Josh got to his feet and looked down at me with an expression that hovered somewhere between guilt and remorse.
‘Wait here.’
Before I had a chance to ask where he was going, he was heading towards the cottage in long confident strides. He was back in less than a minute, an envelope in his hands.
‘This is for you,’ he said, holding out the white oblong towards me. The sun was low, dazzling me, as I reached to take it from him. Was this the speech he kept telling me he’d written? But as his shadow fell across the envelope, I saw my name written on the front, in handwriting I would recognise for the rest of my days.
‘He sent me this and asked me to give it to you after you’d learnt the truth.’ Josh shook his head. ‘It was wrong to keep it from you, I know that, but it felt just as wrong to destroy your memoriesof him.’ Josh bit his lip. ‘I was damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t.’
The letter was still in that no man’s land between us, but as it transferred from his hand to mine it fluttered wildly in my suddenly trembling fingers.
‘I’ll go for a walk and let you read it in peace,’ Josh said gently. ‘We can talk later, when I get back.’
He turned towards the gate, and I watched Fletcher trot up and fall into step beside him. My eyes followed them until they disappeared from sight, before looking down at the envelope once again. I brushed my fingertips over the ink that had long since dried. I lifted the envelope to my lips and kissed his familiar script, somehow knowing that he’d have done that too before sending the letter on to Josh.
‘Just you and me, one last time, my love,’ I said to the envelope, before slowly turning it over and ripping open the seal.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Hello beautiful,
The sound of my sob echoed in the quiet countryside. Two words in, and I was already in bits.
So, you finally did it. You went to find him. I’m going to hazard a guess here and say it’s been a while since I went. I bet you kept putting it off, finding excuses not to search for him, or even considered not doing it at all. I guess none of that matters now ... you went to Scotland, spoke to Josh, and now you know what happened between him and me.
I’ve pictured a thousand times or more how you’ll react when you learn the truth. There are a range of options: from you wanting to kill me, to you finding a way to forgive me for the way I’ve behaved. Maybe the best I can hope for is somewhere in between.
I deserve your anger, Lily, and every insult you want to throw at me. Believe me, they’d all be justified, and I’ve probably called myself far worse since that day.
I paused in my reading, as though testing my emotional barometer. Did I still feel angry? No. Not so much anymore, but perhaps that’s because the rage was dwarfed by the sheer joy of having Adam’s voice in my head one last time. This letter was a magical thread tethering me to him again, in a way that nothing else could do. Except the baby, I thought with a sad smile, as my hand went to my belly.
There are two questions I know you’ll want answered: why I did it, and why I never told you. God knows there were enough moments when it felt like it was just you and me in the world, and we were titanium-strong and could withstand anything. So why didn’t I confess what I’d done?
That’s easily answered, babe: I was scared. I was terrified it would change everything and that you’d never look at me, never love me, in the same way again.
I tried to tell you. The first time was on the night of the rehearsal dinner when what I’d done felt like a crime – who am I kidding, it still does. Everyone else had gone to bed, and it was just you and me together in the hotel foyer. I swear the words were right there on my tongue when you kissed me, and I was scared you’d taste the confession, like a poison that I’d swallowed. But you didn’t, you just said something really cute about how many minutes wereleft until you were my wife, and you looked so damn happy and excited I couldn’t bring myself to hurt you ... hurt us, like that.
That first fail, when I should have owned up and never did, was just the start of it. There were golden beaches where we sat side by side under foreign skies when I could have told you. There were nights when we lay talking in the dark, whispering the kind of nonsense couples do, when I could have begun the conversation, but I always took the coward’s way out.
I know I would have told you in the end. I’m sure of it, because even though everything seemed perfect, was perfect, the lie was worse than the cancer that eventually came. It ate away at me little by little. But before I found the courage, I got sick, and when it was clear that I wasn’t going to get better, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving with you hating me for what I’d done.
Tears rolled down my cheeks and fell on to the letter. ‘Never,’ I whispered. ‘I could never have hated you.’ My fingertips grazed the paper as though I was caressing his face, forever smooth and unblemished by the lines, creases and wrinkles time never got the chance to leave.
Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me, Lily. I went from being a guy who was in no hurry to settle down, to knowing on that first day that I’d met the person I was meant to find. You were everything I didn’t know I’d been looking for. My friends thought I was crazy when Itold them I’d found the girl I wanted to marry. You could hardly blame them, because at the time you still hadn’t agreed to go out with me. But the first time they met you, they all said the same thing. There was something special between us. Even the die-hard cynics warned me not to screw it up, that I’d be an idiot if I did anything stupid and let you slip away.
Which makes it all the worse that I did something so awful that I was sure I didn’t deserve to be yours anymore. When I spotted Josh acting secretive in the hotel grounds, I knew straight away why he was there. It was my worst nightmare come true: that the man you’d loved first would one day tell you he’d realised you were meant to be with him.
I’ve never been a jealous man; I hate that kind of possessive bullshit. But the first time we bumped into Josh at the Christmas market, every nerve ending in my body went on high alert. I was confident in our relationship; it was strong, and I knew how much we loved each other. But seeing you and him together tripped an alarm. It wasn’t what he said, or did, but there was something in his eyes when he watched you talking, or when you laughed. Everything I felt for you, the depth of my love, was written right there on his face. And the crazy thing is that I don’t think either of you realised it. But I did.
There are so many things in my life I’d change if I could. I’d have had piano lessons as a kid, I’d never have had that disastrous mullet as a teenager, or put off visiting mygrandfather that last time. But the biggest regret of my entire life will always be contacting Josh on the day before our wedding. And the things I told him on that day.
My hands were shaking as I set the letter aside, inexplicably afraid that Adam’s words had the power to rewrite the past and change so many things that I could never reclaim. I closed my eyes, letting the September sun kiss my face. Somewhere nearby a skylark was singing, just as there’d been on the day I’d first met Adam. I think that’s what gave me the strength to read on.
I’m not a liar. But that day I told the worst, most dreadful lie of all. I told Josh you were having my baby. I knew he’d asked you to choose between us and I panicked, fearing you were going to pick him over me, that his hold on your heart was stronger than mine. I lost everything in that moment: the man I was who knew right from wrong, the person you’d fallen in love with, and the guy who trusted you enough to make the best choice for you. I thought you’d pick him, Lily. I truly thought you’d pick Josh.
I shook my head, my throat almost too tight for words.
‘How could you not have known that it would have been you, my love? It could only ever have been you?’
