In his sensible, rational moments, he told himself it was because of the babies. That there was some biological imperative at work meaning he had to protect her, to be with her, to build whatever nest she wanted for herself. But those moments of strength were few and far between.
When he thought of Elodie, and how much he missed her, it wasn’t because of the babies, so much as her. He hadn’t been joking about going back to Italy.
Their time there, out on the yacht, had been quite possibly the very best of his life. Each moment had been a joy. A true joy. He’d never known such happiness.
Was that what it had been like for his father? Had he lived with that pleasure, until the death of their mother had driven him permanently into a pit of despair?
Wasn’t the fact they were having children together all the more reason to contain whatever he was feeling for Elodie? He wouldn’t risk becoming their father. He wouldn’t risk doing that to his children.
That conviction didn’t last long, either.
Missing Elodie was like the beating of a drum, that became the background to his life. Wanting her was a pain he knew he’d have to learn to live with. Days turned into weeks, then weeks turned into a month, and the pain didn’t ease, it just became a part of him.
The day after Raf left,the clothes arrived. Boxes and boxes of carefully packed maternity wear, somehow perfectly in her size. She might have suspected he’d employed a stylist, but there was something so right about each of the outfits, the colours so perfect for her complexion, that in the back of her mind, a flicker of hope ignited, to imagine him doing something so thoughtful as shopping for her. Then, irritation, because of course she could buy her own clothes. She didn’t need this. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t a nice gesture. She swung from one feeling to the other for days, and was relieved in a way, to have something to focus on besides how utterly and completely she missed him.
Two weeks after moving back in with her parents, the paperwork from his lawyers had arrived, outlining the trust arrangements. She’d taken a cursory glance at the set up, and the figure he’d settled into the account, and wanted to be sick.
Did he really think she wanted that kind of money from him? That she needed it?
She’d left the papers unsigned, on the small bedside table of her small room in her parents’ small house and spent the next two weeks trying not to think about Raf, and the life she’d walked out of. Missing even the house she thought she hated, but couldn’t quite bring herself to, because it was where they’d first made love, where their babies had been conceived.
And she thought of Italy, and the way they’d been there, with a visceral sense of longing that threatened to rip her apart completely.
A month after arriving at her parents’ house, Elodie would have expected to have started feeling more like herself. She’d thought taking some breathing room would give her the clarity and headspace she needed to feel as she used to, but if anything, the longer she went without seeing Raf, the more a sense of strangling panic grew inside of her. As though it were all a dream—not real. As though she’d briefly held something special in her hands and not fought hard enough to keep it.
It was a feeling that kept growing inside of her, day by day, until, six weeks after arriving back in the village, she decided to go for a walk simply to try to escape her thoughts. Of course it didn’t work, particularly not with the knowledge that a sleek black car was driving a hundred feet or so behind her the whole way. She contemplated cutting through an impassably narrow laneway, then scampering into a field, just to escape her escort, but she didn’t. In a way, it was a tangible connection to Raf, and she wasn’t strong enough to outrun it.
Instead, she headed for the small high street, in search of something sweet, like a scone or biscuit from the local bakery. Only, before she could reach it, she saw a familiar sight and stopped walking in surprise.
“Elodie,” his smile was slow, uncertain.
“Aaron.” She waited to feel something. Anything. She waited for her heart to beat or her stomach to twist, for her blood topound in her body. She waited for her skin to flush and her fingers to tingle with a need to touch, and there was nothing.
“You look…incredible,” he said, with a shake of his head, moving towards her and nodding at her stomach.
She glanced down with a grimace. There was no hiding her pregnancy now. Eighteen weeks into carrying twins and she already felt enormous.
“How have you been?” His voice then was soft, heavy with emotions she didn’t feel.
“Okay,” she answered honestly. She knew him too well to obfuscate. “And you?”
“Fine, fine.” He brushed off the question though. “Are you busy?”
“My life revolves around growing babies right now,” she quipped. “I’m just looking for something sweet to get us through the afternoon.”
She pressed her hand to her stomach, connecting with her babies as she so often did.
“The bakery?”
She nodded.
“I just got the last biscuit.” He held out a brown paper bag. “Have it.”
“I couldn’t. I know how much you love them.”
He grinned. “It’s fine. I already ate one this morning.”
“Aaron,” she said with a roll of her eyes, and realized she did feel something after all. Gladness. To slip back into the easy friendship of their relationship, to talk to someone she knew almost like a sibling.
