The very idea of passing that grief on to Cain, of it haunting him like it does me...
But I have to. I know I do. He deserves to know it all.
It was hard enough thinking about telling him before. Now that we’ve slept together—now that he’s shared so much with me and opened up...now I know how much I’ve failed him—how do I break it to him?
I fell asleep in his arms so readily—only to wake up in the early hours with my hand clutched to my abdomen and a cold sweat across my skin. I could hardly wake him to tell him something of that magnitude. I could hardly lie back and go to sleep either. Not with the reason for my guilt so very present.
And so I left, like the broken, nasty piece of work I feel I am, and now he’ll be waking up with me gone.
I didn’t even leave a note—something to thank him for the night, something to make him realise I wasn’t running from him. Not for the reason he would think, anyway.
I left because we had a child—a child he knows nothing about—and she died.
How do I even begin to tell him that?
I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, but you weren’t around. And when you were back on the scene too much time had passed, too much stuff had happened.
‘Christ!’ I shake my head against the chilling wind and Ed looks at me over his shoulder, his tongue hanging out. ‘Don’t look at me like that...you have it simple.’
He gives me a bark that I take to be agreement and I smile at my own madness. Talking to animals? What will I be doing next?
I run harder, for longer than my body or Ed can take, and it’s him that has me reining myself back in, forcing myself to return before I’m ready. But then, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to face up to the reality I’ve created for myself.
I take Ed back to his house, fill up his water bowl and then head back to mine. It feels quieter than usual, but then I’m earlier than usual. My neighbours in the building are still making the most of their Saturday lie-in.
I set the coffee machine going and take a shower, hoping that when I come back to the kitchen
the soothing aroma of caffeine will help to ease the cloud that’s hanging over me.
But it doesn’t work.
I stand before the window, my mug cupped in my hands, my nose hovering just above the rim as I breathe it in.
And nothing.
Outside the sun is shining, streaming down on me in all its warming glory, but I don’t feel it. I only have to close my eyes for a second and Cain is there, looking down at me as he fills me so completely.
‘Only ever you.’
It’s so strong I can sense him in the room with me and my eyes shoot open.
Of course he isn’t here.
The street is quiet below. Save for the odd car moving, the city is still quiet. And that’s when I see it, glinting at me in my reflection. The ring on my left hand.
I hold it out, admiring the simple band, and a bittersweet smile lifts my face. Liam. Dear, sweet, intelligent, Liam. We had a pact, after Rose, that should either of us ever meet someone, fall in love, we would divorce and give each other our blessing. It just never happened. Our arrangement was so easy, so comfortable, with work filling our days, and our nights quite often too. It filled the void...helped to keep the pain of loss at bay.
I lower my mug to the desk, where our monitors still face one another, and I know it’s time. I know that in order to move on I have to accept that he’s gone—my best friend, my husband in all the ways that mattered to us at the time. No matter what happens with Cain going forward, I can’t hang on to the past any longer.
And, as per the pact I had with Liam, I can’t wear his ring when I love another.
I twist the band on my finger, ease it over my knuckle and with a tug it’s off. I stare at it in my palm and a single tear drops to meet it.
‘I’m sorry, Liam.’
I don’t know why I’m saying sorry. We were never in love in that sense—never boyfriend and girlfriend before we became husband and wife. It was always about being a mum and dad to Rose...being a family.
I clutch the ring in my palm and raise it to my lips as the sobs rack through my body.