Pausing, she glanced at him, guessing his first reaction would be to feel as if someone had punched him, as she had when she’d heard what the interview was about. ‘And are you okay with it?’ he asked her, obvious concern in his eyes.
He was worried she might not be emotionally strong enough to cover this particular story. Cassie was glad that he cared enough to worry, but she wanted to see the smile back in his eyes, for him to think of her as someone he could smile with again, rather than someone he had to constantly fret about.
Taking a breath, she nodded. ‘I wasn’t sure I was, but… Things have changed, haven’t they? With Kim’s situation, I mean.’ She searched his eyes, hoping he would get that she needed to do this, painful though it might be. ‘I want to be there for her and Samuel. She needs someone who cares in her life. I’d like to be that someone, but I need to be fully functioning, capable of making decisions and supporting her, not drifting around with no sense of purpose. Do you understand?’
Adam nodded, and there it was, a hint of a smile, thank goodness. Cassie’s ghosts would never go away, but she hoped that one day Adam might not feel so haunted by Josh’s death. He didn’t deserve to carry his misplaced guilt for the rest of his life. ‘I do,’ he assured her, his mouth curving up at the corners. ‘And I’m proud of you.’
His gaze was definitely approving as he leant in to kiss her cheek.
Cassie felt buoyed by that. She couldn’t turn back the ravages of time, but she could make a bit of an effort with what she’d got, which wasn’t too abysmal considering all her body had been through. The intimacy between them had dwindled to almost non-existent. Her fault, not his. Her emotions had shut down the day Josh had died. She had to reach out to him now. A relationship without physical contact wasn’t sustainable. Adam was solid, dependable, caring, but he wasn’t a saint. He needed the comfort closeness brought. Comfort she’d wanted to offer him but hadn’t felt able to, leaving him to cope alone with his grief.
She gave him a bright smile – which was a start. At least she might look approachable, rather than miserable. Skirting around him to the front door, she reached absent-mindedly to straighten the Japanese statue on the hall table, which wasn’t quite in its correct position, then snatched her hand away. She was obsessing, something she was trying very hard to stop doing, since it had caused the rift with Josh that had never been fixed. She had to get a grip. Constantly fussing would send out a clear signal to Adam that she wasn’t coping.
Determinedly she opened the door. ‘Good luck. Drive carefully,’ Adam called after her as she dashed to her car.
‘Thanks. I will.’ Cassie waved behind her.
She was in reasonable spirits as she drove. Now that little Samuel had come into her life, she had a purpose. Josh had given her that purpose once. She would never stop feeling guilty for what had happened between them, all because of her ridiculous tendency to be too house-proud. Her anxiety about her illness, the prognosis, the medication, the insomnia… she’d been exhausted. And then she’d exhausted herself more by fixating on every little thing that needed doing in the house, things she didn’t have the energy to do. Josh had suffered the brunt of her frustration.
She couldn’t make it up to him, would never forgive herself for the part she’d played in the events that had led up to his death. If only he’d been living at home…
Breathing deeply, she curtailed her thoughts. She would drive herself mad constantly thinking about the ifs and buts. Josh had been her reason for living. Now his son had given her a reason to keep living. For her own son’s sake, she would be there for him. A normal, balanced, smiling nana, not the neurotic woman of before. She wouldn’t let Samuel down. She would make sure he had everything he should have in life, in the absence of a father.
Arriving with time to spare, she pulled out her phone, deciding to cancel the counselling session she had booked. She’d tried to talk through her grief, but she simply couldn’t. There was little point going when she couldn’t reveal all of herself: her anxieties, her long-ago secret that she’d felt unable to share even with Adam, although she bitterly wished she had. It might have been better to have lost him earlier, rather than now, when she couldn’t bear the thought of a future without him.
Once the appointment was cancelled, she used the time she had left before the interview to scroll to the groups she regularly checked on Facebook. She was familiar with them all. She’d joined some of them as part of her research for an article on drug-dependent parents and the effect on their children. The broadsheet she’d been writing the article for had paid well, promising a future regular spot, otherwise she might have turned it down. As it was, it had been useful research, should she ever need it. Her heart had stopped beating when she’d discovered a video posted on one of the sites by the woman she’d kept tabs on for years.
Bracing herself, she flicked to the woman’s profile page, as she regularly did. She was clean now. Cassie had been surprised when she’d learnt that. She’d been so dependent when she knew her, she hadn’t been capable of caring for anyone – not herself, not her children. Cassie’s heart had broken for them, for the innocence that had been stolen living with a mother whose drug addiction would have dictated her every mood. She’d obviously turned her life around.
Realising the time, she exited the site and was about to climb out of the car when she received a text. Pausing, she checked it. The message was short. Blood-freezing.I know all about you, it read.
Eleven
Cassandra
‘I think I have everything I need.’ Cassie smiled at the grieving mother she’d come to talk to, while praying that she really had got everything. She’d run through the interview with her mind frantically racing, wondering who the text was from. It had been sent anonymously, the caller ID blocked, making it more ominous. The message had been a warning, quite obviously, but what did it mean? For it to be the woman whose profile she’d been studying at that moment, someone she’d hoped never to encounter again, would be incredible. Cassie could only think itwasher, though, hinting that she intended to go to the papers. In which case, everything she’d worked so hard to keep hidden would come out.
A chill ran through her as she imagined Adam’s reaction. Her marriage, the foundations of which she feared were already shaking, would crumble. Her career would be over. She would lose everything. She would lose Samuel before she had even got to know him. All this despite the fact that her intention, though also self-serving, had been to keep safe someone who was so very vulnerable.
What if it wasn’t her? Her heart banging against her chest, Cassie scrambled to think who else it could be. What if the threat was nothing to do with her distant past, but what was happening in her life now?
Swallowing back icy fear, she switched off her voice recorder, picked up her phone and notepad and got to her feet. Already standing, the woman smiled tremulously, but her face was etched with grief. Her eyes wore the same haunted look Cassie caught whenever she glanced into a mirror. She was still plagued by what Josh had gone through, her mind relentlessly conjuring up images of her son’s last moments. Adam would hold her when she woke sobbing, try to reassure her. This grieving mother had no one. A single mother, her only son had struggled with his mental health and committed suicide after being discharged by the psychiatric treatment team. He’d attempted to take his own life twice before, yet had been abandoned. His mother blamed herself, inevitably. Cassie’s heart bled for her.
Overwhelmed suddenly by images of Josh growing up, smiling, laughing, crying, she caught a breath in her throat and moved towards the lounge door before the walls rushed in and suffocated her.
Following her to the front door, the woman extended her hand. ‘People need to know,’ she said, as Cassie took it. ‘Callum was vulnerable and scared,’ she went on, a flash of determination in her eyes. ‘He was in need of help and the people who should have offered that help let him down.’
This was this woman’s reason for continuing to live when her life must seem empty and pointless. She needed to stay strong to get justice. Her focus was on highlighting the flaws in the system and trying to prevent the tragic death of another vulnerable young person.
Cassie wished her well, hoping that her article – which she had to get right, no matter what was going on in her own life – might help. ‘We’ll make sure this gets front page,’ she promised, and then, sensing the woman’s need, she reached out to hug her. ‘Stay strong,’ she murmured. ‘You’ll get through this.’
Once in her car, Cassie swiped the tears from her face, gripped the steering wheel and took several slow breaths as images of Josh once again flooded her mind. She pictured him as a toddler, when his love for her was unquestioning. Her love for him had been all-consuming, from the second she’d first held him to the second she lost him. She’d known when that second was. She was sure she’d felt some primal pull on her heartstrings. Only a mother could ever feel that. No matter what happened, no one could ever take that pure love away from her.
Feeling more composed after a minute, she started the car. She was heading for home when she realised she was approaching the park she’d visited so often with Josh. It was like a magnet.
She could hear the thwack of tennis balls as she walked past the courts where she’d spent hours on Sundays teaching Josh how to play. There was no one on the courts now; only the ghost of him. No children on the roundabout or the swings as they creaked in the wind, but still she could hear the melodic sound of laughter. She was glad when a young man playing fetch with his dog hurried on. She’d probably scared him off. She must look pretty pathetic, a grown woman sitting on a swing weeping.
‘I’m sorry, Josh,’ she whispered.Please forgive me.
