The words tasted sour as soon as they came out of my mouth, Kieran’s voice echoing through my mind.Can’t you just see him with a baby in his arms?
‘Georgia’s right,’ Lex said. ‘We should be Fishers. Not Sinclairs.’
Their eyes met mine.Satoshi loves you,I heard them say again.Hereallyloves you. And if you don’t at least try, then – then I think that’s pretty stupid, actually.
‘I think so too,’ Rosie said. ‘Because you’rehere,Mummy. And Daddy isn’t.’
‘Changing your names is a big decision.’ I swallowed down the inevitable lump rising up in my throat. ‘But we can talk about it, all right?’
… which was what I hadn’t done with Satoshi. In my effort not to be selfish – to minimise the hurt for us both – I’d—
Oh shit. I’d tried to do exactly what Matt had. I’d tried to make a clean break.
I had to resist the urge to bury my face in my hands and groan. Why hadn’t I stopped? Why hadn’t Ithought? Why had I let myself get carried away at the wedding and do to him what had been done to me?
I owed Satoshi far, far better than that. Even if I’d hurt him too badly for us ever to come back from it – even if I couldn’t give him what he really wanted – I owed him a conversation.
Sadie and Jonah were on their honeymoon, so the kids weren’t going to their place that night, but my parents were coming around again, and after dinner, I pulled my mother aside. ‘If I go out for a bit,’ I asked her quietly, ‘can you put the kids to bed?’
‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I, uh…’ I swallowed again. ‘I need to do something for myself.’
‘Good.’ Mum smiled at me, caressing my arm affectionately. ‘I’m proud of you, Fiona.’
Isamu was behind the bar when I pushed open the door to Tsundoku. ‘What do you want, Fiona?’
Satoshi had complained to me before about his brother’s penetrating stare, but I’d never been on the receiving end of it before. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to turn on my heel and flee.
But I wasn’t going to run and hide, not this time. ‘Can I please see him?’
‘He’s upstairs resting.’
‘I’m not here to disturb him. I just want to talk.’
Isamu folded his muscular arms across his chest and said nothing.
It was like standing in the face of an oncoming blizzard. ‘Please?’
His nostrils flared, and several long moments passed before he spoke. ‘All right.’ He jerked his head towards the corridor. ‘But if you upset him, Fiona, I will ban you from this bar for life, no matter what he says.’
I nodded. ‘I won’t. I promise.’
I took the steps up to Satoshi’s studio two at a time, half-desperate to see him, half-convinced Isamu was going to change his mind and haul me back downstairs. At the top, though, I paused, pressing a hand to my beating heart.You’ll be all right, Fiona,I told myself.No matter what happens, you’ll be all right.
I exhaled slowly and knocked.
‘Dozo!’ Satoshi called.
I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but I steeled myself and pushed the door open anyway. ‘Hi,’ I said hesitantly. ‘Can I – you can say no, obviously, I totally understand that you might not want to see me, but… can I come in?’
I didn’t quite know what to do with the way he was looking at me – startled, scared, like he’d seen a ghost, but there was something else in the cocktail too, like it was a ghost he was at least a little bit happy to see. ‘Of course.’
I toed off my shoes, setting them on the spot that had become mine on his shoe rack. ‘Thank you.’
Satoshi was sitting on his bed, on top of the covers. He was wearing black satin pyjama pants with a white T-shirt, Yquem sprawled over his knees. There was only a water glass on his bedside table, no wineglasses, but one of his theory binders was open beside him. His hair was messier than usual – no product in it – and he ran his hand through it. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘Absolutely not.’ I couldn’t figure out where to sit – the couch seemed too far away, the bed too familiar, so I settled for hoveringawkwardly somewhere between. ‘If I let you move a muscle, Isamu will throw me into the river.’
