A Million Dreams

by Dani Atkins

  He lifted his flute of champagne towards mine. Our glasses chinked, backlit by the dancing flames of the fire, and within the sparkling golden liquid I caught a fleeting glimpse of our future.

  44

  Later

  Beth

  The December sunlight was slanting in through the window and falling squarely onto the Christmas tree. Even though it was far too early for its lights to be switched on, the Norway spruce seemed to glow as the sunbeams were captured and held by the glass decorations hanging from its branches.

  The tree drew me across the room, until I was close enough for its sharp, sweet aroma to fill my senses. I inhaled deeply, taking a hit of what for me would always be the quintessential smell of Christmas. Very carefully, I straightened up one of the precious glass baubles, which was hanging a little crookedly. The thought of breaking one of Anna’s cherished decorations filled me with dread, although Liam was strangely far more philosophical about them. ‘They’re not her, any more than that piano is Tim,’ he’d said, sliding an arm gently around my waist as he turned me towards the instrument that occupied a corner of the room. Neither of us played, but it would always be with us. ‘Where else would you put all those photographs if we got rid of it?’ Liam had teased. He made a good point, for the lid of the baby grand was crowded with an ever-growing collection of them. There were other photographs in the room, too; ones that were just as precious. Three of them sat in silver frames on the rustic beam above the inglenook fireplace. In two of them, Liam was a groom, and in two I was a bride. I loved how we looked equally happy in all three portraits, which was exactly as it should be. Falling in love for a second time shouldn’t devalue the relationship that came before it. If anything, loving Anna and Tim as much as we had made us better together than we might otherwise have been. And in a way, they were the ones who’d brought us together, for we’d first met at the cemetery. Maybe it was unusual to have filled our house with memories of Tim and Anna, but they were with us anyway, they always would be, so why shut them away in a drawer or at the back of some dusty cupboard as though they weren’t important? And our spacious home on the rugged Cornish coast certainly had more than enough room to accommodate not just our present life, but also our past ones.

  The house had been a real find. Built by an architect with a passion for gardening, I was instantly entranced by the practically industrial-size greenhouse in the garden. By the time the estate agent threw open the lounge doors to reveal the wall of glass and the view of the ocean beyond, I was ready to sign on the dotted line.

  I’d worried that Liam was giving up too much just to make me happy. This coastal retreat had been my dream, after all, not his. When he’d chosen to step down as partner and taken ridiculously early retirement, I was concerned about how he’d fill his time. But it turned out I wasn’t the only one with an unfulfilled dream. These days, Liam was far busier with the charitable art foundation he’d set up in Anna’s name than he’d ever been as a partner in the legal firm. I was so impressed that he’d found a way of paying forward Anna’s passion for art. Now, thanks to the foundation, students with limited funds had the opportunity to study art at college or university. I liked to think that somehow Anna knew what Liam was doing, and that she was incredibly proud of her husband. Because I certainly was.

  Beyond the wall of glass, the tide was now all the way out, and as the beach was empty it was easy to see the path Liam had taken by the trailing line of footprints in the wet sand. His were deep and straight, while those of his two four-legged companions criss-crossed crazily backwards and forwards.

  As if sensing the direction my thoughts were taking, a low whine from the elderly Jack Russell at my feet made me look down. She was a very old lady now and no longer capable of keeping up with our much younger Labradors on their long walks across the beach. These days I let Liam have a head start and met him on his way back. The dog’s tail thumped insistently on the floor, and I smiled down at her. Like Sally, who’d passed away many years ago, Bella was feisty and full of personality.

  Almost as if proving a point, she now trotted over to the Christmas tree and began to snuffle determinedly among the enormous pile of brightly wrapped presents.

  ‘You definitely should have waited until they got here before putting them out,’ Liam had said that morning, holding in his hands yet another half-opened package, the ribbon and rosettes now in shreds. Bella’s latest handiwork. He was probably right, I thought, as I set the cashmere jumper – one of Josh’s gifts – down on the kitchen counter. This would be the third present I’d had to rewrap for my visiting family, but I was so looking forward to the reunion that nothing could dim my excitement. It was the first time in years that everyone, including Mum and Dad, were making the journey from Sydney back to the UK for Christmas, and my preparations were now in hyperdrive.

  ‘Just out of interest,’ Liam had asked, his voice dancing with amusement, ‘did you buy every single item the supermarket was selling this Christmas?’ In his hands was a carton of milk he’d been trying to find space for in our enormous American-style fridge. I took the milk from him and with a bit of creative tessellation managed to find it a home.

  ‘You know how much the boys like to eat. They could easily clear a fridge like this in twenty minutes.’

  Liam smiled at the memory. ‘Yes, but that was back in their student days. They’re refined young men now.’

  I gave a snort of amusement. ‘That’s not how Karen tells it.’

  We shared a look that I knew took us back to the time when first Aaron and later Josh had decided to attend university in the UK, and how our home had become their base for holidays, or whenever their pile of laundry had grown too daunting to handle.

  They’d both called us their UK Mum and Dad, a title that had delighted and also saddened me a little. The whole family obviously knew about Noah, the child I’d had who knew nothing of our existence. He was the absent ghost at every family celebration. The son, grandson, nephew and cousin we’d love to meet, and never would.

  Liam and I had never made a conscious decision not to have children of our own. We’d just let fate and biology make that choice for us. I suppose we could have gone for tests or investigations when nothing had come of our efforts. But he’d never pushed it, and neither had I. ‘You have to admit the practising bit is fun, though, isn’t it?’ Liam had declared with a twinkle in his eye. Given my unique history, I’d been understandably reluctant to venture down the road of medical intervention. ‘You know I’m happy to follow you down any path you want to take,’ Liam had said, and just knowing that made it easier to let fate decide.

  I was beyond lucky, I was blessed. I’d found the kind of love they write songs and novels about, and I’d done that not once, but twice. I had a wonderful family who we were able to visit whenever we wanted, and a man who still made me smile every morning when I woke up beside him. To have asked for more would have been greedy. And yet sometimes the hunger was still there, gnawing silently away at the empty Noah-shaped hole in my life.

  Bella huffed with canine impatience when I paused to pull off a couple of wilting leaves from one of the many poinsettias I’d positioned in the lounge. I didn’t care if they were a cliché, I couldn’t imagine a room decorated for Christmas without their vibrant red leaves, or a vase crammed with Christmas roses and holly. This time of year always made me a little nostalgic for the hustle and bustle of Crazy Daisy. Even after all this time, I’d never been able to bring myself to sell the shop, because so much of it still felt tied up with my memories of Tim. But when Liam and I had moved to Cornwall ten years ago I’d happily passed the management of it over to Natalie, who in fairness turned out to be a far better businesswoman than I ever was.

  The distant click of the garden gate made Bella and I both look up, although only one of us raced like a lunatic into the hallway when it was followed by the clatter of the letterbox. Bella jumped up at the door, all skittering claws and ferocious yapping at the postman, who’d w
isely retreated back to the safety of his van.

  I bent to pick up the collection of mail, most of which appeared to be Christmas cards. I began flicking through them, identifying each one by the handwriting as I made my way back to the lounge. I was standing beside Tim’s piano, which felt oddly appropriate, when I reached the bottom card in the stack. It was the only one addressed just to me, rather than to us as a couple. I held it in my hands for several minutes, long enough for Bella to grow bored and return to her position in front of the fire.

  It was strange how something I’d insisted I never wanted had become something I now looked forward to so eagerly. ‘No contact. Absolutely none,’ I’d adamantly told Izzy all those years ago. ‘Let Noah continue to think his new kidney came from a stranger. There’s no need for him to ever know anything about Tim or me.’

  I’m not sure if it was for my protection or Noah’s that I’d also insisted there should be no further communication between us.

  ‘Fortunately, it would seem Izzy is just as obstinate and pig-headed as you are,’ Liam had observed, softening his words with a kiss, when the first envelope had arrived, just six months after the transplant. And so they had continued. One each year. I never wrote back, nor did Izzy seem to expect me to. I never gave her a forwarding address when we moved to the coast, but somehow she found us anyway. The contents of the letters were always the same: a single photograph, with a briefly worded update written on the back. They were all there now, lined up like dominoes on top of the piano and spilling over onto the nearby bookcase shelves. My eyes travelled along the row, following Noah’s history as though it was an unfolding story in a pop-up picture book. I knew the message written on the back of each one by heart. The words hidden beneath the frame had been etched into my memory. First day at senior school; Captain of the football team; Grade 8 piano, with honours – how Tim would have loved that one, as well as the one where Noah stood in a cap and gown, holding his music degree proudly in his hands. The photographs followed Noah’s progress through the years, from school to university, from boyhood to adolescence, and then on to his adult years. In a house fire, they were the things I would save first. Without question.

  Just as they did every year, my fingers were trembling slightly as I tore open the seal on the envelope. Impatiently, I tipped it up and the photograph slipped through my eager fingers and fluttered down to the floor, where it landed face-up. Noah looked up at me from the print as I bent to retrieve it, only he wasn’t the only person doing so. He wasn’t alone in the photograph and as I tilted it towards the light to study it better, I saw why. A pretty blonde girl was standing in front of Noah, his arms encircling her and pulling her back against him. The girl was holding her left hand at an unnatural angle, turned around to face the camera. The only thing brighter than the diamond on her finger was the brilliance of their smiles.

  Mine was wide too, although a little wobbly as I studied the photograph, pixel by pixel, committing it not to memory, but to heart. Eventually I turned it over to read Izzy’s message. Noah and Carly got engaged! She’s a lovely girl. You’d like her.

  ‘I’m sure I would,’ I said a little sadly, turning the photograph over once more and looking into the face of the daughter-in-law I would never meet. Noah looked more like Tim with every passing year, and my fingers traced the outline of the face I’d loved and lost, not just once, but twice. ‘Be happy, both of you. That’s all I want. Be happy together.’

  I took a step towards the piano to prop the photograph up against the others, and felt something small and hard beneath the sole of my shoe. I bent down and saw a small, neatly folded square of paper. It hadn’t been there before, so it must have fallen out of the envelope with the photograph.

  I bent to pick it up, my heart already beating faster than normal. The paper was folded over and over, so tightly that I almost tore it trying to get it open. Izzy’s handwriting, with its forward tilt, was familiar, but getting a letter from her certainly wasn’t. I crossed to the window, with its calming backdrop of the ocean, and began to read.

  Beth,

  If I’ve timed it correctly, this letter will reach you on a very important milestone date. Today is exactly twenty years since Noah’s transplant. Twenty years since you sacrificed so much for a child you’d never even met. Your own child.

  For twenty years he has lived an almost ‘normal’ life, because of you. What a spectacular gift you gave him. Your donated kidney has far exceeded how long the doctors expected it to last – and it’s still going strong!

  Thanks to you, Noah has had a life full of joy and happiness, and as you can see from the enclosed photograph, that looks set to continue with his lovely fiancée, Carly.

  Pete and I are so proud of the man that Noah has become, as we’re sure you are too. But there’s something wrong, and it’s been wrong for a very long time.

  I gasped then, suddenly afraid of what I would learn as I read on, but knowing there was no way of stopping now.

  Noah is twenty-eight. He’s a man about to embark on a whole new life with a partner he adores. Someday – perhaps not too far in the future – he’ll become a dad himself and make us both grandmas – can you believe that?

  Twenty years is a long time, not just for a kidney, but also for a secret I never wanted to keep. But I’ve kept it all these years, because you asked me to. And now I’m breaking it, because it feels like it’s the right time to do so. Or rather, I’ve already broken it.

  Noah deserved to know everything, and so I’ve told him. He knows about the clinic, about the mistake, and how you selflessly stepped out of his life, to make it better. And obviously he now knows that his anonymous donor wasn’t actually so anonymous after all. He was pretty mad to begin with – it was a big secret to keep from him. But do you know what? The sun still rose the next morning and the world didn’t stop spinning, and Noah didn’t collapse or fall apart in shock.

  He asked for your name, and you can hate me as much as you want, but I gave it to him. He knows how to find you, if he wants to. To be honest, I don’t know if he will or not. But it’s only fair that I tell you what I’ve done. And it felt good, Beth, to finally tell him the truth.

  So forgive, or don’t forgive me, it’s up to you.

  Izzy

  The sunlight was no longer on the tree. It had moved across the polished oak floor like a sundial, telling me I’d stood there too long with Izzy’s letter in my hands. Bella was saying much the same thing as she ran meaningfully back and forwards towards the door.

  ‘Okay, I get the message,’ I told her, my voice sounding a little shaky. I reached for my waterproof jacket and her lead, driven suddenly with a burning need to find Liam. This news was too big for me to process alone. I needed his wisdom and calming influence. I needed him, and always would.

  I’d clipped the lead to Bella’s collar and was two steps away from the back door when a sound stopped me. I paused, for a moment torn by indecision and the need to find my husband. But then the noise came again, and it decided me.

  So many times our life had felt like a kaleidoscope made from broken fragments of dreams, thrown randomly together. And yet each time they twisted and turned, something new had been created. Another possibility. It had happened twenty-eight years ago, when a tragic car accident had affected a young embryologist so much she’d made a careless mistake and the lives of four people – people who’d never otherwise have met – were changed forever. And somehow it felt as though it was happening again today.

  I walked back into the hallway. The lead slipped from my fingers as I saw there was someone at the door. I could make out the vague shape of them through the frosted glass panels. I could see they were tall and broad-shouldered, but beyond that I had no clue. A third knock rang through the quiet of the hallway, and my legs, which felt frozen to the floor, finally remembered how to move.

  I went to the door and opened it.

  About the author

  DANI ATKINS is an award-winning novelist. Her
2013 debut Fractured has been translated into sixteen languages and has sold more than half a million copies since first publication in the UK. Dani is the author of four other bestselling novels, one of which, This Love, won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2018. Dani lives in a small village in Hertfordshire with her husband, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you for reading this book, and for allowing me to take you on a journey that I hope you enjoyed.

  If you’ve read any of my books before A Million Dreams, you probably know fate and the part it plays in our lives is a theme I keep coming back to. I’ve always been a big believer that things happen for a reason – it’s a phrase the characters in this book mention more than once. I’m very grateful that fate – or the stars – were on hand to help this book find its way to the amazing team of talented professionals at Head of Zeus, and that I’ve once again had the opportunity to work with my incredible editor there, Laura Palmer. Thank you all for loving this book as much as I do.

  Thanks as ever go to my amazing agent Kate Burke from Blake Friedmann, who has been with me from Day One and continues to guide me both figuratively and literally through the world of publishing as well as from Point A to B (the curse of having absolutely no sense of direction!)

  When I was a child, I remember being told in story writing lessons to ‘only write about what you know’. What kind of terrible advice is that? Fortunately authors are a pretty obstinate bunch and happily choose to ignore those kinds of restrictions. But sooner or later you do need to check out certain facts with people who are wiser than you, people who can steer you straight on things you clearly haven’t got a clue about.

  Two of those people are the author Gillian McAllister and her partner David Evison, who I turned to with a barrage of questions about the law, when this book was still at the ‘I wonder what would happen if…’ stage. Gilly is someone whose writing I admire enormously and I am so grateful for her encouragement, generosity and expertise as both a lawyer and an author and also for choosing a boyfriend who just happens to be a medical negligence expert! What a bonus. Thank you, Gilly and Dave, for answering my dumbed-down questions without making me feel in the least bit stupid. If any legal facts are incorrect, the mistakes are mine, not theirs.