I had to tell him.
I leaned forward, closed the gap between us. And then I opened my mouth and said, ‘Nick, I have something I need to tell you.’
36
NICK
‘Why do I get the feeling this is not going to be a good thing?’ I said. My hands had begun to shake and I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. It didn’t work.
‘It is a good thing,’ she said. ‘It’s just… well, it’s quite a big thing.’
‘Right.’
The air thinned and my lungs felt like they couldn’t pull in enough oxygen. I watched as Emma opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get any words out, I stood, suddenly overcome with the urge to get out of there.
She looked up at me, surprise in her eyes, then stood too.
‘Nick?’
My blood felt icy in my veins. ‘I don’t think I can do this,’ I said. ‘Last time you had something to tell me it didn’t end well. I told you before and I believe it even more now. Nothing good can ever come of knowing about the future.’
‘But, Nick,’ she said. ‘I don’t know anything about the future. We’re here, both of us. Right now.’
I stared at her, at her beautiful flaming hair that hung in waves around her face, at her sparkling green eyes, the handfulof freckles sprinkled across her nose, and all the fight went out of me, deflating like a leaky tyre. I dropped back onto the bench. Beside me, Emma sat still, saying nothing.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Of course you don’t know anything about the future.’ I rubbed my face with my hand, feeling the prickle of stubble against my palm. ‘So, what do you need to tell me?’
She paused a moment, then I watched as she bent down and pulled her bag onto her knee and rummaged around in it. She pulled out her phone and a white envelope, and lay them both on the bench beside her. She pressed the flat of her palm against the top of the envelope and looked at me. She looked absolutely petrified.
She opened her mouth, closed it again, then pushed the white envelope towards me.
‘Open it,’ she said.
I looked down at it. It was plain white, A4 size, and I thought back to the last time I’d found an envelope from Emma, telling me about the train crash, and how much the contents of that had changed my life. For a moment, I couldn’t move, paralysed by fear and indecision.
What if the contents of this one turned my life upside down too? I wasn’t sure I could handle that. And yet, it was clearly important to Emma.
I took a deep breath and picked it up and pulled the flap open. Glancing up at Emma, I could see her watching me, frozen. Her hand holding her mobile was shaking. I looked back down and peered inside. There was a sheet of paper and a couple of what looked like small photos and, trying to keep my hand steady, I pulled them out and lay them in front of me, face up.
They were all photos, one grainy, printed out on plain paper from a computer, the other two on proper photo paper and clear as day. From all three, the faces of small children grinned out at me. I frowned.
‘Who are they?’ I said.
A smile flickered across her face. ‘It’s not they,’ she said, softly. ‘It’s just he. One boy. Flynn.’
‘Flynn?’ I said, a flicker of something deep in my belly.
‘Look at him again,’ she said.
I did as instructed, spreading the three photos out beside each other. Now I looked again I could see it was the same boy at different ages. The same smile, the same wide, blue eyes.
And then I saw it and the world stopped spinning.
I looked up at Emma, then back down at the photographs.
‘This is… this is your son, isn’t it?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’
