The Day We Met (23 page)

I am not sure what wakes me, but as I lie alone in bed, I get the feeling that I have forgotten something really important—which is ironic, because obviously I've forgotten a lot of really important things, recently. But this feels more urgent, more worrying. I sit up and push my fingers through my tangled hair, and take a breath and consider.

Esther is sleeping at my side, her face hidden by her mass of blond curls, her fingers folded inward into the palm of her hand, which rests on the pillow next to her ear. The sound of her breathing comes in regular rhythmic waves. I'm grateful that it is not Esther I have forgotten—Esther who has become my best friend and guardian in recent weeks. She always wanted to be an angel, and now, short of wings, she sort of is. I smile at her, but still the nagging loss is dragging at my chest. Caitlin is alone in Manchester, I remember, and today I am going to her.
Mum is taking me and Esther. Mum is driving us in her Nissan Micra. We are going to see Paul, my boyfriend. No, wait, Paul is not my boyfriend anymore, and he hasn't been for a long time. Is that what I've forgotten, what I've lost? Paul. Paul, who wrote me poems about sunshine in my hair and didn't wear underwear. Not ever. No, it's not that.

I get up, and look at the woman in the glass for a while, trying to reconcile myself with her reflection. Recently, I find it harder and harder to remember my age. I don't feel it, whatever it is. I feel seventeen, full of promise and life. I have this crazy sense of expectation about the future and what it still holds for me: dreams and daydreams of what might come. I am not so sure if it is the disease or me who feels so stupidly optimistic. Part of me feels like I should have stopped hoping or caring by now. It's not fair, to feel hopeful. Not when there is no hope.

What is it that I have lost in the night? What have I forgotten?

It's very early. The house is quiet and still, the sky just lightening into a bruised shade of purple. I pull back the curtain and look out, and he is there, and I know at once who it is. My memory doesn't hesitate for a moment. It's Ryan.

I catch my breath. What is he doing there in my garden? Just standing there on the ice-encrusted grass, staring at the ground, his hands in his pockets. My heart is pounding, and again I am overwhelmed by expectation: he is there and it is proof that life still holds surprises for me. I never expected to see him again after the library incident, and yet he's here, and he's waiting for me.

In too much of a hurry to bother dressing, I tiptoe quickly down the stairs in my bare feet, careful not to wake anyone up, especially not my husband, who is sleeping in Esther's room. I climb over the stair gate, slip my coat on over my nightshirt, and
run over the smooth tiles in the kitchen. I feel a little as if I might be able to float, like Peter Pan on a wire. And then I remember: the door will be fixed shut and I will not be able to open it. I stand there for a second, looking at his back, shrouded in the dawn, through the pane of glass in the kitchen door. I reach out. Magically the handle melts under my fingers and a cold blast of air greets me, the door opens easily. Is this a dream? I wonder, as the world changes around me, bowing to my bidding, and allows me to go to him. It might be a dream, or a hallucination. Mr. Doctor Long Name said something about hallucinations toward the end. Is seeing him there in the garden a sign that I am almost there? The grass feels freezing, crunching under my bare toes, and the cold quickly finds its way under my coat and nightshirt. I begin to shiver, my iced breath billowing into the air. This is real. I believe it. I really am standing in my garden at dawn, looking at Ryan's back, and he really is waiting for me. After all, it sounds like something someone like me would do, doesn't it?

I pad across the grass, a drizzle of pink bleeding into the sky as the sun struggles to be born.

“You're here,” I whisper, and he jumps, turning to see me. He smiles. He looks happy to see me, but surprised too, I think. “What are you doing here?” I ask him. “What if someone sees you?”

“You've got nothing on your feet,” he says. “You'll freeze to death.”

“I won't.” I smile. I laugh. Actually, I sort of like the cold. I like feeling something this much. “What are you doing here? Why didn't you throw stones up at my window? I might have missed you!”

“I couldn't sleep,” he says. “I wasn't thinking of getting you up. I just wanted to be near you. Which makes me sound mental.”

“Not at all.” I step toward him, and he puts his arms around me, all of me, pinning my arms to my sides, and lifts me up two or three inches into the air, to rest my toes on the tops of his boots. I put my arms around his neck and we stand nose to nose, warming each other. “Romeo crept up on Juliet at dawn, or sunset—one or the other—but there was something about a light breaking, yonder,” I tell him. “And besides, I don't think I mind if you are mad, because that just means we match. I wouldn't want you to be a figment of my imagination, though. That would make me sad—if you weren't real.”

“I'm real,” he murmurs into my hair. “And so are you. God, I've missed you, Claire.” His hands find their way under my coat, and I feel his fingers roam down my back and over my bottom, the thin cotton of my nightshirt hiding nothing from him. This is new—this heat between us—it's new and wrong. We are two people who cannot feel this way about each other, and yet it doesn't feel wrong to be touched by him like this. It feels wonderful, welcoming. I press myself even closer into his body, bury my face in his neck and lose myself in his touch. For now I am more than the disease: I am a woman—a desirable, lovable woman. I am me again. For just these few moments, I am purely me, and it's only him that can give me this gift.

“Claire, I need to tell you something,” he whispers.

“I need to tell
you
something,” I say, because now is the time for the truth. Now before this happiness turns to hurt.

“Me first,” he says.

“Please, don't tell me that you aren't real,” I caution him.

“Claire, I love you,” he says into my hair. “I love you so.” I pull back and look into his face. I barely know this man, and yet everything about him seems so true.

“You can't love me,” I tell him gently. “You mustn't. I'm not here. Or I won't be soon. I'm sick, and I'm disappearing. And
I'm married. And I have my daughters. And I don't know how much time I have left knowing them. I can't leave them, don't you see? Not the girls, or Greg. I have to stay with him for as long as I can. Because they love me too, and they loved me first.”

As I speak, his eyes fill with tears. He blinks and they roll down his cheeks. I smooth them away with the palms of my hands.

“I don't want to take you away from your family,” he tells me. “I don't want to do that. I just had to tell you how I feel, that's all. And I hoped you'd listen and understand that when you are gone, I will be heartbroken. I will be bereft, and lost and alone. And I just need you to know that. That is all.”

“Oh, my love.” I kiss him then, suddenly gripped by a passionate urgency I haven't felt in months. I've been so insulated by uncertainty and loss. Just for now, though, my body takes over and I want to fold him into me; I want to be absorbed by him. As the day begins, and I feel the first touch of the warmth of the sun on my face, I know that I only have now, these last few minutes before the world wakes up and being here in his arms isn't possible anymore.

“I do know,” I tell him, breaking the kiss, holding his face in my hands. “I do know, and it means so much to me. I love you too, somehow. I don't know how. And I'm sorry we met now, at exactly the wrong time.”

“It's not the wrong time,” he says. “It's exactly the right time.”

We hold each other, our arms entwined, until the bruised sky fades to a pale cool blue and the ghostly shadows of the bare tree branches are imprinted in what is left of the frost on the grass.

“I have to go in,” I say, glancing up at the house. “They will
be up soon. They will think I've run away again.” I pause, reluctant to step off his feet and away from him, because it might be the last time I ever feel alive like this. Human like this. “I don't know where you came from, or why you came now, but I am glad we found each other, even if it's just for now.” I touch his lips with the tips of my fingers. “And if you are a dream, you're the best one I have ever had. Goodbye, my love.”

I step back onto the wet grass, and I walk backwards, reluctant to take my eyes off him, in case he disappears along with the mist of dew being burned up by the strengthening heat of the day.

“I might not see you again,” I say. “Or if I do, I might not know who you are. My illness, it's Alzheimer's Disease. It's eating me away, bit by bit, taking everything I love away from me. Even you.”

He reaches out a hand to me. “Come back, just for a little longer.”

I shake my head. “I know you love me. I can feel that you mean it. But you mustn't, you mustn't love me, because I will hurt you, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. You…you still love your wife. You're not the sort of man who just stops loving someone. I know you aren't. That's what makes you so incredible. So go and find her, and win her back, and forget about me. Because…I will forget about you.”

“Claire, please. I'm not ready to say goodbye.” His hand still hovers in the air, looking so strong and safe. I long to take it, but I know I can't.

“Me neither,” I say, but the words catch in my throat. Slowly I turn around, and begin to walk away.

“You'll see me again,” he promises. “And you will always know who I am, even if you don't always know it. You will feel
it.” I turn my back on him, and let myself back into the kitchen, where the onslaught of artificial warmth stings my numb cheeks and toes. When I turn back to close the door, he is gone.

“What are you doing?” Mum comes into the kitchen, her dressing gown knotted tightly around her. She sees me, and her exhaustion turns to fear. “Why have you got a coat on? Were you going somewhere?”

I shake my head and hold my hands out to her. “I was just in the garden,” I say. “Come and look at it.” She comes over just as the last of my footprints in the frost have melted away. “Look,” I say. “The sun is up and, for once, it isn't raining. It's going to be a beautiful day.”

I wake up with a start, and sit up, not sure where I am, and then gradually it comes back to me. I am still in Manchester. The filmy light of morning seeps through the thick net curtains against the window. And I am not alone.

Very quietly, very slowly, I turn my head and see Zach, still slumbering next to me, lying on his stomach, his blondish hair messed up, which he would hate, and his lips slightly parted as he sleeps. Carefully, I climb out of bed and go and lock myself in the bathroom.

I didn't react in quite the way I thought I would when Paul Sumner more or less told me to get lost. I was certain that I would feel rejected, and cry—feel hurt, despair, and confusion, all of the things that I have been feeling on a loop for the last few months—but I didn't. I had a weird surge of feeling strong, and happy, and sort of relieved. I walked out of his office and the
faculty building with Zach behind me, asking me what had happened. I didn't tell him until we were outside.

“He didn't believe me,” I said. “He thinks my mum's made it up because of the AD.”

“Shit,” Zach said, looking stricken on my behalf.

“Well, look, it's fine,” I told him brightly. “I gave it my best shot, and I'm grateful for your help, so thanks. What I'll probably do now is just…go home, I guess.”

“No, don't go,” Zach said, touching my arm. I realized it was the first time he'd touched me, and it came as something of a jolt, like an electric shock, shooting through me with a
zap!

“Well…” I moved away, ever so slightly, so that his fingers were no longer making contact with my arm. “I think I sort of have to. I mean, I can't think of a reason to stay here.”

“Do
you
think Paul Sumner is your father?” Zach asked me.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, because Mum doesn't lie, and anyway, have you seen him? I look like him, a lot like him. It's weird, actually, how much like him I look. But it doesn't matter. He doesn't want to know, and I get that. So…I've come this far without a dad, but I do have a mum, and she needs me, so I'm going home.”

“You've got to give him another chance,” Zach said, stepping to his right to block me from leaving. “This is too important not to.”

“He doesn't want another chance,” I pointed out. “And who can blame him?”

“But he needs it,” Zach said. “He might not know yet that he needs it, but he does, and one day he will wake up and realize what he's done. So you need to stay and give him another chance to be your father.”

“Are you Jesus?” I asked him. “I can't think of a reason why you would care, if you are not Jesus.”

“No!” He laughed. “Jesus wouldn't wear this shirt.”

“That's because Jesus has taste,” I said.

“Phone home, talk to your mum. I bet she won't want you to just give up.”

“Do you drink?” I asked him.

“Yes, a bit,” he said.

“Well, I can't, so shall we go to a pub and I'll watch you get drunk?”

Zach shook his head and laughed. “Let's go and have lunch. I know a nice place. And then you can go and phone your mum, okay?”

“Maybe
you
should be my dad,” I said.

And that's the thing about Zach that I don't understand: he is so funny and kind and
nice
. And I wonder why I find it hard to believe that a person can be so funny and so kind and so nice to another person, one they hardly know, for no apparent reason. I wonder if it was because of Zach that I didn't curl up in a corner after Paul told me to go away. Or if it's because of me. I think mainly it's because of me, because when I decided that I love my baby, I also decided to be the sort of person who isn't defeated by setbacks, because if my mum has taught me anything, it's that mums are warriors: they might be knocked down, but they always get back up. It had helped that I knew Zach was there outside the door, though, waiting for me.

That must be what it's like having someone in your life, knowing that there is someone there who's got your back. That must have been what it was like for Mum and Greg. It was a nice feeling, and it made me feel better, like I was somehow bigger and more grown-up than I feel most of the time.

We spent the afternoon together, and it was just nice. There was no agenda, or tension, or mind games, like there always
seemed to be with Seb. Zach is just very good at being a man; he doesn't seem to need to keep proving to everyone around him that that is what he is. I was sleepy after lunch so we went to see a film, something Zach wanted to see—a ridiculous heist movie with lots of car chases. I fell asleep after maybe twenty minutes, and woke up with my head on his shoulder as the credits rolled. He kissed me on the forehead and told me that he had to go to work. I didn't want him to, but it didn't really seem fair to ask him to quit a shift based on our short friendship.

He walked me back to the hotel, and it was a strange walk, one full of meaning when there wasn't any, really. I am a pregnant girl with a sick mother. I have much more to think about than nice-looking blondish boys with terrible taste in clothes and music. If things had been different, if I'd simply split up with Sebastian, or if Mum had carried on simply being Mum, then maybe I could have got excited about the way Zach made me feel when he looked at me, as he walked me through the busy streets of Manchester yesterday afternoon. I still remember the way he watched me, and then looked away when my eyes met his. How he punched his number into my phone in the hotel lobby, and told me to call him if I needed anything, and then called his own number before giving my phone back to me, so he'd have my number too. And how he waited with me until the lift came, and then, just before I got in, kissed me on the cheek when he said goodbye. In another life, I could have been excited about all of those things, and the possibility that something new was just beginning. But not in this life. And anyway, if it wasn't for Mum and Paul Sumner, I never would have come to this city, at this time, and met Zach working a shift in a bar on the university campus. Which is why I need to keep telling myself that this is not meant to be. This is not something special that has happened just at the time in my life I most need it. It's a series of
coincidences that I will have to let go of—today, or tomorrow at the very latest.

I was trying to fall asleep in front of the TV, and trying not to think about what will happen when Mum, Gran, and Esther get here, when my phone rang, making me jump. My first thought was that something terrible must have happened, but then I saw Zach's name. It was just after midnight.

“Hello?”

“It's me,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“Just thought I'd check and see if you were okay,” he said. “To be honest, I've been thinking about you all night. Not in an inappropriate way,” he added hurriedly. “Just thinking about all the stuff you've got going on.”

I had to admit I was disappointed: I kind of liked the idea of him thinking about me in an inappropriate way. I put my hand flat on my belly, which was just beginning to curve with the baby inside, and smiled to myself. Maybe one day I'll be lucky like Mum, and meet the right person, who'll always have my back. But not now. Now I just need to focus on my family. I need to have
their
backs.

“I'm surprisingly okay,” I told him. “It's odd, actually, because I've been an incredible mess for ages, and now suddenly everything seems really clear. And I am going to give Paul Sumner another chance. Well, I'm not sure if another chance is the right phrase. Another attempt, maybe. My mum, my gran, and my little sister are all coming up tomorrow to sort him out, so maybe it's more like a vendetta.”

“Shall I come over?” he said suddenly. “Now?”

“To my hotel room?” I said. “Sounds inappropriate.”

“No, I mean not to…just to see you, to hang out and talk? I like hanging out and talking to you.”

“I don't mean to be funny,” I said, “but don't you have your own mates?”

“Yeah.” He laughs. “I've got loads of my own mates, and one new one, who I probably won't see again after tomorrow. So can I come over? Just to hang out. Watch a film or something? Your choice, this time. No car chases, promise.”

And I realized, all of a sudden, that having him with me would make me really happy, and yet sort of sad all at once. And so I said yes.

We were halfway into the film when I turned to him and asked him a question that had been bouncing around in my head since he'd first mentioned her. “Tell me about your mother,” I said. “Tell me what she was like?”

He turned to look at me, and then shook his head. “She was a really great woman, funny and strong and kind. My dad adored her, we all did. She was glam too, you know? Hair and makeup always done for work behind the bar, and for church every Sunday.”

“So you
are
a religious nutter!” I said, nudging him in the ribs.

“Not exactly.” He grinned. “Mum's faith meant a lot to her, and some of it's rubbed off on me. I mean, I prefer to think that there is something out there rather than nothing, don't you?”

“No,” I said simply. “I don't want there to be something that decided to make my mum, or yours, so sick just on a whim. I'd rather it was all random, horrible chance. Otherwise it's impossible to understand.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I felt like that when she died. We all felt like that. We didn't know how much she held the three of us together until she was gone. Dad was so angry; I was so angry. I lost him too, for a while. We went our separate ways for almost four years. I'd hear about him getting thrown out of the pub that
Mum used to work in, spending the night in the cells. He'd hear about me bouncing from one hovel to the next, waking up tired and confused.”

“And then you found Jesus?” I asked him a little mischievously.

“And then I gave my dad a second chance, and he gave me one too, because we both worked out, before it was too late, that Mum would be so upset to see how we'd reacted to losing her. It would be like everything she'd done when she was alive was for nothing. So me and my dad made friends again. It was a slow business—it took a long time—but we needed each other. We sorted each other out. He's my family, and I love him.”

“And that's why you think I need to give Paul another chance?” I asked him.

“I think so,” Zach said. “I don't think you should ever turn your back on any human relationship when there is still even a shred of hope.”

“I have a family already, though,” I said. “Most of them will be heading this way first thing in the morning. And I don't want to force my way into someone's life. Not even if he is my biological dad.”

“You,” Zach said quietly, looking right into my eyes in that popstar way of his, “you will never have to force yourself into anyone's life. Anyone with half a brain can see that you are…something wonderful.”

“I must have met a lot of people who are brainless, then,” I said to deflect the moment, which seemed like too much for two people who were just hanging out.

“That,” Zach said, leaning back against the headboard and crossing his arms, “is entirely possible.”

A little while later, when I was almost asleep, his voice woke me. “What are you going to call your baby?” he asked me.
It was the first time since I'd told him I was pregnant that he'd asked me any direct questions about it.

“I have no idea,” I said sleepily. “Maybe Moon Unit, or Satchel. Maybe Apple, if it's a girl.”

“And what about the father, what does he think?” He asked me ever so carefully, and it occurred to me that I hadn't mentioned him yet. For all Zach knew, he could be waiting at home for me now.

“He doesn't know yet,” I say. “We split up, and then he thought I'd got rid of it. But I will tell him. I have to because, well, look at me. A textbook case of history repeating itself. I have to make sure this little one doesn't do that.”