by Holly Miller
“No. I can’t live with knowing. I can’t carry this with me, every day, and still make her happy. It’s not possible.”
A long silence.
“Well, then, maybe you’re no longer the guy to make her happy.”
It feels like a punch, telescopic, all the way from Cornwall. Confirmation of my very worst fears. “That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
He sighs. “I know. But if lip service is what you’re looking for, you dialed the wrong number.”
Furious, I cut off the call.
No, Warren, I think, despite myself. I’m not giving up.
* * *
• • •
Hours later, I’m dreaming again. It’s just over three years from now, and I’m watching Callie walking along a beach, hand in hand with . . . oh.
Though dark, it looks hot and stormy. There are palm trees, and white sand, its appearance familiar somehow . . . Is it Miami? (Not that I’ve been. Netflix is the closest I’ll ever get to transatlantic travel.)
Callie seems happy. They’re laughing about something. Heads inclined, torturously in tune.
And then I see the ring on her finger, and everything inside me goes dark.
67.
Callie
Days dissolve into weeks, and soon it’s late October. The air becomes crisper and the days contract, like the world is steeling itself for winter. Joel and I are at a stalemate, unable to move forward.
Esther knows something’s up, has asked if everything’s okay more than once. Maybe she sensed something that night Joel ducked out of dinner. Or perhaps she’s spoken to Ben, and he’s filled her in on my voice mail to Grace. But, of course, I can’t tell her, so whenever she asks I end up mumbling something about just being tired from work.
Joel and I are almost beyond discussion now—talking about it is like inching through gridlock, only to arrive at the wrong destination every time. But I have noticed that Joel has assumed a calm determination, an air of resolve that makes me quietly curious.
It feels to me like he’s planning something, but what it is, I couldn’t say.
* * *
• • •
It helps that I love him so completely. I have no idea what our future will bring, but if I shut my eyes and think only of now, we’re somehow slowly getting through it. We’re still a couple—we can’t simply give up, turn our backs on the best thing in both our lives—which means we still go out, still have sex, still laugh our stomachs sore. But it’s a bit like holding up a roof with your bare hands: all it takes is one change in the wind, and you’re no longer strong enough.
* * *
• • •
We’ve spent the day at Tamsin’s, celebrating her birthday. Doug and Lou brought an elaborate cake shaped like a unicorn that was really more for the kids than Tamsin, but there were also mocktails and old-school party games, which were definitely more for us than the kids. It’s been a joy-filled, hilarious day—a day that reminded me of everything Joel and I could be.
I dithered over helping myself to cake earlier, just for a moment. I’ve been agonizing on and off about cleaning up my diet, cutting out wine entirely, filtering my water, investigating yoga. It’s what people do, I suppose, when they’re reminded of their mortality—they give their bodies the best possible shot at making it. Maybe I should have a subtle word with Dad, ask him for some health tips.
But all of a sudden Amber was tugging at my sleeve, a slice of cake on a paper plate in her hand. “I saved you the unicorn horn, Auntie Callie,” she whispered. “If you eat it, you’ll live forever.”
I could feel Joel’s eyes on me across the table, but I couldn’t look up. If I had, I might have cried.
“You know,” I muse now, as we walk home through the woodsmoke-scented air of late afternoon, “it’s been nearly a year since Bonfire Night.”
He squeezes my mittened hand. “So it has.”
“I knew I liked you that night. I had a bit of a crush on you.”
“Just a bit?”
“Okay. A fairly major crush.”
“Understandable. I was something of a catch.”
“Total catch.” My insides bunch up as I say it. Please believe it. Please believe how much I still love you.
We take a few more steps, our feet scuffing fallen leaves, strides in perfect sync. Last night the clocks went back, and the light’s already slipping from the sky.
“So did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Have a crush on me too.”
“A gentleman never tells.”
“Yes, but you can tell me.”
His hand firms up around mine. “It was more than a crush, Callie. I knew that from the start. There was never any point in me fighting it.”
We walk a bit farther in silence. This is the area of town where Grace died, though I haven’t been down the road where the accident was since that night. I doubt I ever will again. Briefly, I wonder if the same fate awaits me—but Joel said he doesn’t know how it happens, which means he can’t have seen a car, onlookers, tarmac . . .
But just as my thoughts are beginning to domino, Joel brings me back to the present. He’s pulling at my hand, gesturing at something over to our right.
“Look, Callie,” he says urgently. “Look.”
He’s pointing to the low wall in front of an abandoned house, halfway along a terrace earmarked for demolition. The front door and windows are shuttered with graffitied chipboard, weeds winding like tentacles round the guttering and brickwork.
Behind the wall, a brown tail is protruding, utterly still.
Before I can blink, Joel’s left my side.
I follow, almost afraid.
“He’s been abandoned.” Joel’s already on his knees, running his hands across the coat of a young-looking white-and-tan dog. I squat down next to him. The dog’s not reacting to Joel’s touch.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, struggling to hold back tears.
Joel starts gently to examine him. “Not sure. An infection of some sort. He’s in a bad way. His gums are really pale—see, here? And he’s cold. We need to get him help, urgently.” He scrambles to his feet and dials a number, murmuring a few words into his phone. I hear him give the address of where we are. “Kieran’s on his way,” he says, after he’s hung up, before kneeling down again next to me on the ground. “Let’s just keep him warm for now.”
Together we ease the dog onto our laps. Joel takes off his jacket and I remove my coat, and we wrap him up, huddle over him for warmth. Still there’s no response—he’s passive and floppy, like he’s already dying.
“Will he be okay?” I ask Joel.
He meets my eye. “Sorry, Cal. It doesn’t look good.”
I bite down on my lip, try not to cry.
* * *
• • •
Kieran drives us to Joel’s old practice, me and Joel in the back seat, the dog across our knees. As Joel offers Kieran his assessment, I vaguely register mention of IV fluids, anemia, internal bleeding. Then Kieran gets on the phone to someone at a local charity, who agrees to cover the treatment costs, after which he and Joel start debating the best plan of action.
As we pull into the car park, I spot the dog’s collar lying loose on the seat. There’s no tag with a name or phone number, nothing at all to identify him. I pick up the collar, slip it wordlessly into my pocket.
“You go home,” Joel says to me, as we get out of the car. “This could take a while.”
* * *
• • •
It’s dark by the time he makes it back to the flat. He finds me in the bath and perches wearily on the edge of it, smelling faintly of disinfectant.
I sit up, sloshing a little water over the sides. “How did it go?”
“Okay, I think. He had a pretty severe worm infestation. We
gave him a blood transfusion, antibiotics. It’s touch-and-go, but Kieran’s taking him home tonight.”
“Thank God you spotted him.”
“In the nick of time. We’ve just got to wait and see.”
I take his hand. It feels limp in mine, and his eyes are blank, unseeing. “Are you okay?”
He draws his other hand down over his face. He’s pale, like he’s aged somehow. “Just a bit drained.”
“You were incredible. Really calm . . . Do you miss it?”
He looks up at the window, where the lights from other houses are like bulbs in the blackness. “I miss helping animals.”
“So maybe you could—”
“I’m not up to the job.”
“You are up to it, Joel. You proved that tonight.”
“This was one night, Cal. That’s nothing compared to doing it again full time.”
I know I shouldn’t push it—I know that. But I want Joel to see what I see: his huge talent and tender heart, the warm, kind core of him.
“Joel, what you did tonight—”
“Any vet would have done what I did tonight.”
I look down, scuffing strawberry-scented foam with my hand. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Downplay everything, say you’re not a proper vet.”
“Because I’m not one. I haven’t practiced for nearly four years.”
“But you’re so great with animals.”
“You have to be more than that, Cal.”
“Why did you really leave?”
There’s a pause filled only with the popping of bubbles, like abandoned champagne at the end of a pretty crap party.
“Joel?”
“I made a huge mistake, Callie, and I didn’t think I deserved to be a vet anymore. Okay?”
“No, it’s not okay,” I say softly. “You’ve never told me.”
“I’m sorry. But I find it hard to talk about.”
“Please tell me.”
He eases his hand from mine, works invisible putty with his fingers. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know what happened.”
The darkness of his eyes seems to deepen somehow. “I made a mistake, and the consequences were . . . as bad as you can imagine.”
“What was the mistake?”
Eventually he tells me he was distracted at work. He was on part-time hours back then, a way to try to claw back some sanity as he was going through a rough patch following several unsettling dreams. He was constantly hungover and sleep-deprived, neglecting to exercise or take care of himself, arriving at work exhausted.
“I had one client, Greg. He suffered from depression, and his dog was his life. He used to talk to me when he came in. I just listened. I think it helped him a bit. He told me he’d been on the brink of suicide more than once, but the thought of what would happen to the dog had stopped him. Sometimes that dog was literally Greg’s sole reason for living.”
Saying nothing, I just listen.
“Anyway, Greg brought the dog in one day—he had diarrhea, some lethargy. I was sure it was nothing to worry about, but I should have done more. I should have followed up, run some blood tests, but I just sent him away, told Greg to keep an eye on him and bring him back if he got worse.”
“That sounds . . .” Reasonable, I want to say. Entirely reasonable. But, really, what do I know?
“Looking back, I know I made him feel he was wasting my time. I remember being short with him. Not intentionally, but . . . I was no better than the GP I saw at uni. I did the same to Greg as that doctor did to me.”
“What happened?” My voice is featherweight.
“Well, he brought the dog back a week later, by which point there was nothing I could do. His liver was already failing, and it was my fault. I’d missed the crucial symptoms.”
“I’m sure you did your best. You can’t blame yourself—”
“Callie, I am to blame. I didn’t even carry out a simple blood test. I was unfocused, not paying attention. And that dog suffered because of me.”
“Joel,” I say, reaching out to take his hand again, “please don’t beat yourself up. Mistakes can happen to anyone.”
He stares at me. His eyes are round as portholes. “You don’t understand.”
“I don’t have to be a vet to know that if you—”
“Greg committed suicide a couple of weeks later,” he says abruptly. “The dog was his lifeline, and I took it away from him, out of sheer bloody incompetence.”
The shock shuts me up. For a few moments I go mute, the bathwater cooling around me.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m responsible for Greg’s death,” he says, his voice reedy and unrecognizable. “It’s that simple.”
I’m beginning to shiver. “No. It’s not that simple.”
“You wanted to know why I say I’m not a proper vet. That’s why—because I don’t deserve to call myself one.” He lowers his gaze to meet mine. “And if you want to know why I have to tell you what I dreamed, it’s because I can’t live the rest of my life knowing I could have done more. Not with you, Callie. I can’t do that when it comes to you.”
“Please don’t,” I say, feeling my throat thicken. “That’s not fair.”
“I’m not sure I care about what’s fair anymore. I care about what’s right.”
He gets to his feet then, turns his back on me and leaves.
I stay in the bath for maybe a half hour more, tears hot against my skin as the water goes cold.
68.
Joel
On Halloween morning I call Warren while I’m out with the dogs.
It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year since sparks were flying between me and Callie at the corner shop. We’ve gained so much in that year. But have we lost everything too?
I hope every morning when I open my eyes for a way forward, an epiphany. That zero visibility will somehow have become sunlight. But it never has.
“So I did what you said,” I tell him.
“What did I say?”
“I . . . Where are you? Why can I hear screaming?”
“The beach. I don’t know—something about sand and water makes kids scream.”
“What? It’s October.”
“Last weekend of half term.” I picture him shrugging. Big shrugger, I reckon, my biological dad.
“Are you supposed to be there in a supervisory capacity, or . . . ?”
“I’m teaching in ten minutes. What’s up?”
“I went to see Callie’s dad. To find out if there’s any family history I should be worried about.”
“Good on you. Anything?”
It wasn’t as awkward as it might have been. I doorstepped him while Callie was at work, and we sat together in the kitchen. I mumbled something vague about having had a bad dream, not wanting to worry Callie. Then, just like that, he gave me the information I needed. (Not that it helped. Squeaky-clean bill of health, the whole Cooper family.)
He assured me our conversation would go no further, which was pretty generous of him. I knew if Callie found out, she might think I’d betrayed her, given her parents a heads-up. And there’d be a good chance then she’d never trust me again.
Anyway. “Nothing.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, so that didn’t work out.”
A pause, cut through with the coarse cry of seagulls. I wonder if I should tell Warren about my dream of Callie on the beach in Florida. I’ve not been able to shake it from my mind.
But the thought of sharing it with Warren riles me for some reason. Maybe because I don’t want to prove right his theory about me no longer being the guy to make Callie happy.
I walk a few more paces, picture Callie at home. Still warm from the shower, drawing a co
mb through her hair, skin damp and glistening. I feel a throb of longing for the nape of her neck, the low lamp of her voice.
And yet. “You think I should give up, don’t you? Let Callie go and live her life, find someone who can make her happy. That’s what they say, isn’t it? If you love someone, let them go.”
The seconds lengthen. “That is what they say.”
“So that’s it, then.”
“Not yet. Not necessarily. Don’t do anything hasty.”
“Time isn’t on my side, remember?”
“Yes. But, look, if it does come to that, you’ll know when the moment’s right.”
“Well, cheers for your help.”
“I’m so sorry I can’t fix this for you, Joel.”
“You had a chance to fix this thirty-seven years ago.”
“What are you—”
I can’t help what I’m about to say. It’s pure frustration. “You could have fixed it before it started, by not having a meaningless fling with my mum.”
“It wasn’t meaningless.”
“You swapped her for a surfboard. How much more meaningless could it get?”
* * *
• • •
That night I dream about Callie again, just under a year from now. She’s wrapped up against the cold somewhere, I’m not exactly sure where. But it’s remote and expansive, exactly the kind of epic landscape she loves. She looks fervent and alive in a way I’ve not seen for a long time. Has binoculars around her neck, and a camera in her hand. I can hear the wind whistling, see a soaring-blue sky. And from the horizon a volcano rises, imposing as a cathedral.
* * *
• • •
I’m shaking when I wake. I climb out of bed and grab my notebook, turn in the doorway to look back at her as I always do. She’s curled up on the mattress like a comma, face pressed against my pillow.
A comma. Somewhere to pause for breath. A chance to make sense of things.
