The Life We Almost Had

by Amelia Henley

‘Fuck science! What about the bracelet? How do you explain that?’

  ‘On some level—’

  ‘On some level you think everything can be explained with science?’ I am calmer now.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You don’t, or you wouldn’t be researching consciousness in the first place! You told me we don’t know everything. That Dr Acevedo was narrow-minded. Closed. If you didn’t believe there were other levels, things outside of what we know, things that push the boundaries, defy the realms of our imagination, you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t be scared right now. Scared that Clem is living another life somewhere else entirely. A life that may or may not include you and the fact that… the fact that you can’t connect to her is…’ I am crying now. ‘You wouldn’t just give her up, would you?’

  ‘The bracelet doesn’t definitively prove—’

  ‘Look, it sounds crazy, but you sounded crazy when you came to me with your proposal. I gave you a chance.’

  Oliver meets my eyes. His are full of doubt but I know he’ll say yes.

  He might not believe I can really connect to Adam, but love – he has faith in love and that will be enough.

  It has to be.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Adam

  It is all moving too quickly. I can’t process what is going on.

  ‘But last time… You could have died, Anna. You weren’t in a good state when you came back,’ the man had said. Oliver, Anna calls him. But some of the other voices who frequent my room have referred to him as Dr Chapman. He had sat with me once, telling me about some trial, but I couldn’t make sense of it at the time. I’m trying to make sense of it now. What’s happened to Anna? Why does she want to put herself at risk again?

  For me.

  My heart begins to gallop. Even if I couldn’t feel it gathering pace inside my chest, it registers on my monitor. I can sense Oliver crossing to my bed. Feel his fingers press against my pulse. I want to shake my hand free. I want him to tell Anna no. He can’t risk anything happening to her. She’s too precious.

  The trial. I need to figure it out. My head hurts. I try to remember past conversations, pain drumming deep inside my skull. It was something about consciousness.

  My consciousness.

  Anna and Oliver’s voices crash around me like a choppy sea and I have experienced a rough angry sea recently, haven’t I?

  A yacht?

  I desperately try to work out what is going on, to piece it all together. But it’s when I remember something Oliver had said about a state-of-the-art fMRI scanner he’d invented, software, VR goggles, so Anna could experience what I have been thinking, that my blood runs cold.

  Could he really connect our minds somehow? It sounds terrifying.

  It sounds dangerous.

  I have to stop this.

  Stop her.

  Chapter Seventy

  Anna

  Finding the bracelet had swept away any doubt I might have had that my experience with Adam wasn’t real.

  Oliver is doubting himself now too; I can see it in his face.

  ‘You believe me,’ I say softly and then louder. ‘You. Believe. Me.’

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Adam

  ‘You believe me,’ Anna tells Oliver.

  She’s talking him round. She’s persuasive, that wife of mine, I know that. If she wasn’t, we wouldn’t have a purple dining room. He doesn’t really have a chance. But still, I’m willing him to stand firm. Not put her at risk.

  I long to get up. To walk away from Dr Fucking Frankenstein, but I can’t. The proverbial lab rat.

  ‘I know why you want to go back, Anna,’ Oliver says. ‘But I have explained to you when I connected to Adam in the scanner there was nothing to see. Harry… Harry isn’t real.’

  At this, my heart splinters. ‘He’s real,’ I want to shout. But suddenly I’m not sure. Have I imagined it all too?

  I think back to the day he was born; Elvis crooning ‘Love me Tender’.

  Isn’t it real?

  Isn’t he real?

  But he must be. My arms remember the weight of him, my nose the smell of him – talcum powder. His dark blue eyes trained on mine.

  If Anna’s seen him too then the tech must work? It must let us be together, but at what cost?

  ‘You nearly died,’ Oliver had said. If it takes living without me to keep Anna safe and alive then that’s what she must do.

  They are standing either side of my bed. I feel like a bloody tennis net as objections are served and batted away. A game that nobody can win.

  A scream builds inside of me but I can’t let it out.

  ‘I know that there comes a point where…’ Oliver’s voice catches. ‘Where we have to let the ones we love go.’

  Again, Anna grasps my hand with both of hers. She squeezes. I squeeze back but she can’t feel it.

  I’m back in Alircia when we first met. Watching Anna’s anxious face as the bird is placed on my arm. Feeling my fingers fumble against the chain that tethers it. Watching the parrot soar into the brilliant, blue sky. But I’m not there.

  I’m here.

  I’m at home with Harry.

  I don’t know where I am.

  I don’t know who I am.

  My head hurts. My body hurts. My heart hurts.

  Anna sniffs. She doesn’t let go of my hands to find a tissue. Her tears drip onto my forearm. I can’t wipe them away.

  ‘I won’t give up. Adam wouldn’t want me to give up either,’ she says.

  But she’s wrong.

  Her sitting day after day in this room, living out a life, a fantasy almost, that can’t be real, no matter how solid it feels, means she’s missing out on the outside world because of me. Putting her health at risk.

  You could have died, Anna.

  This isn’t what I want at all.

  I summon up every ounce of energy in my body to tell her this, but my voice remains silent when I speak.

  Anna, don’t kill yourself over me. I’m not there, I’m here. I’m everywhere.

  I’m nowhere.

  But no matter where my mind hops to, my heavy, unresponsive body remains in this bed.

  A 3 per cent chance of recovery, I had overheard.

  If you love someone, set them free.

  She needs to let me go.

  I need to let her go.

  I won’t let her destroy herself, miss out on living her life to the fullest because of me. I love her too much for that.

  ‘One last time,’ Oliver says. ‘Just to say goodbye.’

  He’s caved. I knew he would but it doesn’t matter. I know what I have to do.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Oliver

  Oliver knows Anna’s right. He’d want the chance to say goodbye to Clem, it seems only fair. He’s shaking as he watches Sofia help her with the goggles through the console room window.

  One last time.

  Thirty minutes.

  He’s here to monitor every second.

  Nothing can go wrong.

  Can it?

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Adam

  My body is slid onto a cold hard surface. I want to shout no. To tell Oliver that he can’t let Anna keep risking everything for me. I am not the same person. I no longer feel like me. I am not aware of my body. I cannot move, can’t force my eyes open, but love? I still feel love.

  If I were to stir, Anna, then what? You’d spend the rest of your life caring for me and I’d spend the rest of my life not being able to tell you how I feel. You’ve lost the husband you had. But Harry… the son that shouldn’t exist and yet we have somehow brought into being, is a light shining in the darkness. Your guiding star, just as you are mine. It isn’t fair for you to be wrenched away from him time and time again. It is too painful to bear and it will be your ruin.

  What I’m about to do is for you. Please forgive me.

  Brief snatches of the life we almost had is too cruel. If I could find a way to give you it a
ll, I would, but I can’t. But there’s something I can do for you.

  If you love someone, set them free.

  Remember, Anna?

  For one last time, I wish I could take your hand in mine. Look deeply into your eyes and tell you that whenever things seem impossible, they aren’t.

  There is always an ember of hope quietly smouldering if you know where to look.

  There’s always a miracle waiting to happen.

  Love will find a way.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Anna

  For the last time I allow my body to relax, my mind to fall. Adam’s hand in mine.

  Instead of being in the UK, I find myself back in our apartment in Alircia.

  Alone.

  ‘Adam?’ I’m hesitant. Suddenly afraid but unsure why. ‘Adam?’

  Why aren’t we at home? Where is Harry?

  Perhaps we are back on the island, celebrating an anniversary. Or Harry’s birthday? Despite hoping I will find Adam and Harry napping on the bed, I still enter the bedroom with a sense of unease. The hairs at the back of my neck prickling.

  Something isn’t right.

  The room is empty. White duvet pulled up over the pillows. I pull it back and touch the sheet with my hand. It’s cold.

  ‘Adam?’ His suitcase is on the floor, lid open. His clothes strewn around it haphazardly. I open a drawer; my shorts and tops are neatly folded. There are no baby things. No travel cot. My chest tightens as panic courses through me.

  Where is Harry?

  The longing to see my son is painful. I try to slow my breathing. Regulate my pulse. I can’t have Oliver bringing me back yet. The thought I might not get to say goodbye to my husband and child causes a crack to appear in my heart. Where are they?

  The bathroom is empty but steam lingers from the shower. The scent of musky shower gel hanging in the air. He’s been here then, and recently.

  In the kitchen, a pen and pad rest on the worktop. An address scrawled on the top page. Upper Harringdon. It’s a town about thirty miles away from our home in the UK. Adam is always chatting to the other hotel guests about football. Perhaps someone had given him their address to keep in touch, but that doesn’t explain where he is right now.

  Another sheet of paper catches my eye; it’s stuck to the fridge with the ‘I love Alircia’ magnet.

  Anna, meet me at Pacifico Beach and remember I LOVE YOU xxxxx

  My anxiety increases, remembering the disaster that struck last time we were at Pacifico Beach. How could he possibly think I’d want to go there? How could he want to go there? But then I remember in Adam’s mind the accident never happened. He doesn’t know. But still, my nerves are jangling. Why are we here? Has his mind forgotten Harry? I just can’t figure out what’s going on.

  A fierce desire to find my husband, my son, propels me out of the door.

  My arms feel empty, my heart full of dread. Shockwaves travel up my shins while my sandal-clad feet pound the pavement. By the time I get to the beach, my sundress is plastered to my back with sweat. When I see what’s waiting for me, it’s like running into a wall. Shock slamming the breath from my body.

  It’s exactly the same.

  Pacifico is a riot of noise and colour. Music and laughter. Red and green bunting hanging between wooden poles that have been pushed into the sand.

  It’s exactly the same.

  A BBQ sizzles the scent of beef. On the makeshift bar rest goldfish-sized glasses filled with milky pina colada, garnished with chunks of pineapple, straws and pink paper umbrellas.

  Boy George’s voice drifts from the speaker. ‘Do you really want to hurt me?’

  It’s exactly the same.

  ‘Ma’am?’ asks a voice to my left. I turn to the man in the navy polo shirt with the red ‘WLY’ logo, who offers me a leaflet. ‘Free trip? It’s the launch of Webster’s Luxury yachts. We’re dropping people off at the island over there, and collecting them later. Trips are every forty-five minutes. You’re too late for this one but—’

  I glance at my watch. It’s almost eleven. The yacht sank at eleven.

  It’s exactly the same.

  ‘Adam!’ I scream, running across the beach.

  The yacht is leaving. Even before my eyes frantically seek out the Maria in black cursive script, I know that it is the same one.

  I pelt into the frothy waves until they cover my thighs, my hips, my waist.

  ‘Adam!’ I shield my eyes against the sun and stare at the yacht. He’s there, just as I knew he would be. Leaning against the railings, his eyes locked onto mine.

  ‘Please,’ I turn towards the beach, ‘the yacht is going to sink. Somebody make it come back. Please.’ But nobody hears me. ‘Listen!’ I scream so loudly the skin of my throat throbs in protest. ‘Help!’ A girl wearing a navy polo shirt with the ‘WLY’ logo splashes towards me.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No,’ I cling to her. My knees threatening to give way. ‘The yacht is going to sink. My husband’s going to die. You have to call it back.’

  ‘Ma’am, have you been drinking?’

  I shake my head. Squeezing her arm with my fingers.

  ‘Have you been out in the sun too—’

  ‘No.’ I’m a mass of tears. I’m going to lose him. I’m going to lose him all over again. ‘Adam.’ Grief pushes me forward. The sea splashes salt into my open mouth. Wets my tear-damp cheeks. I’m yanked upright by the back of my T-shirt like a marionette.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  I shake her hands off me.

  The yacht moves further away. My breath is coming in frightened gasps.

  I can just make out Adam as he raises his arms to the sky. He links his thumbs together, forming wings with his hands. He mimes flying free.

  ‘No!’ I collapse. Feel arms around my waist pulling me from the sea, but Adam is the one who needs to be dragged from this nightmare groundhog day. I already know how it ends.

  ‘Adam! Adam!’ I fight for freedom. Wade back into deeper water. Hating myself for not being able to swim to him. Not being able to save him.

  He doesn’t want to be saved.

  He is still watching me. His hands still miming what he wants.

  He wants me to set him free.

  ‘Something wrong with the yacht!’ someone behind me shouts.

  This is it.

  I watch in horror as the yacht begins to sink.

  This is it.

  I throw myself forwards, not caring that I might drown trying to reach him. Not wanting to live without him. Hands are on me once more, but not the girl’s.

  Oliver’s.

  He has brought me back and over my own choking sobs I hear it. The continuous beep.

  Adam is flatlining.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Adam

  For the second time there’s a blow to my skull. The taste of blood in my mouth. Colours bright and dull. Light and dark. A kaleidoscope of pain.

  Water, in my mouth and eyes.

  Water, in my nose and ears.

  My arms and legs flail. I’m sinking deeper and deeper. Dizzy. Disorientated. My lungs burn, chest feels tight.

  The water turns from blue to grey to almost black. I’m spinning. Twisting in the sea. Everything feeling like it’s about to explode. My skull. My rib cage. Body burning.

  Anna.

  It is the thought of her that prevents me fighting for air. Stops my legs kicking their way to the surface.

  I’m sinking. Heavy. A mass of pain and fear but not regret. Not this time.

  If you love someone, set them free.

  I’m heavy and weightless and here but not.

  Anna.

  Drifting. Drifting. My arms and legs are splayed.

  A feeling of calm washes over me.

  Anna begins to fade away.

  And then I feel nothing at all.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Anna

  We are yanked out of the scanner with force. Sofia pulls me from the tabl
e so Oliver can reach Adam. Blood is streaming down my face. My head is splitting, the continuous screech of the machine screaming what I already know.

  Adam has gone.

  Anxiety grips me tightly. I watch Oliver shake Adam by the shoulders. ‘Adam, Adam, can you hear me?’ But of course Adam doesn’t answer.

  He can’t.

  Oliver is going through the motions like he’s performed this a hundred times but the pallor of his face, his hesitation, tells me he hasn’t. Oliver gives a cursory check of Adam’s airway while Luis cuts open Adam’s T-shirt and begins chest compressions. Sofia runs to the trolley and picks up two paddles that look like irons and passes them to Luis.

  ‘Clear.’ He places them on Adam’s chest.

  Adam’s body jerks.

  ‘Still in VF,’ shouts Sofia.

  Oliver continues with chest compressions.

  Adam’s eyes locked onto mine. His thumbs linking together, forming wings with his hands.

  The machine continues its beep. Oliver and Sofia exchange a worried look.

  ‘Please.’ But I am not sure what I’m pleading for. For them to save the man I love, or let him go.

  ‘Clear,’ Luis shouts for the second time. Again, Adam’s body jerking.

  ‘Still in VF,’ Sofia says.

  The bird he had rescued soaring high into the sky. ‘He’s happy now,’ Adam had said. ‘He’s free.’

  Oliver places his hands back on Adam’s chest.

  ‘Let him go.’ My words are thick, my tongue too big for my mouth. My lips unwilling to move. But still I try again. ‘Oliver.’

  Adam’s wishes are ever-present. Impossible to ignore. They whisper and roar like an orchestra, building to a crescendo, which forces me to acknowledge the cutting truth.

  I have lost him.

  Oliver meets my eye.

  ‘Stop,’ I say. ‘It’s time.’ Oliver’s face crumples in pain but he holds out a hand to Luis. ‘Wait.’

  In three strides Oliver takes my hands. For a second I think he’s going to tell me he has to treat Adam. Has to bring him back even if there’s nothing to bring him back for other than a hospital bed and an inability to communicate. Is any life better than no life? Instead, he asks, ‘Are you sure, Anna?’