Together Apart (21 page)

33.

B
y the time Adam turned back into the cemetery, the early winter evening was setting in, and the rain was so heavy that he had to switch his headlights on as he inched along the gravel driveway. Was this the spot he’d parked up in earlier? He was sure it was, but everyone had already left. He frowned, stepping out of the car, and walked over to where the crowd had gathered before.

The rain lashed his face as he read Richard’s name inscribed into the square block of marble. Resting on top of the headstone was the string bracelet Sarah had been playing with. He looked around, but there was no sign of her. Maybe she’d already left.

He took his mobile out of his pocket and called her as he walked away from Richard’s grave, but it rang out. She was obviously still angry with him, and he knew he’d disappointed her, which was even worse. No other woman would get anywhere near the kind of love he felt for Sarah. It had taken a bruised ego, a rebound fling and a slap around the face for him to realise that there was nothing to fight for anymore. Even the baby, the only real, tangible link between them, would soon be gone.

He sighed and wiped the rain from his face as he walked back to the car. He had a gym towel in the boot; he was sure of it. The sound of rain hitting the trees around him felt hollow and strangely far away as he wiped his face dry. He looked around. Was she still here? He had no idea how big the cemetery was, and he didn’t want to play an endless game of cat and mouse, but he’d have to look for her. He didn’t have a choice.

He drove along the pathway until it split in two. Which way had she gone – assuming she was even still here? He looked at t
he pa
ths, alternating between left and right, and took the one
on th
e left. Even with the heater on full blast, he shivered. He didn’t see anyone as he crawled along the path. Maybe he really was the only one here. What a way to spend a Saturday – alone in a cemetery with just a car radio for company.

Was that her? He leaned forward and squinted. It was her, sitting on a bench with her back to him. Her cream coat stood out in the bleakness like a beacon. He killed the engine and sat watching her. She didn’t turn around, but she must have heard him coming. He hoped she’d calmed down, at least enough for him to apologise and explain that he didn’t need or want to know her secret anymore. He got out of the car and quietly closed the door. His eyes flicked over towards a bench up ahead. It didn’t look like the others he’d seen dotted around the cemetery. Instead of legs,
the smoot
h, dark-grey slab of stone sat on four cubes, two on either side. Each was painted a different colour and etched with letters from the alphabet.

Stepping away from the path and onto the grass, he began to make his way over to her. This bit of the cemetery felt very different. He stopped and crouched, resting the fingertips of one hand on the cold, wet grass as he looked at the elliptical black granite headstone by his feet, framed with a grey teddy bear. He looked at the dates beneath the name: 17 May 2009–17 May 2009. He shuddered and looked at the grave behind it. The wind curled itself around his neck as he looked at the image of Eeyore, the depressed yet loveable donkey from
Winnie the Pooh
. He swallowed and winced. He might as well have just swallowed a razor blade.

As he stood up to walk over to Sarah, all he could see were more and more headstones decorated with brightly coloured flowers and engravings of teddy bears and Disney characters. Goose bumps burst across his skin.

He tried not to think about the tiny bodies buried under the ground he was walking on. He’d always thought that death didn’t freak him out. After all, it was inevitable and the only certain thing in life. There was nothing he or anybody else could do to stop it. Both sets of his grandparents had died before he was born, and it was only when his dad had suffered his TIA that death became something a lot less abstract and a lot more real. Being here was making his underarms prickle with anxiety.

He couldn’t even begin to think what the parents of these kids had gone through. He shook his head and jammed his hands
further
into his pockets. Just thinking about it made his stomach turn. Was a miscarriage, or even an abortion, much different? Okay, so he’d never actually see his baby, but did that make it any less worse? Maybe Sarah was doing them a favour by having an abortion. At least that way, they would never have to experience the pain of
losing
their child. There’d be no memories to haunt them.

Sarah flinched as the crunch of leaves under his thin-soled leather shoes echoed around them, but she didn’t turn around. She was sitting in front of a statue and was so still, she might as well have been made of stone herself. A gust of wind blew towards him, and he got a hint of her shampoo. It was funny how a smell could sum up a person. He knew that if he smelled it again years down the line, it would always bring up the image of Sarah in his mind.

He went and sat next to her. He wanted to turn and look at her, but he forced himself not to. Instead, he looked at the statue a few feet in front of them.

It was small – three, maybe four feet high, and as he studied it in detail, he saw the signs of weathering. The small, pockmarked holes reminded him of the woodworm infestation they’d had in his family home when he was about seven years old. His dad had been renovating the house, and Adam had begged his father to let him help. When they’d pulled back the carpet to reveal the rotting floorboards underneath, his dad had sworn. Thinking about it, it was perhaps the only time he’d ever heard his dad curse, but while his dad was annoyed with the infestation, Adam was fascinated. The statue, carved from a single block of stone, made him feel the same way.

It was beautiful, but there was something heartbreaking about it. He looked at it, taking in every detail of the kneeling angel
resting
her head on her arm. Her eyes were closed, and the corners of her mouth turned up with the hint of a serene smile, like a stone Mona Lisa. A wing curled its way around her shoulder protectively, resting in her lap. He looked at its chubby limbs and cheeks. Was it an angel or a cherub? He didn’t know the difference, but either way, it stood almost like a guardian of this section of the cemetery.

He rubbed his hands over his mouth and tipped his head back, blinking a few times until the moisture in his eyes receded. He turned and looked down at Sarah, studying her profile. He looked at the slight upturn of her nose, the shape of her lips and her
eyelashes
resting on her cheekbones as she kept her eyes closed. She was holding a small rectangular tin in her hands, decorated with swirly patterns.

Everything around them sounded sharp in the quietness of the cemetery – a bird chirping somewhere in the trees, the rustling of dead leaves on the ground being pushed along by the wind. Sarah’s breathing. It was so quiet, he was convinced he’d have been able to hear her heartbeat if he listened long and hard enough.

Finally, Sarah opened her eyes and looked back at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, puffy and seemed to be searching for
something
as the intense amber of her irises scanned his. He blinked. She still
had th
e power to make his mind blank with just a look. Was she still angry with him? What was she doing here anyway? It was a
peaceful
place, but it was hardly somewhere most people would choose to relax.

‘You came back,’ Sarah said in a voice so small it might as well have been a whisper.

‘Of course I did.’

He looked down at his feet. His shoes were speckled with rain and mud, and his toes were cold. He wriggled them in his shoes to try to inject some warmth.

She folded her arms and hunched her shoulders to her ears. ‘I shouldn’t have slapped you earlier. I’m sorry.’

He knitted his eyebrows together. ‘I deserved it. What I did was unforgivable. You had every right to be angry.’

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ she said, nodding towards the statue. ‘It was put up in remembrance of an abandoned baby, you know.’

Adam looked at the statue and grimaced. Just when he thought this place couldn’t get any grimmer.

‘I like it here,’ Sarah continued. ‘I feel like I can think here. It’s funny. I’ve spent so long trying to forget, but now that I’m back, all I want to do is remember.’

Adam frowned and took his hands out of his pockets. Trying to forget what? And did he really want to know? He’d only just resigned himself to never knowing what her secret was, and after yo-yoing backwards and forwards for months, he didn’t have the energy for it anymore. He’d thought that finding out her secret would be the answer to all their problems, but now he knew better. Her secret was never going to be the glue to put their relationship back together, and as selfish as it might have been, he didn’t want to know her secret anymore. There was only so much two people could take.

Sarah leaned forward, picked off a small snail making its way up the statue and put it down on the grass. ‘If anyone should be angry, it’s you. You’ve put up with so much from me.’

Adam shrugged.

‘At first, I thought you coming up here with me was the worst thing that could have happened, but it got me thinking. It made me realise that I don’t want to hide this part of my life anymore.’

As she turned to face him, Adam swallowed. After waiting and hoping for her to open up for so long, he wanted to clamp his hand over her mouth. Being here was freaking him out. She was freaking him out.

‘It’s fine,’ he said and looked away. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything. Really. It’s none of my business anyway.’

‘It is, though.’

‘Seriously, Sarah. There’s really no point. I get it.

‘At the very least you’ll understand why I can’t keep the baby.’

He frowned. Even if she did tell him the truth, she’d still do what she wanted as far as the pregnancy was concerned. He was beyond hoping for happy endings.

‘If you really want to tell me everything, then I’m not going to stop you, but I don’t want to sit here any longer than I have to.’

‘We could go back to the car,’ Sarah suggested. He looked down at her hands. She was holding the tin so tightly that her knuckles almost popped white in her skin. ‘I really need to talk, Adam. It won’t take long.’

He looked up at the sky and clenched his jaw. He was beyond tired. It felt like the longest day of his life, and now it was about to get longer, but if he turned away now, after she’d explicitly told him she wanted to talk, he’d feel like a total prick.

He looked at his watch. ‘Okay. We passed a hotel by that roundabout. I’m really tired, and I’d rather not drive back tonight. We can get some dinner and dry ourselves out. Then we’ll talk.’

Sarah nodded slowly. ‘Okay.’

He was sure it couldn’t have been easy to decide to finally tell him everything, but he’d have been lying if he said he wasn’t relieved at having found a way to put it off a little longer.

34.

T
he heat of the hotel lobby wrapped itself around Adam like a blanket. After the cold and rain of the cemetery, he felt like he could collapse on a bed and sleep for days. He asked the receptionist for two rooms, trying to ignore the way his eyelids scraped over his eyes when he blinked. He was exhausted, and the warm air was making them dry.

The receptionist smiled up at him. ‘Do you have a reservation?’

Was she for real? Why would he have asked for the rooms if they had a reservation? He began to drum his fingers on the
polished
teak desk before stopping himself. It wasn’t – he peered at her name badge – it wasn’t Leanne’s fault that he was dog tired after spending the day driving on the motorway, sitting in a tension-packed living room and hanging around in a cemetery.

He shook his head. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘Not at all,’ she replied, tapping her fingers on the keyboard in front of her.

He looked down at her nails. They were long and intricately painted with a swirly design and little diamante crystals stuck on the ends. He looked over at Sarah’s hands, pressed against the edge of the desk. She used to bite them when they first met, especially when she was nervous. Her fingertips were red. The thought of covering them with his and warming them up flew across his mind. Instead, he reached inside his jacket and took out his wallet. He took out his credit card and put it on the desk in front of them.

Two hundred pounds later, Adam closed the door to his room behind him and slotted the key card into the holder on the wall. His damp shirt was stuck to his back, his toes were numb and his left eye pulsated with a dull throb. He looked at the bed and pictured
himself
flopping onto it, falling into a deep sleep and fast-
forwarding
to tomorrow. The day had unfolded like a disjointed film that made no sense. It was making his head spin.

He’d suggested they take a shower and freshen up, but neither of them had anything to change into. It was all a delay tactic. He couldn’t miss the irony of the situation. For ages, he’d thought of nothing else. The intrigue of Sarah’s secret had driven him to read her diaries, kept him awake at night and distracted him at work. Now, here she was, ready to open up to him, and he was swatting her away like a fly.

He undressed, draped his suit over the back of the chair
by th
e desk and walked into the bathroom. Leaning one hand against
the wa
ll by the mirror, he looked at his reflection and ran a hand across the dark stubble on his cheeks. After today, there would be no going back. He hadn’t thought much beyond finding out what her secret was, but now all he could see was an empty space. Finito. The End. It was really happening. In less than a month, it would all be over. They would have left the flat, and there would be no more Adam and Sarah, no secret, no baby. Nothing.

He turned on the shower and stood under the hot spray of water, letting it cascade down his head and onto his shoulders. It was almost unbearably hot, but within seconds, his muscles began to relax, and the cold that seemed to have set right into his bones slowly thawed out.

Up here in Sheffield, they were removed from normality – if he could call the tension that had taken over their daily lives normal. Not having to carry that tension around anymore was what he’d wanted all along, but he wasn’t stupid. Whatever it was she had to say to him wasn’t going to be pretty; otherwise, she’d have told him what it was ages ago. It wouldn’t have had to take the death of her friend and standing in a children’s cemetery to do it. It would change the way he saw her; he was sure about that.

Adam sat on the foot of Sarah’s bed and looked around at the room. It was identical to his. She’d even draped her dress over the back of the chair, just like he had done with his suit. He looked at her, sitting up, leaning against the headboard. They were in matching fluffy white towelling robes, and he’d have forgiven anyone looking in from the outside for thinking that they were just an average couple, eating room-service sandwiches in their shared room. She dabbed the crumbs on her plate with her finger, and he tried not to focus on the small, delicate curls at the nape of her neck. God, she really was gorgeous.

She put her plate on the tray on the floor and looked at him. He was all out of excuses to put it off any longer. They’d eaten their sandwiches in silence, with the television turned on and the volume low in the background. He hadn’t thought about anything as he ate. He’d wanted to empty his mind of everything and found it
surprisingly
easy.

She sighed. ‘So, I’ve been thinking about how to say all this, and I still have no idea how to start.’

Adam raised one side of his mouth to give her what he hoped was a sympathetic smile, when all he wanted to do was say, ‘Don’t. Don’t tell me, I don’t need to know.’ But he couldn’t do that. It would damage her beyond imagination if he did. The last piece of the sandwich he’d swallowed seemed to be stuck right in the middle of his throat, and his attempts to swallow it down did nothing.

‘You said you knew about Richard, from reading my diaries.’

His cheeks and ears burned. ‘Sarah, I—’

‘I need you to not talk. Otherwise I’ll never get this out.’

He raised his eyebrows and nodded. Had she just told him to shut up?

‘Believe it or not, I’m not actually angry that you read them. I mean, I was at first. Of course I was. I couldn’t believe that you’d gone behind my back like that. But it wasn’t really you that I was angry with. I was angry at myself.’

She drew her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees.

‘I know that none of this has been easy for you, and I am really sorry for the way I’ve been acting. You really didn’t deserve any of it, but I was so scared of telling you the truth, and then when I found out about Richard, it all just got too much. The baby . . . you . . . him.’ She shook her head. ‘But I can’t lie anymore. Even if you walk out of here and never want to lay eyes on me again, you need to know.’

Adam swallowed. Jesus Christ. What was she about to tell him? His heart started to ram against his chest as if it were trying to escape. It had the right idea. It was exactly what he wanted to do himself. Instead, he forced himself to stay put on the bed.

‘This isn’t the first time that I’ve been pregnant. I had a baby when I was fifteen. A boy. Jack.’

Adam screwed his eyebrows together and shook his head. She had a kid? He clamped his teeth together to stop his jaw from hanging open. He looked at her, huddled against the headboard with her eyes wide open and staring at him. She had a child. A son. A
fifteen-year-old
son. Never mind keeping Claire a secret – this was huge.

He cleared his throat. ‘With Richard?’

Sarah nodded. He nodded back and looked out of the window as the pieces of the jigsaw slowly slid into place. Suddenly, her reaction to Richard’s death didn’t seem so extreme.

‘Okay. So where is he now? Did you put him up for adoption?’

She chewed her bottom lip and reached down to the floor for her handbag. Her hands shook as she pulled out the tin she’d been holding in the cemetery.

She looked down at it and slowly ran her fingers over the lid. ‘I found this when I was up in the attic earlier with Mum. I’ve never shown this to anyone before.’

It didn’t look like she wanted to now either, not if the way she was clinging onto the box was anything to go by.

‘Here.’ She held her arm out and looked away. He swallowed as he took it from her.

It was only a tiny box, but whatever was in it clearly held a lot of weight. He looked down at the black tin. Her secret, the thing that had been the root cause of their break-up, was right there in his hands. He pushed his thumb under the lid and popped it open.