The Life We Almost Had

by Amelia Henley

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Our leaving party is at The Star; it seems only fitting. Rather than wearing black clothes and reminiscing about the past, today the guests are wearing bright fabrics and looking towards the future.

  Everyone is here, Mum, Nan. Josh’s parents have driven down. Oliver, if it weren’t for him, Harry wouldn’t be here, and Nancy, who allowed him to be mine once more. Nell’s Chris has brought their children and the pub is filled with happy chatter.

  ‘Shall I bring the food out?’ the landlady asks and my stomach growls in response. I’d been so busy packing up the house that I missed lunch and now I’m ravenous.

  ‘Please.’

  Trays are carried out of the kitchen, laden with some of Adam’s favourite foods and some of mine.

  Harry sits on my mum’s lap, a plate of Marmite soldiers on the table in front of him. He picks up a piece of bread and squishes it into his fist before aiming it at his mouth.

  ‘Marmite!’ I say to my son, opening my eyes wide and slapping my hands either side of my cheeks.

  He giggles, white teeth and gummy gaps – Adam would be so proud – before smearing his buttery fingers all over Mum’s skirt, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

  ‘You know,’ Mum says for the umpteenth time, ‘even though you adopted Harry, he looks so much like Adam. It’s astonishing.’

  She’ll never know just how astonishing it all is.

  ‘I’m so glad you brought him into our lives, Anna.’ She kisses the top of Harry’s head. ‘Being a grandmother is just as wonderful as I’d always hoped.’

  I flit between the people I love. The people who love me.

  Chris is telling Josh about a friend of his who has recently broken up with her boyfriend. ‘You’ve got loads in common. I could set you up?’ he asks.

  ‘Is she hot?’ Josh asks when what he’s really asking is, ‘Is she anything like your wife?’

  ‘Yeah. She looks a bit like Nell, actually.’

  Josh smiles. ‘Yeah, cheers. Why not.’

  ‘Now, are you sure you’re okay for money?’ my nan asks.

  ‘I’m absolutely sure,’ I reassure her. Last week she’d tried to give me five hundred pounds again. ‘Adam’s life insurance is more than enough for us to live on for now.’

  ‘We’ll miss you so much, your mum and I. And your dad.’ Her eyes fill with tears as she speaks of her son. ‘If he were still here, your dad would be…’

  ‘I know.’ I hand her a tissue. ‘I’ll be back before you know it, and until then we’ll FaceTime.’ Nan has bought an iPad especially. ‘Excuse me for a minute.’

  In the corner, Oliver nurses a lemonade, awkward and alone.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ I say. ‘I know social engagements aren’t your thing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed it.’

  We’ve become good friends. Aside from Nell, there’s no one I can really talk to about what I went through except for Oliver. Many nights we’ve spoken on the phone until the early hours. Pouring over everything again and again. He’s still at the Institute, still trying to make the world a better place, but concentrating on disease for now. He’s more cautious.

  ‘Will you carry on with your research into consciousness, one day?’ I ask.

  ‘I still can’t decide. I don’t know if there are some things we are perhaps better off not knowing.’ There’s a question in his eyes that I can’t answer. I shrug.

  ‘But,’ his face brightens, ‘we’ve had a breakthrough with our research into Parkinson’s. Every day we’re getting closer and closer to a cure.’

  ‘Clem would be proud of you but…’ I hesitate, not sure if I’m speaking out of turn. ‘She’d want you to step out of your lab occasionally and live. Perhaps even love.’

  ‘Eva did…’ His cheeks redden. ‘Eva did ask me out to dinner. There does seem to be some chemistry.’

  ‘You and your science.’ We both laugh. ‘Be happy, Oliver.’

  ‘You too, Anna.’

  Across the pub I notice Nell gesturing at her wrist. I check the time. Not long left. I pick up a fork and tap my glass and when the room quietens, I begin to speak.

  ‘I couldn’t have got through this past year without the support of everyone here. It hasn’t been an easy decision to leave the home I shared with Adam, but I don’t want to be living in my memories, yearning for the life we almost had. I want to make the most of every precious second of the life I have right now. I feel…’ A hot lump rises in my throat. I take a sip of my drink to wash it back down before I can continue. ‘I feel Adam will be with Harry and me as we make our trip. The world trip he always planned. Following the route he’d mapped out. Visiting all of the countries he’d wanted to go to. It seems the perfect tribute to the man I love.’ I wipe the tears from my cheeks. ‘The man I will always love.’ I raise my glass. ‘To Adam.’

  ‘To Adam,’ is chorused back at me.

  ‘And Anna and Harry,’ says Nell. ‘To the adventure of a lifetime.’ Our eyes meet and I know she’s remembering making the same toast as we flew towards Alircia for the first time eight years ago.

  It’s almost time for my taxi to arrive. There had been several offers to drive me but I’d declined them all, not wanting any emotional airport scenes. I had been there. Done that.

  ‘Anna, we’ve made this.’ Josh’s dad hands me a scrapbook. I flick through it. It’s full of photos of teenage Adam, with mad frizzy hair and terrible clothes. He’s on a dance floor somewhere doing his John Travolta, Saturday Night Fever pose and I can’t help but laugh. There’s a cutting from the paper when his football team won an amateur league. His arm is looped around Josh’s neck and they are both grinning wildly at the camera. You’d think they had won the World Cup rather than a trophy so tiny I can hardly make it out. There are Adam’s A Level results; of course, he passed Geography with flying colours. The last page contains a photo achingly familiar. It is Adam and Josh raising a glass to the photographer. In the background, through the glass wall, I can see a plane. They are wearing shorts and T-shirts I recognize. I don’t need Josh’s parents to confirm that this was taken before they flew to Alircia.

  ‘We thought you might like to show it to Adam’s mum and dad when you reach Australia, so they can catch up on the years they missed,’ Josh’s mum explains.

  ‘Thank you.’ I am touched by the thought they’ve put into the scrapbook, and appreciate how painful it must have been to make. Adam’s passing must have felt like losing a son to them. I hug them both tightly before tucking the scrapbook inside my tote bag, which is crammed with nappies, wipes, teething gel and all the other paraphernalia a tiny person needs to travel. In my suitcase is an envelope of photos of the adult Adam. The first stop on our trip is his parents’ house so they can meet Harry, and I can affirm what an amazing, special man their son grew into. It was always such a source of sadness to Adam that they’d drifted apart. On the phone they’d sounded delighted I’d be coming.

  ‘We regret… we regret lots of things,’ his mum had said. ‘We shouldn’t have missed your wedding, for one, but perhaps most of all we regret not flying over for the funeral. I’ll dig out Adam’s baby photos before you come.’

  I can’t wait to see those but can already imagine them. I see Adam every time I look at Harry’s face.

  ‘I’ve something for you too.’ Josh looks uncertain as he holds out a box. Inside, a watch.

  ‘It looks like Adam’s old—’

  ‘It is.’

  I take a sharp intake of breath, lifting it from the box. ‘But how?’ How on earth had Josh managed to trace Adam’s grandad’s watch that he’d sold to buy my engagement ring?

  ‘I’ve been looking on eBay for ages to try and find something similar for Harry and I found this. The engraving on the back says Love will find a way. It’s the same one, Anna.’

  Josh studies my expression while I turn it over, tracing the inscription with my finger as my eyes blur with tears, wishing I could bend and shape time. Wis
hing we’d had more of it.

  ‘I’m sorry, Anna. Have I upset—’

  ‘No.’ I look up and smile. ‘I’m glad you found it. I’m just a bit overcome.’

  ‘It’s such a coincidence,’ he says.

  ‘It’s a miracle,’ Nell says.

  Another one, I think, looking at Harry, almost asleep against her shoulder.

  From outside, the sound of a car horn. Chris picks up our luggage – we’re travelling light – and everyone bundles outside to wave goodbye and I promise them that I will see them soon, even though I know there are no certainties in life. All we can do is appreciate the here and now. I give everyone a hug and a kiss and I tell them that I love them because, although we always think there’ll be a next time, another chance, sometimes there just isn’t. I never put off doing anything I can do today. That’s why I’m not waiting until Harry is older to make this trip. God willing, there’ll be a chance for us to do it all over again, when he’ll remember it too.

  On the way to the airport, Harry dozes, his long lashes dark against his pale skin. His arms clutching the Percy Parrot that Adam had chosen from him years before he ever came into being. Where his sleeve has ridden up, I see his birthmark. The map.

  Again, I open the box Josh has given me and ease the watch from its velvet cushion before fastening it around my wrist. One day I’ll give it to Harry and tell him the incredible story behind it.

  Behind us.

  Love will find a way.

  Ours wasn’t a typical love story, Adam, but it was our love story, and although I’m not yet ready for it to end, still not ready for it to end, in Harry I’ve found a new beginning as well as discovering the answer to my question: can love really be eternal? Of course it can – is there any other way?

  Adam, this is my promise you: one day I shall tell Harry everything. I’ll teach him that sometimes you set something free and it comes back to you, and sometimes it can’t…

  …no matter how much it longs to.

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Adam

  Anna, while you add Harry’s name to our love lock in Alircia, I am the gentle kiss of the ocean breeze on the back of your neck.

  I am the whisper in the leaves as you traipse through Italian vineyards.

  I am the golden sand that tickles Harry’s toes in Thailand, making him collapse into giggles.

  The white feather that drifts into your yurt in Hawaii, that’s me.

  As you sit in the mountains in Canada, gazing at the stars that twinkle in the sky, I want to tell you that your star still shines the brightest of them all, but I think you know that.

  I hope you know that.

  I am with you, Anna.

  Always.

  Author’s Note

  CONTAINS SPOILERS

  Hello,

  Thanks so much for choosing to read The Life We Almost Had. I hope you fell for Adam and Anna in the same way that I did writing them.

  This story felt very personal. It was inspired by the time I have spent with my wonderful brother-in-law, who sadly has Parkinson’s Dementia. As anyone who has experience with dementia knows, it is the cruellest of diseases.

  Often, he isn’t fully aware of the present; he’s living out a different life, in a different time. He talks frequently of events that happened some thirty years ago, and yet he generally asks after my children who weren’t born during that time. His mind has created its own timeline. Its own narrative. Sometimes when I visit, he falls asleep, and it was during one of those times I watched how relaxed he became; he was smiling as he dozed and I wondered what was going on in his mind. Where was he? Who was he with? As a family we have the heartbreak of watching his decline but sometimes, just sometimes, he’s happy in the world he has created, and I was desperate to discover what that world was. I thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could step into that world, if my sister could spend time with him inside of his mind-made-fiction?

  If they could be together and be happy.

  I began to research brain science. Magdalen College in Oxford is a leading centre for the study into consciousness and I’m grateful they permitted me to go along, sit in on some lectures and allowed me to ask their neuroscientist, Daniel Bor, my many, many questions, which he has patiently answered over the course of the past year. I was astounded by the work of Yukiyasu Kamitani, which is referred to in this book. Brain science is such an important area and we are learning more about it than ever.

  It was later, on holiday in Lanzarote, when I stared out into the sea, that Adam and Anna came to me. I saw the scene with the yacht play out before my eyes like a movie and instantly, unusually, I knew their complete story. I couldn’t wait to write it. I felt Anna’s heartbreak. Adam’s despair.

  In the book Oliver questions whether he has put science before emotion and the moral implications of the technology he invented. I’d love to hear what you think, and you can find me at www.ameliahenley.co.uk or come and chat to me on social media at https://twitter.com/MsAmeliaHenley, https://www.facebook.com/ msameliahenley and https://www.instagram.com/msameliahenley/

  Amelia x

  Book Club Questions for The Life We Almost Had

  ‘I made a mistake’. Anna writes to Adam during the prologue of the book. What did you think might have happened between them?

  Adam discovers ‘There’s less than a 50 per cent chance of couples staying together in a long-distance relationship, and out of those couples who don’t make it, the average time they were together was four and a half months.’ Have you ever been in a long-distance relationship? What was the reality for you?

  Did you think Nell and Josh would end up together? Were you pleased or disappointed with the way their relationship progressed?

  When Oliver meets Anna, he offers her a life-changing experience but with the possibility of harrowing consequences. What would you have said in Anna’s position?

  Oliver questions whether he is playing God. ‘There’s a percentage of the population who oppose scientific development, whether for religious or moral reasons. Those who believe that humans shouldn’t interfere with the natural order of things.’ Discuss.

  When Anna shows Oliver what she believes is proof that her experiences were real, did you believe her?

  Adam makes a heartbreaking sacrifice for Anna. Did you understand why he did this? Was it selfless or selfish?

  When Anna visits the address Adam had written down near the end of the book, she stumbles across something truly astonishing. How did you feel when Anna made her discovery?

  At the beginning of the book Anna questions whether love can be eternal; by the end she has her answer. What do you think?

  Is a second chance at first love worth risking spoiling the precious memories you have of that time?

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, huge thanks to my agent, Rory Scarfe, for encouraging me to write the story that was in my heart. My fabulous editor, Manpreet Grewal, who instantly fell in love with Adam and Anna, understood what I wanted the story to be, and helped me shape it with a gentle hand. The inspirational Lisa Milton – I’m very grateful for the belief you have in me.

  The wonderful HQ family – in particular Lucy Richardson, Melissa Kelly and the production team. It takes so many people to bring out a book and I’m very thankful for the help I receive.

  The support from my early readers, who took Adam and Anna into their hearts when I wasn’t quite sure what the story was or if it was working, was invaluable. Fiona Mitchell, Lucille Grant and Emma Mitchell, I’m not sure if you realize just how much your kind feedback and encouraging words meant to me. Darren O’Sullivan, for listening to my angst over coffee and too much cake while I tried to keep the story straight in my head.

  I’m so appreciative that Magdalen College in Oxford allowed me to sit in on lectures in consciousness given by leading neuroscientists.

  Thanks to David Luke for taking the time to speak to me during an early draft. Daniel Bor, who has been so patient answeri
ng endless questions over the past year, and contributing ideas to bring Oliver’s technology to fruition in the story. Of course, I have taken artistic licence in fictionally developing the technology that is currently available to fit Adam and Anna’s experience. It’s been so fascinating to learn about the developments in science, the current trials and the technology out there (not a million miles away from the tech that Oliver has created), which I’d previously thought could only have existed sci-fi movies. The future is exciting. To everyone involved in brain science research who is working tirelessly towards eradicating neurological disease, my heartfelt thanks. You really are changing the world.

  Louise Molina, for all your medical expertise – any mistakes are purely my own.

  All the book bloggers who work so hard sharing their love of good stories. In particular Linda Hill, whose romantic relationship with her husband, Steve, made me long to write about a love like theirs.

  My friends who, like Nell, are always there for me when I need them, no matter how much time has passed; in particular Sarah, Natalie, Hilary, Kuldip and Sue.

  My family: Mum, Karen, Glyn, Bekkii and Pete. I love you all immensely, along with my husband Tim – thanks for your unwavering support.

  Callum, Kai and Finley, who make me infinitely proud every single day. I would cross worlds for you three. Always.

  And Ian Hawley. Forever.

  Read on for an exclusive extract from the next novel from

  Amelia Henley

  Coming Summer 2021

  Chapter One

  Four phone calls.

  It took four phone calls to tip my world off its axis. I remember them all with sharp clarity; the things I wanted to know, the things I wished I’d never been told. The disbelief, the fear, the hope. The impossible, impossible choice I am faced with. I want everything to slow down.

  Stop.