‘Thanks, Cassie.’ Kim smiled. ‘I knew you’d understand. I thought we could have a bit of a chat instead and then maybe visit the cemetery later.’ She glanced down, fresh tears brimming in her eyes. ‘I don’t know why, but I’m really missing him today.’
‘I’d like that,’ Cassie said, smiling back at her. In reality, it would crucify her. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to go there since the funeral. But going with Kim might be a good thing, therapeutic for both of them. It would also give her the opportunity to dig a little deeper regarding her relationship with Jemma.
Kim was watching her. ‘You know, Cassie, if there’s ever anything you want to confide in me about, you’ll find I’m a good listener,’ she said, with a look of earnest sympathy. ‘And I promise you I’m the soul of discretion.’
Cassie looked at her slightly disbelievingly. Hadn’t she said these exact same words to Adam?
Twenty-Three
Jemma
‘He’s sleeping like a baby,’ Ryan joked, coming into the kitchen having performed a small miracle upstairs.
Or rather, like babies were supposed to sleep. Jemma sighed inwardly, despairing of her own inability to work the magic Ryan did and lull their baby into slumber. Smiling her appreciation at his parenting skills, she straightened up from the dishwasher and rolled her shoulders. She loved her job as a teaching assistant, but it had been a full-on day at school, followed by a full-on evening with Liam. Nothing she could do seemed to settle him. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I have no idea how you do it, but I’m so glad that you do.’
Ryan walked across to her. ‘It’s easier to be less stressed when you don’t have the brunt of the parenting duties.’ Easing her unruly tangle of hair aside, he kissed the nape of her neck, and then placed his hands on her shoulders and massaged her knotted muscles with his thumbs. ‘Sorry I was late back. I had to wait until the engineers were finished. Why don’t you grab yourself a glass of wine and have a soak in a hot bath.’
Jemma understood why his job as chief railway technician meant unpredictable hours, but the long days, rotational night shifts and frequent call-outs left her with most of the responsibility for Liam. That she was consumed with guilt at having to leave her baby all day while she worked didn’t help her stress levels when Liam was fractious and reluctant to feed. She felt neglectful, incompetent. He was so small and vulnerable. Her heart wrenched when he cried, and yet she – his own mother – couldn’t seem to soothe him. Surely there must be something wrong with her. The midwife had assured her that the maternal bond wasn’t always there instantaneously, that sometimes it took a little longer for the special connection between mother and baby to form, especially after a difficult birth. It was perfectly normal, she’d said encouragingly. It would happen, and then she would wonder why she’d worried so much.
It would, Jemma tried to reassure herself as Ryan’s gentle ministrations eased the tension in her shoulders. Liam was a beautiful baby, smiley and content in his father’s company. She hadn’t planned him, any more than she’d planned her last pregnancy, but she loved him so fiercely she knew she would die to protect him.
A crushing sense of sadness washed through her as she thought about the child she’d lost. She’d wanted that baby. Wanted him so much after feeling that first flutter like butterflies in her tummy. She’d vowed she would do a better job of parenting than her own workaholic mother had. Jemma knew she had never really been wanted. In her more charitable moments, she’d thought that perhaps her mother hadn’t realised the full impact a child would have on her busy life. She vowed to make time for her own children, to be everything a child needed in a mother. To love them unconditionally.
And she’d loved Noah. Some people didn’t understand why she’d insisted on naming him; why she grieved so deeply over a baby so small she could cradle him in the palm of her hand. Her own mother included. When Jemma had tried to talk to her about how she felt – desolate and empty, filled with feelings of hopelessness – she’d thoughtlessly pointed out that the pregnancy hadn’t gone full-term. Her face had been perplexed, as if she genuinely couldn’t comprehend that Jemma’s body had gone through all the changes of pregnancy, that hormones had flooded her body, regardless of the outcome. After talking to her doctor, Jemma eventually understood that she was suffering from post-natal depression.
Some of those feelings had crept back since she’d had Liam. They weren’t as severe, but they were there. The feelings of not being able to cope were the worst. But she had to, even when she felt as if she didn’t have the energy. She couldn’t put Ryan through all that again. She hadn’t realised how much he was hurting, how much he was grieving, until she’d visited the cemetery to find him weeping at the spot that marked their baby’s grave. Having been brought up in care, he’d only ever wanted to be part of a family, a home to call his own. Despite his upbringing, possibly because he’d been starved of parental affection, he was so caring and kind…
‘Better?’ he asked her softly.
‘Much,’ she said, turning to rest her head on his shoulder. She really did love him, couldn’t imagine being without him. She wouldn’t ever lose sight of what mattered again.
Twenty-Four
Joshua
February 2019
Josh parked in the secluded lane just outside the village, and waited, as instructed, though not very patiently. Checking the clock on his dash, he realised it had stopped working again. He sighed and checked the time on his phone instead. Maybe it should be no big surprise that she didn’t want any kind of future with him, a bloke who drove around in an ancient PT Cruiser and lived in rented accommodation. Adam had offered to help him get a more reliable car, but Josh didn’t feel comfortable taking money from him. He had to learn to stand on his own two feet. He’d been determined to, in fact, particularly after his mother had said she doubted he would cope without someone to cook for him and clean up after him. It was said in the heat of the moment, but even so, it had hurt. He’d tried to help out after her operation, which was when her obsession with having the house clean had seemed to kick in, but she had just been way too fastidious. He was coping, he’d told Adam. Privately, though, he didn’t actually feel he was. His personal life was a disaster and he had no idea what to do about any of it, other than what his conscience told him.
Would she come? Nervous as well as agitated, he wiped the condensation from his windscreen and squinted through it for any sign of her. He almost had minor heart failure as his headlights caught something or someone shrinking back into the woodland beside the lane. A fox, probably. He was getting jumpy, imagining he was being followed. It was no wonder, he supposed, when he was sneaking about like a thief in the night, meeting up with her in the middle of nowhere.
Concerned for her safety, nevertheless, he decided to walk down the lane to meet her. It wasn’t far from her new house, so she’d said she would be coming on foot. The area was dark and remote, the nearest properties the Plough and Dog pub and then nothing but a deserted farm. Whatever was happening between them, he didn’t like to think of her walking around here on her own. He couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure it was a fox slinking about in the woods.
He’d only gone a few yards when he saw her hurrying around the bend towards him. She hesitated when she spotted him, hugged her coat tight around her, then glanced over her shoulder and walked on, not over-enthusiastically.
‘That keen to see me then?’ he joked when she reached him. It was met with a scathing glance.
‘What are you doing, Josh?’ Jemma demanded, her violet eyes peering out through her tangle of blonde hair like those of a hostile animal. Josh guessed that pretty much indicated how she felt about him. Whatever happened to the open-faced girl who was beautiful without seeming to know it? he wondered. She was still beautiful, undeniably, but now she seemed hard-edged and cynical. Had that always been there and he’d just been too blind to see it?
‘You weren’t on your way to my house, were you?’ she asked. ‘Because if you were—’
‘No!’ Josh failed to curtail his anger. ‘I got the message, Jemma. Loud and clear.’ He looked her over, guessing there wasn’t much affection in his own eyes. Right now, he was close to hating her, yet at the same time, he’d never stopped loving her, ever since he’d fallen for her in their first year of college. Even when she’d dumped him, going out with Ryan instead, because he was working and renting his own place, he’d kept on loving her. Why? ‘I was looking out for you, that’s all.’ He shrugged disconsolately. ‘It’s an isolated area and…’ He stopped. Why was he bothering to offer explanations? ‘I won’t come to your house, Jemma. I said I wouldn’t, and I won’t.’
She looked him over suspiciously, and then nodded.
He’d done some small thing right in her eyes at last. He didn’t want to keep arguing. He just wanted to find a way forward that didn’t include him disappearing off the face of the earth, which was what she appeared to want him to do. ‘Do you want to talk in the car?’ he asked, nodding towards it.
She shook her head hard, and Josh sighed heavily. She didn’t want to be reminded of the time they’d made love in it, he supposed. At least that was what he’d thought they were doing.
