‘Lily,’ he said as the dust sheet fell to the ground. There were so many different emotions threaded into the way he said my name, but I couldn’t unpick or identify any of them.
‘Oh,’ I said, taking a step closer to the half-finished crib. It was vintage in design, made from a type of wood I’d never seen before. The grain was beautiful, catching the light and reflecting it like a mirror, but it was the intricate carvings that made the piece standout. Detailed woodland creatures were chiselled into the wood, chasing each other down one side of the crib; the opposite side had one half-finished carving of a rabbit.
‘That’s beautiful, Josh. It’s not just furniture, it’s art.’
He gave a small grunt, but I thought I’d seen a small glow of pride on his face as he bent to retrieve the dust sheet.
‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘Why did they cancel?’ I already feared the answer to that question would be a sad one.
Josh gave a shrug. ‘I don’t know. They just cancelled the order.’
‘Didn’t you ask why?’
‘It wasn’t any of my business.’ There was an undercurrent in his voice that I took to mean that it wasn’t mine either. But there was a quiet tragedy in the unfinished crib, like a dream that had never been realised. It resonated in me like a sorrowfully tolling bell.
This time it was his turn to be intuitive.
‘I’m sorry. This must be especially hard for you. I know how much you wanted to have a baby.’
Just when you think you’ve packed away all the sharp edges of grief, one of them still manages to escape and slice you. Unwanted tears sprang into my eyes. I blinked them away furiously.
‘It wasn’t meant to be,’ I said. ‘We just weren’t lucky. And then when Adam got sick all those plans were put on ice.’ I bit my lip, because the prospect of having Adam’s child wasstillon ice. Literally.
‘Well, I’m sorry if seeing this upset you. I should probably just chuck it out.’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t you dare. It’s beautiful, and it will be even more so when it’s finished. Promise me you won’t destroy it.’
He gave a slightly bemused smile. ‘I’d forgotten how much you like to champion the most bizarre of causes,’ he teased gently. ‘This is like the hedgehog crossing all over again.’
I laughed, happy the conversation was steering towards safer waters. ‘They needed to slow down the traffic,’ I said, almost as ardently as I’d done twenty years ago when we’d sat on his lawn making placards for our two-man protest to the local council.
‘I still can’t believe you got them to put in that crossing.’
‘When something’s important, you have to fight for it,’ I insisted.
Josh’s expression was suddenly unreadable.
‘Don’t bin the crib,’ I said firmly.
I’m not sure which one of us started it first. It was a silly little game; a private joke that made us smile every single time. Adam and I spoke about our children, the ones we knew Future Us would someday have, giving them the most ridiculous names.
‘I can’t wait for the day when Pocahontas scribbles all over this wallpaper with her wax crayons,’ I told Adam, ‘because then we’llhaveto change it.’
‘Pokey would never do that,’ he insisted. ‘She’ll appreciate quality décor.’
Or . . .
‘I don’t know how Fletcher is going to feel when Spartacus replaces him as our number one son.’
I’d spluttered out a mouthful of coffee on that one.
‘Spartacus?’ I exclaimed, when I’d finished coughing.
‘I am Spartacus,’ Adam declared solemnly, quoting the film’s iconic scene. ‘Everyone wanted to be him. Great name for a kid.’
But the memory I loved most ...
‘I really hope little Bellatrix grows up to look just like her mummy,’ Adam said, after watching me apply my make-up one morning.
