Who We Were Before (18 page)

52

ZOE, SUNDAY, 8.30 A.M.

T
here’s no way I can stay in this hotel room and just wait for Edward to appear. I need to move, to do something. My days of drifting around waiting for the time to pass are over.

I slip his wedding band in my pocket, then thump down the narrow stairs and over to reception.

‘Could you tell me when you last saw my husband? Edward Morgan?’ I ask the receptionist. It’s a small hotel, so there’s a chance she might remember. She gives me a pitying stare, likely wondering what kind of pathetic marriage we have that I don’t even know where he is.

‘I haven’t seen him this morning,’ she says, ‘but I’ve only just started my shift.’

Ah, of course. ‘If you do see him, can you please tell him his wife is looking for him? There’s a note in the room,’ I say, not wanting to go into details. She’s already starting to look bored.

‘Of course. And may I remind you that checkout is at eleven?’

Cheeky cow, I think, as a flash of panic goes through me. What if I don’t find Edward before checkout? How will I get home? It’s funny that now I actually want to go back. I’ve spent the past two years trying to get away.

But I’ll find Edward again. Of course I will – all his things are still here. Unless . . . My fingers worry the ring in my pocket. Unless something’s happened to him.

He’s a big boy, I remind myself, pushing back the niggling fear. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for why his ring was on the pavement. I bite my lip, thinking that maybe I’ll call a few hospitals . . . just in case. I never told Edward, but it’s something I used to do whenever he came home late from work, in that first year after Milo’s accident. Life – or death – had shown me how easily something could be yanked away, how quickly someone you loved with all your being could just disappear. And even though I wasn’t hanging on to Edward during that time – I couldn’t, I didn’t
have it in me – there was still a part of me that feared losing him. I
called so much that the hospital refused to answer my queries, and eventually I stopped. But I don’t think my fear ever did.

But this isn’t the same thing, not even close. We’re in a strange city, he hasn’t been here all night, and his ring was on the pavement. I know in my heart of hearts that something isn’t right. I head back down to reception, knowing she’s going to think I’m crazy and not even caring. I gave up caring what other people think about my state of mind long ago.

‘I’m worried about my husband,’ I say to her now. ‘It’s not like him to be out all night. I’d like to call the hospitals just to make sure he’s not there. If you could give me the number—’

‘I do it,’ she says, surprising me with her responsiveness. ‘It will be easier if I do it.’

‘That would be great, thank you. His name is Edward Morgan, he’s tall and thin with dark hair . . . He should have his ID on him.’ I bite my lip again, thinking that if his wedding ring was missing, maybe his wallet is, too. What are the chances of us both getting mugged in this city?

She nods and looks up a number on the computer. I hold my breath as she dials it, then asks the operator something in rapid French. I catch Edward’s name, and then she nods. ‘I have called the nearest with an emergency department. I am on hold; they are checking admissions now. It could take some time.’ She looks pointedly at a chair in front of the desk, but there’s no way I can sit.

He’ll be fine, I tell myself. He has to be. After everything I’ve been through, there’s no way I could lose him, too. Not like this.

The receptionist lets out a stream of French to whoever’s on the other end of the line, then turns to me. ‘He’s at hospital Hotel Dieu,’ the receptionist says, and my heart jumps.

‘Is he okay? What happened?’

‘They wouldn’t tell me anything,’ she says, dialling another number and shooting French into the receiver. ‘I’ve called you a cab, and it should be here in a minute. It will take you there.’

‘Thank you.’ The words emerge in a trembling voice. My legs somehow carry me to the door, my heart beating against my ribs like it wants to get out. This can’t be happening. Not again.

I won’t let it.

53

EDWARD, SUNDAY, 8.30 A.M.

‘M
onsieur?’

My eyes fly open at the sound of a voice. A doctor is hovering over me, poking and prodding at the wound on my head. Christ, that hurts.

‘
You will definitely need stitches,’ he says, turning away and pulling open a drawer where the torture instruments await. ‘One moment, please.’ He slides open a curtain and I rest my head against the hard mattress again with a soft groan. My skull is
pounding so hard it’s practically levitating off the pillow with each throb, and the less said about the state of my digestive system, the better. What the hell was I thinking, drinking so much?

My eyes drift closed again, and Zoe’s face flashes into my mind, exactly how it looked that day at the morgue: not my wife, not someone I know, someone frozen . . . someone locked inside so firmly she could barely move. I should have hugged her, or tried to, anyway, but I couldn’t. All I could see, once my vision cleared, was Milo.

I’d never seen him so still. Even when he was sleeping, he was a whirlwind, constantly twisting himself up in blankets and falling off the bed. His face was chalky like he’d been into Zoe’s face powder once again. One cheek was scraped and bruised, and his lips had two deep marks. But other than that and some dirt on his jeans (par for the course), nothing could tell me what happened.

Zoe explained in that same flat tone, gripping Milo’s hand the whole time as her voice filled the small room. I remember staring at
her, seeing her lips move, yet all the while not taking it in. Desperately
trying to find something – someone – to make it not true.

A cry bursts from me now that has nothing to do with my head. Grief rolls over me, and this time, I’m powerless to stop it. It fills every pore of my being, soaking into all the cracks and empty spaces, until I feel like my body is almost solid with sadness, like concrete weighing me down on the bed. I want to get up, to escape, to move away from it like I usually do, but I can’t – I’m pinned. It presses on my lungs with such force I can barely breathe, or even
form thoughts. A low wail leaves my throat, a sound that’s so ani
malistic, it doesn’t even seem human.

I don’t know how long I lie like that, inert on the bed, as sadness crashes inside me like physical blows to my guts. Each hit takes my breath away, as image after image of Milo lying on that gurney assaults my mind. I silently beg for my brain to stop, but I’ve lost control. I’ve no choice but to give in.

In the midst of all this, Zoe’s stony face fills my mind. Is this how she feels every day? Is this what she lives with – a sadness that isn’t just a passive passenger but a violent hijacker, grabbing your life and the will to live? If so, I can understand now why she’s had such a hard time moving on. If this is the norm, just getting through the hours must be torture. No wonder she couldn’t talk to me, couldn’t respond to what I thought was my help and support.

A stab of guilt pierces me as I picture the times – the many times – I tried to move her on, and the frustration I felt when nothing seemed to work. Packing up Milo’s room, encouraging her to get more clients . . . even asking to try for that baby again. I wince, remembering her stricken expression. If someone tried to chivvy me along right now, I’d haul off and hit them. I was only doing what I thought was best, but can I really say my method of moving forward has served me well? Have I ever even allowed myself to grieve properly for him, for my son? Feel the soul-deep sadness engulfing me now for longer than a few seconds, without batting it away?

I slide my hand down to my ring finger, where the skin still feels strange and naked, then up to my recently shorn chin. Here I am, trying to make myself into something I am not, turning back time by shaving and trying to lose myself in alcohol. Here I am, about to cheat on my wife and the mother of my child with a woman I like but – let’s face it – don’t love, and probably never will. I’m forty-one years old, and I’m lying in bed at the emergency department of a foreign hospital after splitting my head open from drinking too much. Pathetic.

And none of it has helped blank the memory I’m trying to dodge. I’m still a man whose son has died, and whose wife has left him too. And while I may understand that a bit better now, no matter how hard I try, nothing will erase that.

Not even sleeping with Fiona.

I force my eyes open and look at my mobile. Fiona still hasn’t texted her arrival time, but it must be soon. I’ll get fixed up here, head
to the hotel, and see when she’s coming. I’ll meet her at the train sta
tion and tell her I’m sorry, but I need to return to London – I can’t go any further with her. I don’t want to disappoint her, especially after the long train journey, but I can’t keep this up any longer. I don’t want to be a tourist in this town; I don’t want to try to keep forcing myself to look ahead.

I just want to be home, even if I don’t know where that is any more.

54

EDWARD, MAY 2013

I
’m sitting in the doctor’s office, willing myself to stay calm as I await the results of the fertility test. I know I’m not infertile – obviously, since Milo’s my son – but if we need extra help to conceive again, it’s best we find out now. I hate the look on Zoe’s face, month after month, when she discovers she’s not pregnant. I hate knowing it’s because of me that we can’t complete our family yet, to give Milo a brother or sister. I want Zoe and Milo to have everything, but my body won’t play ball. The weight hangs heavy on me every day, a constant rebuke in the background of our happy life.

And so, as much as I detest the thought of jerking off into a tube, then handing it over for analysis, I’ve done just that. If there’s something I can do to kick-start my balls into functioning properly, I’m on board.

‘Edward Morgan?’

I follow the doctor into his office and settle into the chair, thinking back to this time a few years ago. It feels like another century, but I can still remember the confusion and uncertainty whipping around my brain as I tried to figure out what to do – and then how it all fell apart when Zoe told me the baby wasn’t mine. I try not to think about that now, because there’s no point recalling the absolute pain, the hurt, and then the relief yet disbelief when she told me the truth. We are happy, life together is wonderful, and dredging up old memories achieves nothing. Besides, Zoe promised never to lie again, and I believe her.

‘We have the results from your test.’ The doctor leans back in his chair, and my heart picks up pace. ‘Your sperm count is certainly on the lower side, likely as a result of your illness as a child, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to conceive naturally. I’d say give it another six months, then come back if you’re still having trouble. All right?’

I let out the breath I hadn’t even realised I was holding. ‘So everything is fine?’

The doctor nods. ‘It should be, yes.’ He shifts in his chair, a subtle signal this conversation is over.

I nod, say goodbye, and make my way through the corridors and out into the warm spring day, feeling curiously flat inside. I should be happy: the doctor’s just told me I’m okay; nothing needs fixing. But maybe I
wanted
fixing, a helping hand to lift this burden. Instead, I’m stuck with a low sperm count and a wife I still can’t get pregnant – at least, not this time.

I pause on the pavement outside the clinic, picturing six more months of Zoe’s false cheery tone when she tells me no, not this time. I know she’s covering the disappointment she really feels . . . covering it for me, of course, since I’m the one to blame. I’m the one who can’t give her what she wants for the first time in our marriage, and it kills me.

I envision her face, lit up with optimism and hope as I come through the door, only for me to tell her that I don’t have a solution, I don’t have an answer. All I have is me and my faulty sperm. And how the hell can a man apologise enough for that?

I turn in the opposite direction of home, away from my wife and son.

55

ZOE, SUNDAY, 9 A.M.

A
s the taxi makes its way to the hospital, I lean back on the seat and take a deep breath. So many thoughts are running through my mind it’s impossible to even consider closing my eyes, despite the fact I’ve only had a couple of hours’ sleep.

Is Edward all right? What happened? Is he lying unconscious, or sitting up being polite and apologising for the inconvenience, like he normally would?
I shake my head, my curls pinging off my flushed cheeks. If only I knew something about his condition I wouldn’t feel so tense, so cast out into the unknown, flip-flopping between terror and a roll-of-the-eyes at the trouble he got himself into.

For the first time, I can understand how hard it must have been to be on the other side of Milo’s accident – not as hard as me, obviously, since I’m the one who caused it. I didn’t mean to leave Edward in the dark, of course I didn’t, but I could barely speak myself. Even just finding his contact on my phone took five minutes; the numbers kept swimming in front of my eyes. And I’d hoped . . . I’d hoped that Milo might make it.
Hope
is such a feeble word to express how I really felt. If I said I’d scald myself, freeze myself, endure any form of torture for my son to live, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. Less than a heartbeat, even.

That look on Edward’s face when he opened the door to the room where Milo was lying – it’s something I can’t ever forget, like a void had opened up in front of him and he was falling in. I should have moved to comfort him, but I’d already fallen in myself – the only thing keeping me conscious was holding onto Milo’s hand, his chubby fingers gripped in mine, the way they should have been earlier that day. And once I let go, I plummeted.

When I told Edward what happened, and he hurled those words at me, those words I’ll never forget, then burst out of the room, opening the door with so much force it banged against the wall, well . . .

Why weren’t you watching him? Why didn’t you stop him? How could you let this happen?

I shut my eyes now against the sun streaming from the sky. I don’t blame him for his actions, for his words. I would have prepared him if I could, but how can you prepare your husband for his son’s death? I couldn’t even come close to absorbing it myself. I don’t blame him now for his distance either. He tried to haul me out of the pit I was in, but it wasn’t his hand I wanted. It was Milo’s, and I couldn’t bring myself to reach to anyone else.

But now . . . now, I want to come out of this cave. I
need
to. If Edward and I can endure two years of what we’ve just gone through and stay together despite it all (‘together’ being relative, of course), then there must be something worth saving. There’s a reason we’ve both hung in there, why we both agreed to come on this trip in the first place. There is an
us
we need to find again. It won’t be the same – neither one of us is. But maybe it can still be something special, something we can rebuild together.

I swallow hard. If we’re going to do this, we need to be open and honest . . . no secrets. And that means telling him what happened, that awful day I disappeared a few months after Milo’s death. I can already picture his incredulous expression, the shock I never told him. I cross my fingers, praying he’ll understand, that he’ll be able to understand. I need to take that blind leap of faith and, for once, trust that our relationship is strong enough.

‘This is it, Madame.’

I look up at the imposing stone façade of the hospital, then gasp as I realise I have no money.
Shit
. I’d followed the receptionist’s command without even thinking about it. I make a big show of rifling through my pockets, pretending to look for notes as the cab driver releases a very Gallic-sounding sigh.

‘I’m so very sorry,’ I say, desperate now to be out of this car and into the hospital. ‘I can’t seem to find my money.’

‘No money?’ In the rear-view mirror, I can see the driver’s raised eyebrows.

‘I’m sorry, it’s just, my husband’s in emergency here, and I rushed over . . .’ I cross my fingers he understands English well enough to grasp my halting explanation.

‘Go, go.’ He makes shooing motions with his hands, and I slide from the seat before he changes his mind.

Inside the hospital, the same smell of antiseptic and polish meets my nose and I push away the memories clawing at my mind.

‘Excuse me,’ I say to a harried-looking older woman with a neat grey bob sitting behind a desk. ‘Do you speak English?’

She nods quickly, as if her head is on a string. ‘Yes.’

Phew.
My nerves can’t take trying to speak French right now. ‘I’m looking for Edward Morgan. He was admitted sometime last night, I think.’

‘One minute.’ The woman slides on her glasses and spends what feels like an endless amount of time clicking on the keyboard. My heart is racing and every muscle in my body is set to ‘twitch’ as I await her response.
What unit will he be in? How long will he need to stay?
I watch her mouth for any sign of movement.

‘He’s just been released,’ she says finally, and relief sinks into every cell of my body. Released. He’s all right. Oh, thank god. I still don’t know what happened, or why he had to go to hospital, but none of that matters. What matters is that my husband is okay.

‘Thank you.’ I nod, feeling a smile grow on my face, a glimmer
of hope and excitement circling my belly for the first time in . . . well, that night before Milo’s accident, I guess. I turn from the desk then race across the polished floor and through the heavy doors, spinning from left to right as I realise I don’t have the cash for a cab ride back to the hotel. I’ll have to walk.

My legs churn and I force them faster and faster, unable to wait any longer.

My husband. God, how I’ve missed him.