The pain of losing Brody holds off for a few seconds, then lands like a full-body punch. The bed feels empty without him. My life feels empty without him. My heart feels empty without him.
I let my hands settle on my belly, taking solace in the one part of me that definitely is not empty. I am going to see a midwife tomorrow, and they will be booking me in for scans and doing tests and it will all become real. A wave of anxiety blazes over me, but I smother it with a fire blanket of hope – I am not alone, I remind myself. Brody might not be here, but Rosie is, and Moira is, and all of my new friends are. I am part of something, part of a community that actually seems to want me. There is still a Brody-shaped hole in my life, and that is a pretty big hole – but I am not alone.
I will have this baby, and I will build a new life for us, and I will build my own strangely shaped family. I know better than most that a strangely shaped family can be just as loving as atraditional one. I can do this, I tell myself, forcing myself out of the cocoon of the bed and into the day.
Tomorrow, Brody will be in Chicago, and a few days after that, I will call him and tell him the news. He will be shocked, and I’m sure he will bluster a little and talk about coming back and doing the right thing, but his heart won’t be in it. I will convince him that I am fine, that he has no obligations to me, to us, that he can be as much or as little a part of this child’s life as he wants to be.
The thought of the conversation makes me feel unsteady, and I decide to set it aside for now. I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it. Today, I will have a quiet day in Bonnie Bay. I will eat healthily, and go for a walk, and take my vitamins. I will survive this heartbreak, one second at a time. The seconds will add up to minutes, the minutes to hours, and eventually this day will be over.
Then I can do it all over again tomorrow. And again, and again, until the heartbreak fades.
I try to stick to the plan, and mostly I succeed. I visit the bookshop, where Moira is on duty but glad to see me. I have no idea how my life will work out once there’s a baby in the picture, but the way Moira talks about our joint venture, our future working together, is reassuring. Joanne calls in while I’m there, and even she is kind, laying a hand on my shoulder and telling me everything will be all right. I sink into one of the comfortable chairs, sipping herbal tea, gazing around at the place that brings me both comfort and pain – it is this place that brought me and Brody together, that resulted in us creating a new life. For that I will always be grateful, and I suppose eventually, the pain will fade – I will stop remembering the times we spent here together, the walls we painted as a team, the mission that brought us closer.
Later, I call into Rosie’s café, and she plies me with tea and cake. Her little boy Charlie is with her, and that also helps – he joins me at my table and talks me through all his favourite dinosaurs as we colour in their pictures in his book. He’s unbearably sweet, and for once I don’t feel the familiar wave of yearning when I’m around somebody else’s child. I will have my own before too long.
After that, I stroll along the beach to the puffin colony, fighting off tears as I take Brody’s usual spot at the foot of the cliffs, watching Peter and Polly and their clan. The birds were always a shortcut to Brody’s softer side, turning him into a big kid whenever he saw them. I’ll probably never watch a tern or listen to a kittiwake without being reminded of him, but that’s okay. It will get easier.
By the time I walk back past the harbour, listening to the now familiar sound of the boats bobbing and clanging against each other, I am tired and a tiny bit numb. I decide that I will accept numb, because it is a big improvement on ‘in pain’.
I go back inside the cottage, and it feels so different now. A can of Guinness sits in the fridge, and his coffee mug hangs on the little wooden tree. Rosie offered to come and sit with me, like she did last night, but I said no. She’s busy, and besides, I need to get used to this. I need to get used to opening the door and walking into an empty room. I need to get used to doing all the little jobs that he did, to filling the gaps that he has left behind. I have lived alone for a long time, and I will get used to doing it again. What I had with Brody was a glorious blip, nothing more.
I make myself some camomile tea, and settle on the sofa. Brody and I never watched much TV together – we had far more interesting things to be doing – and I realise that I don’t even know how to work the remote controls. They’re always mysteries, other people’s tellies. I spend a few moments trying to figure it out, then give up. It’s not like I’d be able to concentrateanyway. My brain feels like it’s on a pogo stick, leaping from one thing to another.
I wish I had someone to tell about the baby, I realise. It’s exciting, and I’d love to be able to reach out and share the news. The only person I can think of is Lucy, so I message her, explaining we might need to put our plans for a night out on hold. I smile at the row of emojis that come back at me – babies, hearts, popping champagne bottles and kisses.
After that, I decide that there is one other person I’d like to tell – Magda, the lady who owned the bookshop in London. The place where all of this began. I still owe her for the book, and for so much more – it was her encouragement that made me think I could do this in the first place.
I grab one of the cards we had printed up from Angus’s photos, a glorious shot of the fishing fleet heading out to sea. I give her a summary of everything that’s happened, but also wonder if she’ll even remember who I am. I hope so.
All this only fills in a short amount of time though, and I know Lucy and Magda are just proxies for the person I really want to tell. The person I am still missing so much that the pain is starting to seep through the numbness, like when the anaesthetic wears off after a trip to the dentist.
I glance at my phone, wondering what he’s doing now. He’d planned to fly back to Chicago in the morning, so he’ll probably be with Shannon in Oxford. My fingers linger on the screen, knowing how easy it would be to call him. To tell him everything. To let him come back and take charge.
I’m still talking myself out of it when the phone lights up, and his name flashes in front of my shocked eyes. Goodness. It’s like I magicked him up. I stare at it for a few moments, suddenly unsure. If I speak to him now, I’ll crack, I know I will. I’d planned to call him at the time of my choosing, when I was prepared and felt confident enough to present a solid front.When I could convince him that I was fine without him – a big fat lie, but one I need to tell.
I ignore the call, and it goes to voicemail. I view the phone like it’s a hand grenade, about to explode into my life, and it immediately starts ringing again. Brody is a persistent man, it seems. I take a few deep breaths, and plaster a smile on my face. I don’t feel especially happy, but sometimes you need to fake it till you make it.
I answer with a voice I hope gives off an air of wellbeing. ‘Brody! How are you? How is Shannon?’
‘Uh, she’s good, I guess. I’m not with Shannon. I had a change of plans. A change of flights.’
I frown in confusion, and ask: ‘Oh. I see. So – are you back home then?’
This throws me off-kilter for all kinds of reasons. I feel a wave of hurt that he literally couldn’t get away from me fast enough, and a secondary wave of anxiety. If he’s at home, then I have no excuse to keep putting off this conversation.
‘Yeah,’ he replies, ‘I am. I’m back home. Are you going to let me in, or what? It’s raining out here!’
I stare at the phone some more, the words making no sense at all. There is a pittering against the windows, the tap-tap-tap of raindrops hitting glass. It’s raining here, in Bonnie Bay. I’m still piecing it all together with my sluggish mind when I hear a hammering on the door.
I drop the phone and jump to my feet, so shocked I knock my luckily empty tea mug over. The hammering continues, and I make my way cautiously to the door.
It’s him. It’s Brody. He’s not in Chicago, he’s right outside the cottage. In the rain, and his back never does well with the rain.
Has someone told him? Have Rosie or Moira blabbed? Why else would he be here?
I pull open the door, and my heart thuds as I see him standing there. He’s big and solid and real, and he’s definitely not in Chicago. I feel so many things at once: joy, relief, confusion, fear, all coursing through me, jostling against each other and fighting for pole position.
‘Can I come in?’ he asks, and I realise I’m blocking his way, gaping at him.
