‘Oh my baby,’ he says, half to her, half to me.
I cling on to him, letting myself breathe deeply for the first time in hours. Nate’s here – it will be fine.
‘I’m so sorry...’ Rachel is saying brokenly.
He carries her quietly upstairs and lays her on her bed, kneeling beside it, clutching her hand.
‘Where were you?’ I mouth at Nate.
‘Later,’ he mouths back, face filled with guilt.
I clean Rachel up, get her into pyjamas, leave water beside her bed and plan to return to sit with her in case she’s unwell – six varying cocktails, Megan admitted tearfully in the car, all different, all very strong – in the night.
But first.
Nate’s half undressed in our bedroom, sitting on our bed, as if he can’t get any further. His shirt is off displaying the admirable physique of someone who swims every second day and does the weight room when not swimming. Nate’s hair, like his chest hair, is still dark. I keep finding grey ones in myshoulder-length chestnut curls.Forty-eight to myforty-three and I am not ageing as well.
‘Is she going to be all right?’ he asks.
I nod, sitting beside him. ‘Where were you?’
‘We were late but it was only half one and then Anton, he’s the main client, says let’s go to his hotel and have a cognac in the hotel bar and –’
Nate looks up, his face wracked with remorse. ‘I’m so sorry. There was a noisy crew in one end of the hotel bar and I just didn’t hear the phone. I had trouble getting a cab – you know what it’s like – and when I got a cab and saw your message...’
He shudders and looks as if he might cry. Nate never cries, except for when the children were born.
My blood’s fired up. I want to rage at someone and he’s sitting there, being nothing like the alpha male I know and love.
Then I think of the bullet we dodged. How Rachel is not sitting mutely in the sexual assault unit, her life changed forever.
We have everything.
‘There’s nothing I can say, Marin,’ Nate says, looking broken as he sits there. ‘Rachel needed me, you needed me –’
I stop him by reaching out and taking his hand.
He’s the warmest human being I know – never cold, despite his low pulse rate, needing only the lightest duvet, even in winter. His big hand feels warm to my cool one and he grips mine tightly.
Rachel is safe: both my children are safe. I say a gratitude prayer to whoever is listening.
‘I’m sorry, so sorry,’ he says again.
‘I was here, Rachel’s OK,’ I say and I let myself go, finally crying, as my husband holds me tightly.
12
Bea
I used to takeJean-Luc’s anniversary off work but now I don’t. I need to be busy. Frantic, actually, as the day afterJean-Luc died is the day Luke was born and each year since he was three, we have a party in the house. Our funds never reach to adventures out but I am getting McDonald’s for his five chosen pals this year and Mum has made an amazing cake in the shape of a Formula One car.
‘Magic,’ says Shazz, when I tell her about McDonald’s. ‘No cooking!’
‘Double figures, Mum!’ says Luke at breakfast the day before his birthday, oblivious to the three special anniversary cards on the kitchen window.
There’s one I buy every year, an unusual type I have to order off the Internet. It says:We miss you, Dad!!
I don’t want Luke to forget. I need to keep his father’s memory alive but it’s getting harder and harder. I never know whether showing Luke pictures of his dead father will help or not. How can one tell? Yes – you have a dad, but he’s dead, so this is what he looked like, endlessly. Or simply let Luke know he has me and a wonderful support system. I feel freshly guilty of not pushing contact withJean-Luc’s mother more often – she’s a nervy woman – because I’m terrified she’ll want Luke to go and stay with her and I couldn’t bear that, being alone here. One day, but not yet.
