‘Until I ruined it all.’ She paused as if waiting for a torrent of abuse to come her way.
‘I missed him so much when he became your boyfriend rather than my friend.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words were gentle, heartfelt, and after a while with neither of them talking, she carried on with her story, which Nadia needed to hear no matter how difficult.
‘A week after you caught us together, I told him I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t be with him. I tried to end things between us. But he wouldn’t give up. He kept coming back. And although Mum was always there for me, this felt different. He saw me not for the trouble I caused, but for the person I could be deep down. Ididn’t deserve him. But I’d fallen for him in a big way. I couldn’t stay away from him.’
‘You seem to have a really good marriage.’ Despite the history, Nadia found the words easier to say than she would have expected.
‘Apart from me being a little crazy, you mean, and leaving my husband and child, getting on the Eurostar very, very pregnant and having a baby almost on the street if it hadn’t been for the kindness of a neighbour. I often wonder what Archie sees in me.’
‘He told me how kind you are, how you settled into a job, how much you love Giles and that you are a good mum. He told me how you’d flipped what you thought of as the things that were holding you back and turned them into positives – those were his words. He said you’d refused to let those things ruin your life any more. He even told me about you volunteering at a school helping kids learn to read.’
‘He told you all that?’
‘We’ve had some time to get to know each other.’ And she’d had some time to accept his side of the story. Perhaps now she needed to delve deep to find the same forgiveness for her sister.
‘He hated that he lost his friendship with you.’
‘It didn’t feel as though we could be friends any more,’ said Nadia. ‘But also, I never gave him a chance to show me that we could be and for that, I’m sorry.’
Bella started to wake and it wasn’t long before she was moving enough that Monica shuffled herself up in bed in readiness to reach over for her. ‘She can’t possibly be hungry.’
‘Maybe it’s wind.’ Nadia looked at her niece. ‘May I?’
‘Sure.’
Nadia picked up the baby, nestled her against her chest, rocked side to side and patted her gently. Her little body relaxed against Nadia’s, she quietened, and Nadia thought again about Lena.
‘I’ll bet you were a good nurse.’ Monica smiled as she watched her sister with her daughter. ‘I went to a few different hospitals asking after you but never found a trace.’
‘I changed names – I’m Sutton now rather than Fischer.’
‘That would’ve made it harder. So, what happened to him, the guy you were married to?’
‘Jock.’
‘I couldn’t even remember his name.’
‘I kept him away from family, that was why. I shouldn’t have married him really; it was never going to work. We split up but that was a good thing.’
‘You’re happily single?’
‘Something like that.’ She hoped she wasn’t blushing at the thought of Hudson, the almost-kiss, the way she felt when he touched the side of her face before he left earlier.
‘Bella seems happy in her auntie’s arms.’
Nadia felt a wave of emotion at the words and holding this precious bundle. ‘I was pregnant, you know.’
‘I know. And what you went through must’ve been awful.’
‘It was. But I didn’t mean that time. I was pregnant again, when I was married to Jock.’
‘You have a baby? Archie never said.’ Her face lit up but fell at Nadia’s expression.
‘I lost it. An ectopic pregnancy for a second time; I was lucky to survive.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
