The Life We Almost Had

by Amelia Henley

  There is no 62 St Mary’s Street.

  Google Maps tells me that St Mary’s Road is a five-minute walk in the opposite direction. I spin around, skid on the wet pavement and a sharp pain circles my ankle as the heel on my shoe snaps. I fall forwards onto the hard concrete, slamming hard onto my knees. My tights are torn, my skin grazed and bloodied. I wrench off my shoes, and carry them in my hand as I limp. Hair plastered to my face with rain. I am freezing cold, and frustrated tears are not far away but I try to keep them inside. I can imagine my mascara streaking down my cheeks. In the unlikely event I am about to come face to face with Adam’s secret girlfriend, she will only need one quick glance to wonder what he ever saw in me.

  By the time I find St Mary’s Road I am soaked to the bone. These are all three-storey Victorian homes, most of them converted to businesses. I pass a dentist. A solicitor. An optician. I hobble slowly, checking the numbers carefully. Number 62 doesn’t have a bronze plaque outside and I wonder whether it’s a family home. Blinds shield the windows.

  This is it.

  My ankle and knees sting. I climb the six steps before I am standing in front of an imposing black door with a silver lion’s-head knocker.

  Before I can change my mind, I rap three times.

  It seems an age before I hear heels click-click-clicking down the hallway.

  The door cracks open. ‘Yes?’ The woman before me is probably around my age. Pretty in her vintage A-line polka-dot dress, her dark brown up-do and deep red lipstick. Her eyes sweep from my hair, dripping with rain, to my torn tights, the blood running down my leg.

  ‘I’m here for…’ I falter. What am I here for? ‘Adam. Adam Curtis.’ I study her carefully. There isn’t a flicker of recognition on her face when I speak his name. ‘There’s no one here called Adam.’

  ‘This building? What is it? What happens here?’

  ‘Do you have an appointment?’

  ‘I…’ I think about saying yes but know I’ll be caught out right away.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I can’t help you.’ She begins to close the door.

  ‘Please.’ I step forward, my foot over the threshold preventing the door from closing. ‘Please. I…’ I don’t know what I can say. What I should say. It sounds crazy. It is crazy but Adam wanted me to come here, I know it. ‘My husband. Adam. He’s…’ I try to stop myself from crying but I can’t. Wiping furiously at my cheeks while I try to steady my voice. ‘My husband died. We buried him… today. I’ve just come from the wake.’ Her face softens. The pressure against my foot eases as she stops pushing the door towards me.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  ‘I… it’s hard to explain all of it but Adam, he… he wrote down this address on a piece of paper and left it for me to find. It was the last thing he wrote.’ I have fished a tissue from my pocket and am dabbing at the tears that won’t stop falling. ‘There’s something here that Adam needed me to see, or someone he wanted me to meet. Please…’

  ‘It’s against the rules to let anyone in without an appointment,’ she says, but she doesn’t ask me to leave. I can feel her wavering.

  ‘Look.’ I rummage in my bag for my phone. I hold it up. My screensaver photo is of our wedding day. ‘This is Adam… was Adam. I have to know why he wrote this address. I have to.’

  ‘I don’t know—’

  ‘Please. I’ve lost my husband. My son.’

  ‘Your son?’

  Her eyes meet mine. I see pity. Indecision and something else. An understanding. She has lost too; I can sense it.

  After a moment, she nods. Pulls the door open wide. ‘I’m Nancy. You’d better come inside.’

  Chapter Eighty

  Anna

  My stomach jitters with nerves. I step into the hallway of 62 St Mary’s Road. I have no idea what I’m walking into. I stamp my feet on the doormat, trying to dislodge the raindrops that cling to my skin, my clothes. I can sense that I am being watched. Nancy must have some idea of why I’m here. When I’m as dry as I can be, I raise my face to see her eyes are still filled with sympathy. For a split second I think about running away, unsure if I’m strong enough to cope with what she might reveal.

  ‘Come on through.’ Nancy leads the way into a small room to our left and gestures for me to sit on a dark wooden chair. I perch on the edge of the seat, not wanting my wet skirt to dampen the deep green velvet cushion. She pulls out a chair from behind the impossibly shiny desk and sits opposite me. Waiting for her to speak, I lick my dry lips, tasting the furniture polish that lingers in the air.

  ‘Can I fetch you a hot drink?’ she says. ‘You look freezing.’

  I am torn between demanding answers and wanting to delay them.

  ‘Please.’

  Rather than leaving the room, she crosses to the short bookcase under the window where there’s a kettle. She flicks it on. I look around for some sort of indication of what this room, what this building is. There’s nothing other than a gold cross on the wall. Neither of us talk while she spoons coffee into mugs and splashes on boiling water.

  ‘I can fetch some milk—’

  ‘I take mine black.’ I lie. The wait has become unbearable. I need to know what happens within these four walls with the burgundy flocked wallpaper and too many secrets. Why Adam had either been here or was planning on coming here.

  Nancy hands me my drink. I wrap my hands around the mug, trying to still the trembling in my fingers.

  ‘I lost my daughter,’ she says simply. Her words are steady, firm and instinctively I know she’s said them many times before. Her eyes are filled with pain. ‘That’s what led me here.’

  I nod, but I don’t understand. I can’t. I’m shaking so hard I put down my mug.

  ‘Her father, he… he wasn’t around. I had no interest in another relationship. I had no interest in anything. It was three years after… after Lucy that my mum suggested I come here. It wasn’t that I wanted to replace her, but…’ Momentarily she closes her eyes while she inhales deeply through her nose before huffing out the air. ‘In the end I couldn’t do it, but I began to volunteer and… it was healing. Now I’m the manager but it’s more than a job, it’s a vocation and… it’s enough for me.’

  She leans forward and takes my hands in hers. ‘Your husband… Adam. I don’t know why he wanted you to come here but the fact you’ve lost a child.’ She doesn’t finish her sentence. Again my eyes sweep the room for clues.

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘It’s a children’s home.’

  ‘It can’t be.’ I draw my hands away from hers, looking around wildly for signs of children. Listening for sounds of children. There aren’t any.

  ‘They’re mostly all in school.’ Nancy senses my confusion. ‘We don’t put a sign outside because some of the children have come from difficult homes and we want to protect them. Give them some privacy. Some dignity back. You wouldn’t believe what some of these kids have been through. Wherever we can, we place them with new families, of course.’

  ‘I… I’m sorry.’ And I am. Sorry for her loss, sorry for the children who find themselves without stability, security, but most of all I’m sorry for myself. I had come here for answers but now all I have is more questions. Why did Adam lead me here? It makes no sense.

  ‘I…’ I trail off. I can’t speak. Can’t think. Can’t breathe. I stand up, my chair toppling back. I rush for the door. I have to get out of here. It was a mistake to come.

  ‘Anna!’ Nancy is seconds behind me but I don’t stop. My chest is in a vice. I don’t know what I expected to find but it wasn’t this.

  My hand is on the front door handle when I hear it.

  A cry.

  A cry that tears at my heart.

  A cry I recognize.

  Choking back a sob, I spin around. Push past Nancy, heading for the stairs.

  ‘Anna! You can’t go…’

  But I am halfway up the flight, my feet barely touching the ground.

  The
cries grow louder. Nancy’s footsteps thundering behind me.

  ‘Anna! Wait!’

  But I don’t. I can’t. I run full pelt towards the door at the end of the landing and throw it wide open.

  There are so many things I feel as I approach the cot. Fear. Excitement. Disbelief. Relief. Confusion. Pain. But everything I feel is overridden by a crushing anxiety that I might be wrong, but my heart tells me I am right.

  It’s Harry.

  His face flushed red. Curls damp against his scalp.

  It’s Harry.

  Small hands scrunched into fists.

  It’s Harry.

  On his arm, the birthmark shaped like a map that matches Adam’s.

  ‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ Nancy says, but her voice is soft.

  ‘It’s… it’s you. It really is you,’ I whisper.

  At the sound of my voice the baby stops crying and studies me with deep blue eyes. Adam’s eyes. Gently, I scoop him up and hold him against my chest. The familiar weight of him. The smell of him.

  ‘Poor little mite has barely stopped crying since he was left on the steps outside ten days ago.’

  But she doesn’t have to tell me he was left the day Adam died. She doesn’t have to tell me because I know.

  However impossible, this is my child.

  This is Harry.

  Part Six

  ‘Love will find a way.’

  EDITH CURTIS – ADAM’S NAN

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Anna

  Twelve months later

  It took almost nine months for me to adopt Harry. The wait was torturous. During that time, I lived in constant fear that someone else would swoop in and take my boy away. I hadn’t been on the waiting list to adopt, of course, but thankfully Nancy had recognized the bond between us and rather than placing Harry with foster carers, which would have broken my heart, she continued to care for him while she championed my application from beginning to end. It was her expertise, her patience, that allowed me to untangle the red tape and bring Harry back to where he belonged.

  Home.

  ‘I don’t know what it is about you two,’ she had said, watching me during one of my frequent visits. ‘He cries almost constantly when you’re not here.’ On cue Harry released one of his infectious giggles while I blew raspberries on his tummy. ‘And yet with you he’s happy. Content. It’s like you were meant to be.’

  Sometimes she would raise her eyebrows, an inviting of confidence, and I’d smile, and nod, and tell her yes. It did feel like Harry was mine. Once. Just once she asked me why I thought Adam had left me the address of her care home.

  I had shrugged. ‘I can’t say for sure but I’m very grateful he did.’ Never sharing that I could say, but didn’t. There was no logical reason for Harry being left here while Adam lay dying across the other side of the world. How a baby, my baby, who scientifically speaking had never existed, now lays contentedly in my arms as though he belongs there.

  And he does.

  Over time, I have stopped trying to figure it all out.

  ‘There are more mysteries to the universe than we can ever unravel,’ Oliver had said. ‘Things that are beyond the realms of scene, of probabilities.’ Hearing this allowed me to stop endlessly googling neuroscience and consciousness and trying to find a rational explanation.

  There isn’t one.

  From time to time, I spring awake in the middle of the night. Sheets tangled and drenched with sweat, heart pounding as I wonder what would have happened to Harry if I hadn’t remembered the notebook. The address. But generally I don’t allow my mind to go there.

  ‘I’ll stick this one in my boot and drop it at the Parkinson’s charity shop in the morning.’ Josh hauls the box I’ve labelled ‘Donations’ into his arms. ‘I think that’s the last one.’ He pounds downstairs.

  ‘Thank God for that.’ Nell wipes her forehead with her sleeve. ‘I’m knackered. You ready, Anna? We’ll be late.’

  I shake my head. I’m not ready and yet… ‘Can you give me a few minutes?’

  ‘Of course. Come with your Aunty Nell.’ Nell stretches out her arms and Harry crawls across to her. His dungarees are filthy at the knees. I was mortified at the amount of dust that had been uncovered when the furniture was carried out. Nell scoops him up and plants a kiss on his check. He giggles. He loves her so much. Again, I question whether I’m doing the right thing, tearing him away from his bedroom with the yellow ducks marching around the walls, his home.

  ‘Let’s get you strapped into the car, little man,’ she says. ‘I’ll give you another lesson on girls.’

  Her footsteps recede. The front door closes and I am alone with my memories.

  ‘Do you remember the day we moved in, Adam?’ I murmur into the empty space. We had felt so grown up that we could afford a house with a spare room.

  ‘For guests,’ I had said.

  ‘Like who?’ Adam had asked. ‘Nell and Josh live minutes away and so do your family. And my mum and dad…’ He didn’t have to finish. I knew it was a source of sadness they didn’t know him properly as an adult, that they weren’t around to see the man he had grown into. No matter how old we are, I think that ultimately we all crave the love and approval of our parents, don’t we?

  ‘I suppose you want to turn it into some sort of man cave?’ I had lightened the mood. ‘A games console and a mini fridge stocked with beer.’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ Adam had slipped his arms around my waist and muzzled the back of my neck. ‘You can’t fit many cans in a mini fridge; I need a full-sized one, and a pool table, and a Pac Man and—’

  ‘Umm, you have seen the size of the room.’ I had spun around and gestured with my hand. ‘But then you do overestimate the size of things.’ I backed away with a smile. Mock outrage crossed his face.

  ‘I would tell you what’s enormous.’ Adam had sprung forward, tickling my ribs until my knees buckled and we were both lying on the rough, hessian carpet. ‘But you’d never believe me.’

  ‘What,’ I had laughed. ‘What’s so enormous?’

  ‘My love for you.’ He was suddenly serious, holding me with his eyes.

  ‘Adam, I…’ I didn’t know what to say. I had never felt so happy. So content. So complete.

  ‘And you know what would fit perfectly in this room?’

  I shook my head, maintaining eye contact.

  ‘A cot.’ He had dipped his head, his lips feathering over mine. ‘This will be a nursery.’ His hands undoing the button on my jeans, his jeans. In that moment we had no doubt that our lives would be exactly what we wanted them to be: long and happy. Together.

  Now, I wipe my eyes. There has been too much time for sadness. I conjure another image, determined that all my tears today will be happy ones. I wander into our bedroom. There’s a dark rectangle on the carpet, where our bed – now dismantled and in the removal van – used to rest. The memory of our first night here brings a smile. We had bought a double air mattress while we saved for the wrought-iron bedstead I’d coveted.

  ‘Be careful it doesn’t burst,’ I had said as Adam’s foot furiously worked the foot pump to inflate the air bed.

  ‘It’s nowhere near full.’ Adam’s T-shirt had been damp under the arms.

  ‘I didn’t mean the mattress might burst. I meant your head. Your face is bright red! For someone who plays football—’

  ‘I’ll have you know I’m in the best shape of my life,’ Adam had said breathlessly, taking a break. ‘All muscle.’ He patted his stomach.

  ‘All pizza and beer,’ I had joked, but I didn’t mind that he’d gained a few pounds since we’d met.

  When he had finished inflating the bed, I’d laid on it while he put the pump back in its box. Then he’d flopped down next to me. As he landed, his weight had propelled me into the air and across the room. My arms and legs flailed for something to grip but there was nothing. I had landed with a thud, face down on the carpet.

  ‘Anna!’ Adam’s hands had touched my hea
ving shoulders. ‘Are you okay? Please don’t cry—’

  ‘I’m not.’ I had rolled over, tears of mirth streaming down my face. ‘Best shape of your life…’ I had howled with laughter until my ribs ached.

  ‘It’s not because I’m fat that you went flying through the air, it’s… physics!’ He had said, but he was laughing too. ‘You never did understand science.’

  I still don’t.

  As I wander from room to room, I remember, I remember it all…

  Texting Adam that I was wet and miserable after my first experience running with a local keep-fit group. When I had eventually staggered through the front door, he said, ‘Told you you’d hate it. Never mind, I’ve something that will warm you up.’ He had pushed a piece of paper into my hand. On it a sketch. ‘I’ve drawn you a bath!’ He laughed.

  ‘Thanks for nothing.’ Unamused, I had stomped up the stairs, into the bathroom. My eyes filling with grateful tears when I saw the steaming bubble bath waiting for me. The tea lights flickering on the windowsill. The glass of chilled wine on the edge of the basin.

  Downstairs, I recall the time I had come home to find the kitchen in a state, and Adam’s face in a mixing bowl.

  ‘What on earth—’

  ‘Anna.’ He had looked up, his face dripping with milk. ‘I tried to make a curry but I got chilli seeds on my fingers and rubbed my face. It’s not funny. My eyes. My skin!’ He, too, was laughing. We had ended up with a takeaway.

  As I sift through our time, instead of sadness and regret I feel a sense of gratitude for the years we were together.

  That despite our ups and downs we were happy.

  And this is what I take from the house as I lock the door behind me for the very last time, the knowledge that life isn’t always perfect – I am not always perfect – but there are times you have to fight for what you want, and times you have to let go.

  Today I am doing both. I climb into the car where Josh and Nell are singing ‘The Wheels on The Bus’ to Harry.

  ‘I’m ready,’ I say, and instead of looking back as Josh pulls away, I keep my eyes fixed firmly forwards.