Shelley
SATURDAY
I haven’t slept a wink all night as I wait for Matt’s key to turn in the door and announce his arrival home at last. He told me he would be here for nine yet it is almost ten and there is no sign of him yet but I know not to panic. He will be here soon, I am sure of that. I lie on the sofa, wrapped up in a cocoon with my duvet tucked around me and I’m ignoring the outside world as I ride these waves of mixed emotions as everything sinks in.
Since the call came through, I have been clutching my phone to my chest as I cry and Merlin whimpers on the floor beside me, sensing the devastation I am experiencing since I heard the news just moments ago.
I hear Matt’s car in the driveway at last and I bury my head deeper into the duvet that is wrapped around me. I can’t look at him even though I have been waiting for him all night long. I don’t know where to start right now. There is too much to explain and I don’t know where to begin.
Merlin’s ears prick up when Matt’s key turns and he bolts for the hallway, bouncing and barking with joy and I am pleased that at least one of us is able to give my husband the homecoming he so deserves.
‘Shell?’ I hear him call in the distance. ‘Shell, I’m home. Where are you, love?’
I want to run to him, to fall into his arms and tell him how glad I am that he is here but I don’t have the energy to move and I hate that he has to come home to see me so upset. I had visualised this moment for days now where I would be waiting for him with a big breakfast, with music on in the kitchen and I’d be casually dressed but looking quite fine and he’d wrap his arms around me and we’d dance and make love and make up for so much lost time.
He comes into the sitting room, still calling my name and when he sees my tear stained face, his look of joy and anticipation changes to one of despair and disappointment. This is not what he was expecting at all.
‘You fixed the house up, Shell,’ he says, and then he hunkers down beside me by the sofa. ‘Has something happened to upset you? What’s going on, love?’
I swallow hard.
‘She’s gone,’ I whisper to my husband. ‘My friend, Juliette, she died this morning, Matt. She died in her daughter’s arms.’
‘Oh, baby,’ says Matt and he pulls me towards him where I sob into his chest for Juliette and the hole in my heart she has filled within me by her presence, and the hole she has left in her cruel untimely death.
‘I need to go to see Rosie,’ I sniffle, knowing that my darling husband must be so confused right now. When he left I was a mess, when he was gone I was making great progress and now that he is finally home, I am a wreck again but it’s nothing, and at the same time it’s everything, to do with him or Lily and my ongoing grief.
‘Can I get you something?’ he asks me. ‘Some tea? Have you eaten yet?’
‘No, it’s okay, I can’t think of food,’ I mutter. ‘I’m so sorry you have come home to see me like this but she made such a difference to me, Matt. She made me see how important it is to keep living and to keep loving and even though I knew she wouldn’t be here forever, I already miss her so, so much.’
‘She sounds like she was an amazing woman,’ he says. ‘She must have come into your life for a reason. I know I sound like my mother now being all ‘serendipity’ but maybe Eliza isn’t so far off the mark after all.’
‘She was amazing and she did come into my life for so many reasons,’ I say to him, sitting up now and I close my eyes and see Juliette’s face. She looks happy now. She is not physically weak anymore and her skin is glowing as she waves at me. I breathe in. I feel her strength and when I open my eyes, I hear her words of wisdom in my ear as she tells me not to ever push my husband away when all I really want to do is hold him closer.
‘I love you, Matt,’ I say to him and he swallows hard, then takes my hand and kisses it softly. ‘I love you and I love what we have and all that we have worked for. We can still live, even though we miss Lily, and we can still laugh and we can still smile. Lily would want her mum and dad to smile. And most of all, we can still dance.’
Matt is lost for words. He just keeps kissing my hand and smiling and then he pulls me closer and this time I don’t push him away.
‘I have something to tell you, Matt,’ I say to him and he looks right into my eyes. ‘It’s going to take a while to sink in, but I need to tell you this now. It’s not bad news, believe me. It’s a surprise, a big one, but it’s not bad news, no way.’
He frowns but my smiles through my tears seem to reassure him and he wipes my tears with his thumbs like he has done so for so long.
‘You have …’ I begin. Oh God how do I say this. ‘You have a very beautiful daughter that you have never known about, Matt,’ I tell him and his frown returns.
‘What?’
I nod to him to tell him that it’s really true.
‘You have the most amazing daughter called Rosie,’ I continue. ‘She is fifteen and she looks a lot like you and she is the most beautiful creature, just like our Lily was, and I cannot wait for you to meet her. You never knew she existed but she’s real and she’s yours and she is so wonderful.’
Matt sits down on the sofa and stares at the floor, waiting for my words to sink in.
‘I have seriously no idea what you are talking about, Shelley?’ he says to me. ‘Where did this all come from? What’s going on? Are you okay?’
Am I okay? It’s a question I have been asked so many times, but one that I definitely know the answer to now.
‘Yes, I’m okay and we are all going to be okay, I promise,’ I say to Matt. ‘Some people are blessed with just one guardian angel, Matt, but I believe that I now have three and I’m going to be okay after all.’
‘You’re talking about this woman? And her daughter? I’m lost, Shelley? I have no idea what to take from all of this.’
‘One summer in August, here in Killara, an English girl called Julie, or so you thought? You told her your name was Skipper?’
His eyes widen and his face drains of colour. I nod in acknowledgement.
‘The summer I broke up with Alicia?’
‘Now, you’re with me?’ I say to him. ‘She had a baby, Matt, all on her own over in England and that baby is Rosie and you are going to love her. I already do. I can’t wait for you to meet her. She is going to need her daddy so much and I will do my best to be a great friend to her, just as I promised her beautiful mother I would.’
Matt puts his head in his hands and I put my arm around him and lay my head on his shoulder.
I have a lot of explaining to do to my bewildered husband, but I thank God that, unlike Juliette, we have plenty of time to do all the explaining that is needed and grow together, still taking one day at a time.
And I intend to use my time on this earth very wisely from now on, because I won’t wait for tomorrow, or until I’m forty, or until I’m anything, or anywhere, anytime in the future.
I will believe every day when I wake up and feel healthy and well enough to do so, that life begins right now.
Right here, with me, right now.