Chapter Forty-Seven

4 September, 7 a.m.

Lori took him to the small salon. The manuscript was lying on the coffee table. Drew stood in front of the sofa, looking at the box of printed pages. Lori reached up and pulled him down to sit beside her.

‘My editor says it’s the best thing I’ve ever written.’

‘It is.’

‘You’ve read the others?’

Rumbled. ‘I may have glanced through one or two.’ She faked nonchalance. The surprise and pleasure in his face set a warm glow in her chest. They were sitting side by side but not touching. She put out a hand and ran a finger over the box. ‘There were things I get … in the story. Stren’s struggle towards … love.’ Just the vibration of the word in her head made it hard to breathe. Drew had documented Stren’s attempts to understand the emotion, his struggle, his need to fight towards it. An aim still not quite realised by the end of the book, but with an ending full of hope. Words that seemed to be written in heart’s blood. Now she could see every one of them in Drew’s face.

But the ghost love, calling Stren back to the past, chaining him with guilt at causing her death? It was romantic, dramatic, lending emotional punch to the story and heart-rending pathos in the final act of release and forgiveness.

There was something buried there, she knew that instinctively, but the facts didn’t fit. In no way was Drew responsible for his wife’s death. Lori had read the story in the papers. Kimberly had been returning, with their baby, from the seaside town where they’d spent the day flat hunting. Instead of travelling with them, Drew had stayed on to catch the next train, because he had an interview for a job. The crash had simply been a terrible accident.

So why?

Survivor guilt, because he should have been with them? The helpless feeling that he might have been able to do something to save them – or at least been there at the end? Had they maybe argued, before she left? Was it somehow tied up with the successes he’d achieved? His life had moved on in unimaginable ways and theirs had been impossibly brief.

He was looking at the box, not meeting her eyes. ‘A part of me …’ He stopped. ‘I felt … I felt … As if I had been set free.’ His voice was flat, harsh and unfamiliar. His body jerked as he turned on the admission to look at her, eyes dark and bleak. ‘I didn’t want to be married, with a baby, stuck in some crappy flat in a crappy job, struggling to make ends meet, proving that I started life unwanted and worthless and that was how it was always going to be.’ The words came out in a rush. ‘I knew the way the world looked at me, that I wasn’t worth anything, that I didn’t deserve anything. I wanted to write. I had these stories, people in my head, demanding to be let out. I wanted to let them out more than I wanted to be a husband and a father.’ His voice broke as he ground to a stop.

Lori folded her hands on her lap. Much as she ached to touch him, it wasn’t the time. Not until they’d got beyond this.

‘You were eighteen,’ she offered carefully. Not a justification, but maybe a reason.

‘Young and stupid.’

‘Maybe.’

Now that he’d made the confession some of the bleakness had gone from his eyes, but the pain was still there. The pain of self-loathing? She hadn’t expected this, but perhaps she should have? ‘Did Kimberly know?’

‘No.’ He shook his head, vehemently. ‘I’m sure of that. She wanted a fresh start, by the sea. She was full of plans for the baby, for our own home.’

‘So she died believing in it. Does that make it worse or better?’

He shoved his hand into his hair in a familiar gesture. ‘I really don’t know. I defrauded her of her dreams, in order to have mine.’

‘You weren’t responsible for what happened to that train. You didn’t want her dead.’

‘No, but, I might have wanted her gone.’ He was digging his fingers into his scalp. Gently she pulled his arm away, then let go. ‘I loved her. And the baby, but it was a needy love. On both our parts. Both brought up in care. We clung to each other. The baby, of course, was an accident. We were kids, too stupid to manage the precautions properly. But Kimberly wanted that baby. She was so happy and I felt about ten feet tall because I’d given her that. And I wanted to stand by her, to provide for them, which is why we got married.’ His voice was softening now, with recollection. ‘We didn’t have the proverbial pot to piss in, but love was going to conquer all. Then, that day, trailing round dark damp rooms and chasing after dead-end jobs, with dozens of others with a better chance of getting them, it felt like the prison was closing in. And panic. Kimberly was talking about Christmas, about the stuff she wanted for the baby. I didn’t have money to give her any of it. I wasn’t even sure where we were going to get a deposit on a flat.’ He’d folded his arms across his stomach, holding in old pain. ‘And then, all that was lifted off me.’

And from there the guilt grew. Lori could feel a lump in her throat.

‘I got one of those dead-end jobs in the end, and threw myself into the writing. And today I have it all and Kimberly and Tyler have been dead nearly twenty years.’

Now she did touch him, just a hand on his knee, warmth and contact. ‘You loved them.’ She’d seen the sad little dedication in his first book. ‘Cliché time. Would Kimberly have wanted you to be unhappy?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ His voice was rueful. ‘She had a temper. And the baby. He’d be a young man.’ His face creased with the lost possibilities.

‘Around the same age that you were when you fathered him.’

‘God, yes. Maybe he would have been the writer, instead of me.’

‘And perhaps he would have preferred computer games or taking motorcycles to bits. It’s over, Drew, and you can’t change it by beating yourself up. And no one else can forgive you. You have to forgive yourself, or learn to live with it. Which you have done, all these years.’

‘Until I put some of it down on paper. And now I’ve told you.’

‘A step towards resolution?’

‘I don’t know.’ He looked thoughtful and in her eyes his expression was lighter. ‘A step towards something. Thank you for listening.’

‘Thank you for telling me.’ She twisted her fingers into his. ‘I really mean that. I am honoured by your confidence, and I will keep it.’ It was an oddly formal speech, but it felt right to say it. ‘You’re human, Drew. Not one of your super beings with magical powers. Human, with all the rag-bag of messy stuff that comes with it. You suffered a violent, traumatic bereavement that, thank God, few people experience in their lives. Hopes, fears, regrets – all sorts of emotions that you might have been able to resolve were left without an ending. You don’t know what might have happened. You might have made a success of the writing and being a husband and father. People do.’

‘And it’s not always about me.’ The words were soft and she sensed a meaning behind them, but he didn’t say any more. He yawned suddenly. ‘God, I’m knackered.’ His shoulders sagged. ‘Do I leave now and take that—’ He nodded at the manuscript. ‘—with me? Or can you take a chance on a messy human?’

‘I think I can risk giving it a go.’ Something she recognised as a kind of happiness rippled through her. She pulled him down, for a soft sweet kiss. He rested his head against her shoulder.

Which is how a delighted Misty found her aunt and Drew when she came downstairs with Lucy, looking for Griff and Polly; fast asleep on the sofa, with the morning sun spilling golden light over the small salon.