Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel
Read Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel Online
Authors: Dorothy Koomson
INTERNATIONAL PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF DOROTHY KOOMSON
G
OODNIGHT
, B
EAUTIFUL
“Amazing book, but be warned: I bawled my eyes out on the plane reading this. Truly a must-read.” —
Netmums.com
M
Y
B
EST
F
RIEND’S
G
IRL
“A three-hankie delight.” —
Publishers Weekly
“Both funny and moving, this will have you reaching for the tissues.… A heartbreaking tale.” —
Closer
(U.K.)
“Witty, with bits to make you laugh and cry, we loved it.” —
Real
(U.K.)
M
ARSHMALLOWS FOR
B
REAKFAST
“Koomson’s highly accessible writing style draws the reader into Kendra’s world of pain—and healing.” —
USA Today
“Koomson … keeps readers captivated.” —
Publishers Weekly
“So darn good that we had to read it all in one evening …
Marshmallows for Breakfast
will make tears run down your face, but leave you feeling that whatever happens, there’s always hope.” —
Heat
(U.K.)
“Incredibly moving and intelligently written … Enjoy being moved by this story and give in to its irresistible charm and wit.” —
Woman
(U.K.)
“A touching and engaging story of what happens when love demands that you open the Pandora’s box of the past.” —
Good Housekeeping
(U.K.)
Also by Dorothy Koomson
MY BEST FRIEND’S GIRL
MARSHMALLOWS FOR BREAKFAST
Goodnight, Beautiful
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2010 Bantam Books Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2008 by Dorothy Koomson
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ANTAM
B
OOKS
is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in the United Kingdom by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, a Hachette Livre UK Company, London, in 2008.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Koomson, Dorothy.
Goodnight, beautiful : a novel / Dorothy Koomson.
p. cm.
“Originally published in the United Kingdom by Sphere, an imprint of Little, Brown
Book Group, a Hachette Livre UK Company, London, in 2008.”
eISBN: 978-0-440-33926-7
1. Surrogate mothers—Fiction. 2. Parenthood—Fiction. 3. Female friendship—
Fiction. I. Title.
PR6111.O66G66 2010
823′.92—dc22
2010010070
v3.1
For Pebble
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
have so many people to thank, and not enough space to do it in. But I’ll give most things a try, so here goes:
To my family, one and all, thank you; you have been, and continue to be, fabulous.
To Jo, Kirsteen, Emma, Jenny and everyone at Little, Brown, thanks for everything. That’s a small word, but everything you’ve done means so much to me.
To Ant and James—you’re so much more than agents to me, and thanks for indulging my loooooonnngggg phone calls.
To my lovely friends—you all know who you are—I love your enthusiasm and support, and thanks for continuing to like me despite my “misappropriation” of pieces of your personalities and stories to create my characters.
And last but not least, to “The Children,” thank you for letting me live with you for six months. I had the best time.
He cries all the time.
Even when there are no tears, his eyes have the haunted hollowness of someone who is sobbing inside.
I want to help him but he won’t let me near. The crying he does alone, shut away in the room that was once going to be the nursery. He sleeps with his back to me, like a solid wall of flesh that keeps the world out. He talks to me with empty words, in sentences that hold no deeper meaning. He used to weave everything he said with the strands of the depth of his love. Now, he talks to me because he has to. Now, everything he says is flat and meaningless.
The grief is so huge, so immense that he is floundering in it. Swimming blind as he would in a raging sea at night. Swimming against the crashing waves and getting nowhere. Every day he is dragged further down, into those depths. Away from the surface. Away from life. Away from me. All he clings to is the loss. Nothing else matters. I want to take his hand, swim us both to safety. To make him whole again; to soothe his wounds and help him heal.
But he will not reach for me. Instead, he flinches away, preferring to do this alone. He blames me, you see. He blames himself. And he blames me.
I blame myself, as well. But I also blame her. Nova. This is her fault, her responsibility, too. If not for her …
Mostly, I blame myself. Mostly, I want him to stop crying, to stop hurting, to stop grieving with every piece of his soul.
I don’t understand this loss that he and Nova share. I doubt I ever will. But I understand my husband. And soon, I’ll lose him. The one thing I tried to stop by doing what I did, saying what I said, will happen. But this time I won’t lose him to another woman and her unborn baby, I won’t lose him to her and her child, I’ll lose him to himself.
I can see it happening: he’s going to drown in his grief, he’s going to be pulled so far down he won’t be able to break the surface. He’ll be dragged down to those bleak, gray depths and will never start living again. And all I’ll be able to do is stand on the shore and watch.
She fumbled at his shoes, took them off, and he watched her roll off his sock and then it was cold under his toes. Like in the bath, before his wash, cold.
And there is water.
A big, big, BIG bath.
“
This is the beach,” Mummy said.
“
Beach!” he said.
“
And that’s the sea.
”
“
Sea!
”
“
Come on, let’s get our feet wet.
”
He pointed. “Toes?
”
“
Yeah,” she said. “Toes in the sea.
”
She took his hand, it was warm like always. Her hand warm, his toes cold. She walked with him to the sea.
“
It’s going to be cold,” she said.
“
Cold!
”
Then his toes were gone. No more toes, just sea.
“
Whoa!” Mummy screamed—her toes were under the sea, too.
“
Whoa!” he screamed.
“
Whoa!” they screamed together. “Whoa!
”
Leo, age 18 months
1
H
ey, Marm.”
It’s going to be one of those days.
I knew it when I opened my eyes this morning. I had that strong pervasive feeling of everything being skewwhiff, off-key. That I’d have to endure a day of it. I was hoping I was wrong as I showered, as I got dressed, as I flicked on the radio to keep me company whilst I stirred porridge and cut up fruit.
But Leo has just confirmed it for me. It’s going to be one of
those
days. Nothing will go right, tempers will be frayed, life will play nasty tricks on me. My seven-year-old will play nasty tricks on me. Or try to aggravate me.