A great, heaving breath shuddered through his whole body. An earthquake upending everything he’d fought so hard to keep solid and stable.
‘I love her so fucking much. What have I done?’
Another quaking sob racked him. Sean let it come. And the next one and the next one. Until there were none left. Just a man, ordinarily larger than life, now a defeated, crumpled mess slumped against the kitchen island.
Lost, heartbroken and alone.
Chapter 34
Cherry
Cherry stepped inside the caravan, the cloying scent of incense and amber catching in her throat. The memory of being here with Sean was potent. She remembered his hand wrapped around hers, her free fingers fiddling with the tassels on the garish cushions, while her mum gave him the third degree. His body was warm and comforting next to hers as she’d thought about everyone missing from the photographs – those passed on and those who had never got to be here at all.
She rubbed at the wedding band – on the same chain as her locket. Not her own ring but the one she’d found in the front pocket of her bag during the bus ride from Kinshore to Edinburgh.
Sean’s wedding ring.
Cherry stepped into the warm, whisky-coloured glow the September sun cast across the caravan’s interior. It, too, reminded her of Sean. Whisky would forever remind her of Sean. Sunsets over the Forth would remind her of him. Everything reminded her of him.
Pam, back to her normal dress code of lounge pants anda long wrap cardigan, filled the kettle and flicked the switch to boil. ‘Where’s that lovely husband of yours?’ she asked.
‘He’s back in Kinshore, Mum.’
Pam paused, halfway in her pursuit of Jaffa Cakes from the cupboard above the kettle. ‘Is everything okay? How is he?’
‘He’s still lovely, inside and out.’ Waves of pain and regret surged behind Cherry’s ribs. ‘But I dunno what’s happening with us.’
‘Oh, Cherry, for goodness’ sake.’ Pam nibbled on a Jaffa cake as if a marriage stalling was another cab off the rank in a long line of Cherry’s trivial mistakes, like the time she’d dyed her hair yellow.
‘Please don’tfor goodness’ sakeme, Mum.’
Pam studied her daughter and then sighed. ‘I can see you’re upset; I’ll get the cards.’
‘No, Mum. No cards. They don’t help. Not your kind, not my kind. Both of them are just blocking things out right now. Things that need facing head-on. Talking about.’ Cherry’s voice cracked like the hairline fractures in her mum’s Doulton figurines.
‘Fair enough. But sit down.’ Pam gestured to the banquette. ‘Are you staying the night?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t know, maybe. Listen, there’s something I need to ask you.’ Cherry sat and reached into her bag, pulling out the photograph her mum had sent. It felt heavier than usual. She softened her voice, apropos of what she was about to broach. ‘You sent me this photo with this poem on the back for a reason?’
Pam glanced at the photograph then back at Cherry. ‘It’s the same one that’s in your locket,’ she said, a little too airily, the gaps between her sentences betraying her discomfort. ‘I thought it was about time you had the properversion.’ She sipped her tea but didn’t mention the poem. She didn’t need to.
Cherry nodded, her throat tight. God, this was difficult. Her heart was beating so loudly it almost drowned out the sound of someone singing badly in the next caravan, as they always did when she visited. This conversation did not need a soundtrack, and definitely not Kenny Rogers.
She bit the bullet. ‘Mum, in this photo, were you pregnant?’
Pam stiffened. It was a microscopic shift, but enough to suggest that she’d known the question was coming and that the answer was more than a simple no.
The room was silent for a short time until she relented and nodded. ‘I was, darling, yes.’
Cherry’s mind was a time lapse of possibilities. Images of what might have been flickered by. A sibling? Someone she had carried in her locket unwittingly all these years who could have stood here with her now, because unless her mother led a double life, then there was only one ending to this story. It was the last thing she wanted to do, but she had to pull the Band-Aid off.
‘What happened to that baby, Mum? Did it… Did it not make it?’ The words caught in her throat, so inextricably linked to her own experience.
Pam picked at another biscuit and then put it down again. ‘It wasn’t meant to be.’ She forced a smile that she may as well not have bothered with. ‘We don’t always get what we want.’
Cherry swallowed. Stared at the rejected Jaffa Cake. Over thirty years ago, her mum had gone through the same thing Cherry had endured. A miscarriage, a bone-shattering loss, becoming a carved-out void. This explained so much.Her mum’s sadness and difficulty dealing with Cherry’s own situation.
Yet made no sense at all. Where was the compassion? The understanding?
