She’d heard Adam suck in a sharp breath. She hadn’t meant to say it. She’d wished dearly she could take it back. She hadn’t been thinking of Adam. Of the fact that he’d redecorated the room. She’d just wanted Josh safe back home. She would have given anything, everything – a limb, an eye – for her son to walk through the door. She would have traded her soul to the devil to undo the argument they’d had before he left. To see him smile, listen to his tiresome jokes, pick up his discarded clothes. But he wasn’t going to come home. He would never come home again, and all she had left was the guilt and the pain and a room full of nothing. Memories glossed over. His life obliterated.
‘He was my son too, Cassie,’ Adam had said quietly, after a second. He’d sounded hollow, heartbroken. Still he’d been there for her, catching her as she’d finally crumpled.
Now she turned her face to the pillow, her heart bruising as she felt his crushing hurt all over again. He’d been the best father a man could be, sharing his passions and his hobbies as their boy had grown. He’d been just Josh’s age, twenty-four, when he’d come into her life. Josh had immediately taken to him. They never had managed to have a child together. After an awful late miscarriage, quietly grieving the loss of their baby, they’d finally realised her body simply couldn’t live up to their dreams. Adam had reassured her it didn’t matter, that he was happy as long as they had each other. Had he been? He’d nursed her through surgery after her cancer scare; had always been there. Quietly, though, she’d dreaded that one day he might regret not having a child of his own. And now with Josh gone… He was a handsome man, his dark, rugged looks enhanced rather than marred by the passing of time. Why would he stay with her when he could be with a younger woman, someone who could still help him achieve his dream?
Hearing the bedroom door open behind her, she closed her eyes and pressed the extra pillow closer to her midriff. Adam would want her to get up, try to function, but she couldn’t. Not today. She didn’t have the energy. She just wanted to lie here reliving each painful memory as every one of Josh’s birthdays played through her mind like a slideshow, the reel slowing, melting and snapping as she arrived at the day of his death.
She sensed him come around the bed, place the tea he’d made on the bedside table. Her eyes fluttered open as she felt him sit on the edge of the bed. She watched him run his hands over his face, drape them between his knees.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked him, pointlessly. She knew he was as lost inside as she was. ‘Adam?’ She pulled herself up. Moved towards him.
He kneaded his temples. ‘Not great,’ he said gruffly. ‘I have no idea what to do. Where to go. Everything I touch reminds me of him. Apart from the one place that should remind us of him, which I bloody well gutted.Jesus.’ He sucked in an angry breath, looked heavenwards. ‘I’m so sorry about the bedroom, Cas. I never thought… Not in my worst nightmare could I have—’
‘Adam, stop!’ Cassie shuffled closer and pulled herself to her knees. ‘It doesn’t matter about the damn bedroom. You were there for him. You were always there for him, the only father he ever knew or wanted.’
‘But I wasn’t, was I?’ Adam’s voice was full of remorse. ‘Not when he needed me to be.’
Cassie felt her heart turn over. ‘Adam, don’t.’
‘Why didn’t I offer to drive into Birmingham for him?’ He pressed his thumbs hard against his forehead. ‘I knew he’d be home late. Why the hell couldn’t I have left the job problems to the site manager and bloody well offered? I could have donesomething.’
‘What?’ Cassie caught hold of his hand, willed him to look at her.
‘Anything,’ Adam said gutturally.
‘The building site was flooding, Adam. You prioritised because you had to. And now you’re blaming yourself. It’spointless. Josh wouldn’t have wanted you to do that. You know he wouldn’t.’
Adam’s jaw was taut, his shoulders tense. After a second, he pulled in a breath, blew it out slowly. ‘It wasn’t suicide, Cassie. He didn’t sound down when I last spoke to him. Worried about something, yes. But he wasn’t contemplating taking his own life. I know it in my gut. He texted me, for God’s sake. Would he have done that if he’d been planning to commit suicide?’
Cassie felt her own breath leave her body. He was finally speaking the words he hadn’t dared to say for fear of upsetting her. Even though she knew he was right, she felt as if someone had punched her.
‘He might just have fallen,’ Adam went on. ‘I suppose that’s the only other explanation, but I can’t help thinking there might have been more to it. One minute he’s compos enough to be texting me, then the next… It just doesn’t add up. He couldn’t have beenthatdrunk, could he? So why the bloody hell did he just lie—’
‘Adam,’ Cassie stopped him, lifting his chin and forcing him to look at her, ‘don’t do this to yourself, please. You have nothing to blame yourself for. Nothing. Do you hear me?’
He closed his eyes. ‘Christ, Cassie, what are we going to do?’ he asked throatily.
Cassie hesitated for a second, aware that any intimacy between them had dwindled to none – because of her, because her own guilt wouldn’t allow her to seek comfort in his embrace – and then placed her arms around him. Adam reciprocated, and she tensed for a second as he massaged the nape of her neck softly with his thumb. Then she relaxed a little and leant tentatively into him.
Neither of them spoke. They simply stayed like that for a moment, going through the almost impossible task of continuing to breathe, and then Cassie eased away, moving to the middle of the bed, where she reached out for him. Needing no encouragement, Adam followed her. Curving his body around hers, as if that could somehow protect her from all the bad things in the world, he placed an arm gently across her. He was a good man, a strong, caring man. Cassie didn’t move to wipe away the tears that slid from her eyes. If only she could protect him, from this and from the bad things that might still come.
She wasn’t sure how long they lay there. The doorbell broke the silence.
‘Dammit,’ Adam cursed when it rang for a second time. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said, pushing himself off the bed.
Cassie got up and went to swill her face, in case it was someone she couldn’t avoid, leaving the bathroom door open so she could listen.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ a female voice said. ‘I wondered if I could have a quick word. If it’s not a good time, I can always come back.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Adam assured her. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’
‘I was hoping to speak to both of you,’ the woman said – a young woman, Cassie thought. ‘Mrs Colby as well, I mean, but if she’s not here…’
‘She’s upstairs,’ Adam told the visitor, as Cassie dried her face and headed along the landing, curious. ‘Would you like to come in?’
Peering over the stair rail, Cassie watched as Adam stepped out of the front door, puzzled until it became apparent that he was helping their visitor with a pushchair. Planting the chair in the hall, he smiled down at the tiny baby snuggled into it. ‘Girl or boy?’ he asked.
‘A boy, Samuel,’ the woman replied, following him into the hall.
