The centre was a ghost town when they arrived back home, bottle in hand. Kate could already feel the stress of the place settle again on her shoulders as she walked down the corridor towards her room. Cooper hadn’t said a word on the ride home, but he hadn’t let go of her hand until he had to. He had walked out of the cab himself into his chair, unsteady still on his prosthesis but he made the few steps unaided. She wanted to throw her arms around him to congratulate him, but she held herself back, sensing what a big step it was for him. He didn’t need to be mollycoddled, and she didn’t want to belittle him. She was fast realising what a strong man he was, inside and out. As they neared her room, Cooper’s chair giving the occasional squeak in the otherwise silent corridor, she could feel the nervousness between them return. Cooper had the bottle resting on his lap, and she wondered whether it was for someone, or just something to help him sleep.
‘This is me,’ she said when they reached her doorway. Cooper nodded, running his hand through his hair. ‘Will you—’
She was just asking him what his plans for tomorrow were when she found herself yanked down till she was sat in his lap. He put his hand around her back to steady her, and pulled her to him. Her legs dangled off one side, the wine stuffed down the seat edge. She gasped and turning to him, she could feel the breath on her cheek as he looked at her, their faces almost touching.
‘Forgive me if I don’t get up,’ he quipped. ‘I figured that you would have less chance to push me away when I did this.’ He closed the distance between them, and touched his mouth to hers. His stubble tickled her face as his soft lips caressed hers, and she sighed into him. He used her open mouth as an invitation, flicking his tongue against hers before deepening the kiss. His hand pressed into her back, and Kate felt the heat through her dress. They kissed slowly, deeply. Kate reached her hands up to his face as she kissed him back. When she ran her fingers along his stubble, moving down to his neck, he let out a low rumble from the pit of his chest and his hand gripped her tighter. His other hand came around till he encircled her tight within them. He grazed against her breast as he did so, and she shivered at the contact. She wiggled in his lap, to get closer to his body, and she felt him erect beneath her. He broke the kiss, breaking away just enough to look her in the eye. She looked at him and smiled. ‘You are so beautiful,’ she breathed. He kissed her again, laughing softly.
‘That should be my line,’ he replied, dropping little kisses along her jaw line. She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensations, the feeling of his skin on hers. ‘You are stunning.’
She giggled nervously, unused to the attention. She stole a glance around them, relieved to see that there was no one around to witness them together. He sensed her unease, and pulled her further into his embrace.
‘Don’t worry Missy, your virtue is intact. For tonight, anyway.’ He smiled ruefully, and she once again pulled his lips to hers. The kiss was tender this time, deep but light, full of meaning. It made her head spin, and she was sitting across his lap.
‘We have to be careful,’ she agreed, pulling back reluctantly. ‘You are still my patient technically, I work here, and I don’t want anything to affect my career. Mud sticks.’
‘And you have a husband,’ he said in a dull voice. She grimaced, and he put her hand into his. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with you guys, with us, with anything, but I know now that this was always going to happen. I could feel it the first day we met.’ His facial expression changed like a kaleidoscope from happy to pained, and she dropped a kiss onto his hand.
‘I’m so sorry, being around me causes you pain, doesn’t it?’ She made to sit up, but his arm tightened around her body. He ran his index finger from the top of her hairline, down her cheek to her jaw, watching the skin he touched. Kate wondered whether he could see the line she felt. It was as though he was leaving an indelible mark on her.
‘It did, at first, but you know what they say,’ he grinned. ‘What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.’ She frowned at him, but he ran his fingers along her forehead. ‘No more frowning Kate, I meant what I said. You made me want to try. You actually make me get my arse out of bed on a morning, and that’s something I never thought would happen again.’
She smiled at him. ‘I know just what you mean, Captain Cooper.’
***
Monday morning, and Kate was sat in her best skirt suit, the one she usually saved for important meetings. Cream, with a dusky pink blouse and matching heels. She sat in the private room in the local solicitor’s office, looking around at all the posters adorning the painted walls. Crying people, broken handshakes, sad children clutching teddy bears, all sat on one wall, while people in cuffs, behind bars or sat at an empty dinner table filled the other. She wondered to herself whether they sat their clients strategically based on their cases. Family law? Sad child. Facing conviction? Person behind bars. Cheating spouse? Empty dinner table.
What would her poster depict? A flash of Cooper sat in his chair, all dressed up in his suit came unbidden and she had to force the thought away. When she thought of him, of their weekend together, Sunday being spent walking outside in the grounds with Jamie, laughing and joking, she got a flutter. The feeling in her stomach, deep in her soul, that reminded her of summers as a child. They would go in her father’s car to the local waterpark. Her dad would zip through the countryside, always speeding up just before the small bridge over the canal, and as they hit the downhill, her stomach would flip. Her dad would laugh, and she would shout for him to do it again, faster, on the way home. That memory of him was steadfast, a shiny, resplendent slice of time that she would bring out and hold on her darkest days. A feeling of excitement, of sunshine, freedom and love. That’s what Cooper was to her, she realised now. A good feeling, like family. Feelings like that you ran towards, not away from.
The door opened, and a very stern looking woman popped around the corner.
‘Mrs Harper?’
Hearing her married title felt like a knife jab to the gut, but she managed a smile.
‘For now, yes.’
The woman nodded in understanding and took a seat, putting notepad and pen on the table between them.
‘I’m Helen Sharpe, we spoke on the phone. Have you had a chance to think about what you want to do?’
‘Yes,’ Kate said, jaw set. ‘I want to file for divorce and full custody of my son, Jamie.’
Helen turned over to a clean page in her pad. Rather symbolic, if you believed in all that, Kate thought as she took a shaky breath.
‘Okay,’ said Helen, all business. ‘Let’s get started. Did you bring what I asked for?’
Kate passed over the large envelope from her handbag. Helen flicked through the contents, spreading them out on the counter. Pieces of paper signifying passages of time, milestones. House deeds, marriage certificates, the birth certificate for her son. All their years together, in black and white.
‘The house is already up for sale, my … he, did that. The estate agent contacted me for my approval, which I gave. It’s to go fifty-fifty, and we have no other joint assets. Our cars and bank accounts were always separate.’ Of course, Neil would have a new car now. His other one was a write off. She had seen it in the pictures in the local paper. The seat that had held her son was unrecognisable, the door shorn off. The driver’s side was barely touched in comparison. She had pored over the articles for days when they first came out, for signs of someone at fault, some person to stand up and take the blame for destroying her son and tilting their whole world on its axis. All she had found among the pixels was more pain and questions. She had consigned the article cut-outs to a box in her room at the facility, in case the day came that Jamie ever needed to know just what had happened that day.
‘This all looks good,’ Helen said, putting the papers together in a neat bundle. ‘I shall be in touch about the rest when we get the ball rolling.’
Kate nodded, rising to leave. One meeting, and things were set in motion. Soon it would be over, and then she and Jamie could talk about the future, their new start. She just hoped that Jamie would listen, when the time came. The alternative made her shudder. A life without her boy had already come too close, and now she had glimpsed him coming back to her, she wasn’t willing to go back.