Then he’d walked out of the house and I’d been left feeling bereft, cracked open.
I didn’t feel much better now, more than a month later. I’d spotted Oliver a few times at the school gates, but he hadn’t even looked at me and had left before I’d had a chance to speak to him. I felt like a part of me had been rubbed away, leaving a raw, open wound. I wished I could tell him I was doing it for him; wished I could tell him the truth. But I couldn’t.
Finally, 12 of March arrived – the date, twenty years before, that Nick had died in the Euston train crash.
Since leaving the letter for Nick and realising nothing had changed, I’d checked the old news reports from time to time over the years, just in case. But of course, Nick was still dead, according to them.
But all that time, in the back of my mind, Rachel’s words from seven years before hovered:Either the future is changed from right now and he will still be alive and you could go and tell him about the baby. Or nothing will change until the date of the accident in 2006. Which will be 2026 for us.
It made no sense, but it was the only sliver of hope I had to cling on to. And now that day was here, and this was my last chance. If nothing changed today, I’d failed, and I’d lost the chance to tell Nick about his son forever.
Everything rested on this.
I felt like a pressure cooker about to explode.
I’d taken the day off and sent Flynn to early morning breakfast club. Rachel had also insisted on taking the day off to be with me. Although I’d objected, claiming I was fine on my own, I was glad of her presence as the time crept nearer.
‘Here, take a glug of this,’ she said now, plonking a huge mug of steaming hot milky coffee in front of me. I took a sip.
‘I’m not sure plying me with caffeine is the best way to calm me down,’ I said, wiping the froth from my lip.
‘Maybe not. But we need to focus.’
I took another gulp and looked up at her.
‘Do you really think something is going to happen today?’ I said, my voice so quiet that Rachel had to lean closer to hear me. She pressed her hand against my arm, her palm warm.
‘Having never done anything like this before there’s literally no way of knowing,’ she said. ‘All we can do is wait, and hope.’
Over the last seven years we’d tried not to discuss this day too much, both of us agreeing it was better to just get on with things. And with Flynn to look after and a busy job, it hadn’t been as hard as I’d imagined for me to put it out of my mind most of the time. But it was during the dark hours of the night when I was feeding Flynn, or when I just couldn’t sleep, that I’d tried to imagine this moment: tried to imagine that, somehow, Nick had found the note, not got on the train – and that, from today, the newspapers would tell a different story.
That Nick would still be alive.
I checked the time on my phone – 9a.m.
There was still over an hour until Nick got on that train twenty years ago and the minutes were groaning by like hours, days, weeks.
I stood, unable to sit still.
Rachel looked up at me. ‘Where are you going?’
I rubbed my hand over my hair. ‘I can’t just sit here. Can we go for a walk?’
Rachel stood and walked round to my side of the table, took my hands in hers.
‘Take a couple of deep breaths,’ she said, and I did as I was told, filling my lungs and breathing slowly out. I felt the tension drop from me like a rock as I looked at my best friend. ‘Whatever happens today, I’m here, okay?’
I nodded.
‘I know there’s a lot at stake here. But if Nick still dies, you’ve got Flynn. And me. You’ve been perfectly fine for the last seven years, and you still will be.’
Her eyes searched my face and eventually I looked away.
‘I know,’ I said, my voice crackly.
I sat back down. My coffee was cooler now and I took a long gulp. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Don’t be daft.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Now I know you won’t be hungry, but I’m going to make you something to eat anyway. At least it’ll keep you distracted.’
