you. That’s all I wanted to say, so, I’ll finish this cup of tea and be on my way with Pug.’
I stare at him over the rim of the mug. We have an unusual friendship; have done since that day he first came to the surgery as a visiting locum and drove into the back of my car. The memory of a much less self-assured, younger Theo comes to mind. A memory of him being on duty in A&E the night a teenage Anna drank too much and needed her stomach pumped; a memory of a colleague’s drunken laughter over our ‘friendship’ one Christmas. But that’s what it was and always has been: a deep, loving friendship. He’s what I would have in a girlfriend, except he’s a guy. I’m what he would have in a guy-friend, what he has with his real guy-friends. It’s simple, uncomplicated, and works for us.
And right now he looks tired. Dark shadows circle his green eyes, both of which follow the only sound in the room – Pug padding across the tiled floor, sniffing out new territory. Theo takes a seat at the circular kitchen table, kicks out a chair opposite him. ‘Sit. You’re here now, take your time. Let’s talk.’
I plonk myself down on the chair, one eye on the roaming dog. ‘You must miss her.’ It’s a statement more than a question and he shrugs.
‘I miss the woman I thought I knew,’ he says. ‘I miss her being around; having someone to share things with. I miss her being here for Finn.’
‘Doug left me when Anna was the same age. It’s tough for them. All they want is their mum and dad together.’
‘I knew the relationship had changed, but I thought it was just a phase and that we’d get back on track with time. I never thought …’ He hesitates. ‘I suppose whatever I thought about her leaving me, I never thought she’d walk away from Finn. Yet it’s the best thing she could have done for him – leave him here in his home, at his school, with his father. Out of the whole scenario, that’s both the best and shittiest thing she’s done.’ He laces his hands behind his neck. ‘Anyway …’
I bite my tongue. I haven’t been able to understand her being able to leave Finn either, but the facts are it happens, and no one – not a soul – questioned Doug leaving Anna in the same manner. If I’m honest, part of me admires Harriet’s strength to do it, and another part of me is beyond angry that she could willingly walk away from her child when I’ve probably had mine stolen from me.
‘I’m going to see my parents tomorrow.’ I change the subject, glancing at my watch. ‘Today, later this morning.’
‘You’re ready to see them?’ he asks, acknowledging the fact that I’ve managed to avoid visiting for more than ten weeks.
‘Leah and Gus are going for the day tomorrow. It’s a lot to do in one day, but they’ve talked me into going. They’re right. Mum is constantly phoning, tries her best, and she already has her hands full looking after Dad.’ I stop to draw breath. ‘Look, I just really wanted to say thank you for being there for me and to let you know I’m here for you too.’
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