Who We Were Before (21 page)

63

EDWARD, SUNDAY, 11 A.M.

A
fter leaving Fiona, I take yet another cab back to the hotel, my mind toying with thoughts of why Zoe was at the train station. Did she use the money I left to buy another ticket? Does that mean she’s on a train home right now? God, I hope not. I can’t bear to think I’ve hurt her like that . . . if she even cares any more. I suppose I can understand why she might not, given how cold I’ve been. I pop another painkiller, realising how selfish it was to try to force her back to me, force her to move on. You can’t ‘move on’ from your son’s death. I know. I’ve certainly tried.

I think back through the years and all the ways I’ve chivvied her forward. Marriage, the house, the second baby . . . I was the one to push all those things. Perhaps it hasn’t just been her running the course of this relationship, like I’d believed. I may have resented her holding us hostage over the last couple of years, but we were in this thing together.
Are
in this thing together.

Finally, here I am, back at the hotel yet again. She has to be here; this must be the end of the road. After all that has happened, I need to tell her I understand. And that I love her, because I do. Buried underneath all that hurt and resentment – and under my own grief that I never really let myself feel – is a well of emotion for her, and for us.

‘Oh, monsieur!’ The receptionist’s head snaps up as I enter, and my heart leaps. I’m sure she’s going to say Zoe is waiting in the room. ‘I am so very sorry, but it is now checkout time. Please pack your things and exit your room as quickly as possible, as we have other guests arriving.’

Shit.
I manage to nod my head. ‘Okay.’ How the hell am I going to track down my wife if I’m booted from the one place she knows where to find me? I gather my things inside the minuscule space, noticing the note is just where I left it and the money beside it is untouched. Zoe obviously hasn’t returned since this morning – the only thing I can think of is she’s camped out at the station, waiting for our train. There’s no reason for her to come back here, is there? Especially if she thinks I’m with another woman.

God.

I sink down on the bed and lower my aching head into my hands. Then I take the suitcase, head into the lift once more and give the receptionist the key. A few hours remain until the train home and right now, I need some fresh air before I pass out from either the lack of sleep or the pain.

I push open the doors and stand on the pavement once again, so very, very tired of moving. A strong urge for a bit of calm, of peace, of relaxation comes over me, and I know where I need to go.

It’s not a long walk to the Seine, but each step feels like I’m trudging through sludge. Every bone in my body aches to sit down, to lie down, and close my eyes for just one second. The pounding in my head has subsided to a dull throb and my wound stings, but if I can make it to the river – to stare down into the water, like I used to so many times before – maybe the mess of my life will be bearable. Because no matter how I’ve tried in the past few years to make my world something I can cope with, I know now that what I created was just on the surface, an alternate reality that dissolved in front of me.

I cross the bridge to a small island, then go down some stairs to a pathway by the river. I walk for a bit, breathing in the scent of trees and damp river water, a sense of calm slowly stealing over me. When my legs can’t take me a step further, I sink onto a bench, close my eyes, and let the sound of water lapping concrete lull me to sleep.

64

ZOE, SUNDAY, 11.30 A.M.

I
don’t know how long I’ve been standing here as trains screech into the station, but I don’t care. Even though I’m in a foreign city, years from when I lost the baby, this feels exactly like that day: the absolute emptiness, the despair, the finality. After the doctor told me what I already knew – then scraped whatever remained from inside me – I stood in the station for hours, thinking how I could get on one of those trains and disappear. Edward would adjust, like he already did after Milo, and he’d never know I lost another child too.

No, not lost –
killed.
Because that’s what it is. I couldn’t keep Milo safe, and I couldn’t keep the baby safe, either, even though I tried to cocoon her from everything, from anything that harmed her. Of course the doctor said it was just one of those things, that miscarriages are common, and that there was nothing I could have done – a brutal echo of people’s words after Milo’s accident.

The death of that baby was the final nail in the coffin of my motherhood, and so when Edward started up again about having another child, I couldn’t even listen to the words. I had to turn away, before he could see how they scalded me. Another baby my womb would discard? Another life to have taken away? No, not a chance. This baby was a gift, and I’d rejected it.

Perhaps if I told him about the miscarriage, he’d have understood. But I couldn’t bear to face any more blame, to see it on his face even if he’d never say the words. Those accusations he’d flung at me after Milo had branded my heart, making it bloody and raw. There was no way I could open it up again.

And so I stood there, that bleak day, watching train after train, unable to move forward or step back. The sky darkened, the trains came less often, and the passengers became less numerous.

‘Last train to London!’ the stationmaster called, and the train glided into the station. My legs carried me forward and I sank into the plush seat, my womb still contracting. At Waterloo, I got off and walked across the concourse, then sat on a bench outside until morning – a bench away from the river, a bench on the street. I didn’t call Edward; I didn’t call anyone. I just sat there, numb, until some part of me urged me home. And ever since, every day, I follow that same route: home to Waterloo, Waterloo to home. Insert pub in the middle.

Someone jolts my arm, and I blink, momentarily surprised at the French babbling around my ears.
Home
. What is that? Why bother now, anyway? Milo’s gone, Edward will go soon, but it’s not the house I’m really thinking of. It’s the people in my life who made me safe, who made me happy – what could have made me happy. That’s what home is, but it’s all over now, isn’t it?

I think of the ring in my pocket and of Edward’s promise of forever. I picture him leaning in to kiss Fiona, and resignation sweeps over me. I’ve lost him, lost
us
. I dig out the wedding band. Its solid band rests heavy on the palm of my hand, glinting in the harsh florescent light of the platform. I feel the vibrations of a train nearing, the hot air stirring as it approaches. I make my way to the edge of the platform and step forward.

‘
Attention
!’ A woman grabs my arm and levers me back from the edge as the train screams into the station.

‘I’m okay, I’m all right.’ I shake off her grip, forcing a smile. ‘I was
just going to throw this onto the track, that’s all.’ I open my palm to show her Edward’s ring, and my hand is shaking. I
was
just going to
throw the band on the track . . . right? I don’t know. I don’t know. I
cover my eyes. The lights and the noise are all too much, as if they’ve been amped up.

The train doors slide open, and the woman helps me into a carriage, gently pushing me into a seat. ‘You sit here for a second,’ she commands, sitting down beside me.

‘I’m fine,’ I insist, although my voice sounds scratchy. My heart is racing, and my mouth is dry. I’m anything but fine.

‘Where are you going?’ she asks, her eyes holding mine as if she knows I’ve not a clue in the world where I’m headed.

I shake my head, not trusting myself to give a response that would halfway make sense. The metro rattles into a station, and together we watch the doors open and close as passengers get off and more get on.
The rhythm of life,
I think absently. One minute the people you love are there, they next they’re gone. And the train relentlessly keeps moving.

‘Life can be shit,’ the woman says, and I raise my eyebrows in surprise. The harsh language seems at odds with her elegant appearance. ‘But that’s how it goes.’ She shrugs, and then says something a thousand friends said, but never really sank in. ‘You need to be good to yourself.’ She pats my arm, then gets to her feet. ‘This is my stop.’

‘Thank you,’ I say in a low voice as she nods and pushes out through the doors, then disappears amid the crowds of people.

The train rattles off, and I lean back in my seat.
Life can be shit
 – that’s putting it mildly. I shift, catching my reflection in the window. Life can be shit, but I’m still here, despite it all. I’m still alive after everything that’s happened, after two years of pain that have lost me my husband.

Am I going to lose myself, too? I can’t bear to think of what was happening back on that platform. What I almost did . . . or not.

Be good to yourself.
The words echo in my ears, and I remember person after person uttering that phrase for months after Milo, so often I could predict the end of any conversation. They made me cringe; made my insides knot with guilt. How could I be good to myself when I’d done the worst thing a parent could: failed to protect their child – or, in my case, children?

Be good to yourself
. As if.

The train pulls into another station, and the doors open. Before
I know what I’m doing, my legs carry me onto the platform, where I
follow the people up into the streaming sun.

I blink as my eyes meet the spires of Notre Dame Cathedral, then spin to take in a very familiar-looking façade: Hotel Dieu. Somehow, I’ve made it back to the same place I was this morning. I shake my head. How many times did I retrace my route over the past day, believing I’d finally intersected with Edward, only to see him with someone else?

I make my way to the river, gingerly stepping down old stone stairs to the edge. Couples mooch by, hand in hand, and I sink onto a bench, watching the sun glint off the water. I think of Edward’s ring in my pocket and pull it out again, placing it on the bench beside me while I jimmy off my band, too. It slides from my finger easily, without resistance.

I flex my finger, thinking how strange it looks, how naked. It feels strange, too – like I’m uncovering a place that’s been hidden away for years, a foreign patch of skin that hasn’t seen the sun.
Who was I before Edward
, I ask myself? Even though we’ve barely spoken these past couple of years, we’ve still been bound together by everything that happened. It’s hard for me to think back to the woman I was before we met.

But I don’t think that matters. What matters now is finding a new way forward, a way to live despite the past. A way to let me be
me
again, whatever that means – and being good to myself, despite the guilt and mistakes of the past.

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

I shake my head as the words ring in my ears. I’ll always blame myself for what happened with Milo. I could have stopped that accident. As for the baby girl I lost, well . . . I don’t know. Maybe it was because of Milo’s death, the universe denying me another chance at motherhood. Or maybe it was just one of those things, like the doctor said. But whatever the reason, I need to find a way now not to forget – because who could ever do that? – but to forgive myself
enough
to carry on. To live, even if everything else has been taken away.

I place my wedding ring beside Edward’s on the bench, then look at the river. Part of me is tempted to fling them both into the Seine, shoving forever back in the universe’s face. But that would be like trying to erase our relationship, and I don’t want to do that. We might be finished, but he’s always going to be part of the fabric of my life, and trying to tear him out would only do huge damage. I think I’ve been damaged enough.

I slide the rings into my pocket and get to my feet. A final walk along the river, and then I’ll head to the Gare du Nord. If Edward’s not there with my ticket, I’ll call my parents and ask them to send money. This time tomorrow – hopefully sooner – I’ll be back in the UK and starting again. My gut clenches momentarily at the thought of leaving the house with so many memories, but I know the memories are inside me, not in a physical place. I don’t want to bury them with guilt or drown them with drink. There’s been a lot of good in my life, too, and I want to hang on to that.

I gaze up into the sun, its warmth soaking through my skin and into the heart of me.

65

EDWARD, SUNDAY, 12.45 P.M.

I
jerk awake at the sound of two small girls scampering by on identical blue scooters. The sun is high in the sky, and I can tell by the stiffness of my body that I’ve been passed out here for a while. I raise my hand to check the time, every muscle protesting at even that small movement.

Shit!

I better get a move on if I don’t want to be late for the train – and if I want to find Zoe at the station. I pray she’s still there. Hopefully
the journey home will give me a chance to explain exactly what Fiona was doing here, along with the fact that I never knew Zoe was missing.

I get to my feet, unable to believe I’ve only been here for a day. It feels more like a century. So much has happened: getting separated from Zoe, calling Fiona, going clubbing and ending up in hospital . . . then Zoe seeing me with Fiona. I don’t know where things are with us or where they will be, but at the very least, my wife needs to know I never cheated. I shudder when I think how close I came.

I quicken my pace towards the bridge up ahead, the set of stairs leading up to street level. Just ahead of me is a woman walking quickly, too, her pace matching mine. Something about the way she moves is familiar, jogging a part of my brain. I narrow my eyes against the sun, tracing the outline of her body as my heart begins to beat fast. Could that be Zoe, or am I just imagining things? Her body isn’t as familiar to me now as it used to be, her curves eroded away by the past few years, but as I walk even faster, her dark curls and the familiar baggy T-shirt come into focus.

‘Zoe!’ My voice is husky, and I clear my throat. ‘
Zoe
!’ My call is swallowed up by the hum of a huge tourist boat gliding by, and I break into a run. I’m not letting her get away. Not now, not after everything we’ve been through.

My head pounds, my stomach churns, and I feel like I’m about to fall over, but finally I catch up with her.

‘Zoe.’ I touch her arm, and she wheels around, her eyebrows flying up with surprise. Close up, she doesn’t look much better than I do. Her hair is flying everywhere, her T-shirt clings to her, and her face is sweaty with a streak of dust across her cheek. But right now, quite honestly, she’s never looked better. There’s something about her eyes that looks . . . different. Less pinched. More present somehow. A streak of emotion goes through me, so strong it almost powers me to the ground.

I found my wife
, a voice inside my head says over the pounding.
I found her again
.

I reach out to take her hand. Then I notice she’s not wearing her wedding band, and everything inside me goes cold.