The Fiancé He Can't Forget

by Caroline Anderson

  The subject was dropped, and he talked instead about work, about the people she’d known and what they were doing, that Rob was married now and had a child, a little girl of one, and another on the way, and how Tina, one of the other midwives, had finally convinced her registrar boyfriend to marry her—lightweight gossip that distracted her from the delicate subject of their relationship.

  Then Josh woke, starving hungry and indignant, and she fed him, the sudden blissful silence broken only by the twittering of the birds and the muted hum of the traffic in the distance.

  ‘I need to do some work,’ Matt said suddenly, getting up. ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll be down in a while.’

  She nodded, but he’d already gone, heading upstairs to his study, no doubt, and leaving her alone to ponder on his motivation and what, if anything, this new information might mean to her.

  He stood upstairs at the sitting room window, staring down at her and wondering why he’d brought her here.

  He’d been longing to, for years now, but at least before he couldn’t actually picture her here. Now, though, her image would be everywhere, her presence almost tangible in every room. If this didn’t work out…

  It had to work out. There was no acceptable alternative—at least not to him. Not one he could live with.

  He dialled the hospital number and asked them to page his registrar and get him to call him, then he stood there staring broodingly down at her until the phone rang. Only then did he take his eyes off her, go into the study, shut the door and concentrate on work. At least that was something he had some control over.

  They stayed in London for two days, and for Amy they were idyllic.

  She spent a lot of time in the garden with Josh, and when Matt was there they walked to the little park just two streets away. It had a playground for little children, and she found herself imagining bringing Josh here when he was older.

  Which was silly, because she lived in Suffolk, not London. It was where her job was, and just because Matt had hoped she’d come back to him five years ago didn’t mean they were going to make it work now.

  Which meant Matt would be bringing Josh here on his own at the weekends, she realised, and felt suddenly incredibly sad.

  He’d been taking photos of her with the baby in the park, sitting under the trees and strolling with the buggy, and she took the camera from him and photographed them together, the two men in her life—except Matt might not be.

  There was still a wariness about him, a distance from her, and she wasn’t sure why it was. Protecting himself from further hurt? She could understand that, but the image of him playing here alone with his son was too awful to contemplate.

  Going back to Yoxburgh was strange, and not necessarily in a good way.

  They quickly settled, though, and Matt went back to London in the middle of Saturday night because they’d had a multiple pregnancy admitted and the staff were worried about the babies.

  He came back on Tuesday, having delivered the triplets, and he was sombre.

  ‘We lost one,’ he told her, when she asked, and she wished she hadn’t—which was ridiculous, because she worked as a midwife, she knew these things happened.

  But he looked gutted, and for the first time really she wondered how he dealt with stillbirth, not from the patients’ viewpoint but his own.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, hugging him, and he held her close for a moment, his head rested against hers, drawing strength from her. God, he needed her. He’d missed her, the last few days interminable without her and Josh, and sad though he was, it was good to be home.

  Home? he thought. This wasn’t home! This was Amy’s home, and he had to remember that. He was getting too comfortable. Too settled.

  And in too deep.

  They went backwards and forwards between London and Yoxburgh for the next three weeks, the journey being made much easier by the fact that he’d changed his car for an estate version, so at least she knew he was serious about being a hands-on father. Very hands on. He got up in the night almost without fail and made her tea, staying to chat while she fed Josh and then change him and settle him again, and when she was exhausted he sent her back to bed in the day and did everything except the breast feeds. And gradually she grew stronger and fitter, her incision felt almost normal and she started talking about going back to work.

  Matt was astounded. ‘You can’t! How can you do that? You’ve been ill—you’ve had a section!’

  ‘Matt, I’m fine! I’m all right now, and I have no choice. If I don’t work, I’ve got no way of paying my living expenses.’

  ‘I’ll pay you maintenance.’

  ‘Why should you?’

  ‘Because he’s my son?’

  She shook her head. ‘That’s different, but I need to earn a living for me. I don’t need maintenance from you for that, I can cope on my salary—’

  ‘Only because Ben and Daisy aren’t charging you the proper rent for this house.’

  She stared at him, stunned. ‘Matt, they won’t take it! I’ve offered, but they won’t take any more.’

  ‘Only because they know you haven’t got it, and that’s unfair, Amy, it’s taking advantage of their friendship and good nature, and it’s costing them hundreds of pounds every month.’

  She felt her mouth hanging open, and shut it. Of course it was—she knew that, but she’d avoided thinking about it. Now he’d brought it so forcibly to her attention, she was gutted. They’d seemed to want her there so much—and because she’d needed the house, she hadn’t challenged it hard enough, she’d taken their argument about being choosy about their tenant at face value.

  ‘They said they wanted me,’ she said, shocked, and he shrugged.

  ‘They do, and they can have you. They can have you, Amy, but at the proper rent, and I’ll pay you maintenance so you can afford to live here. But what about Josh? You haven’t answered that one yet. What’ll happen to him when you go back to work?’

  ‘I’ll put him in the crèche.’

  ‘Have you booked? Because places are usually tight, and it’s tricky with shift work. And childcare is hideously expensive. Are you sure you can afford it? Have you looked into the costs?’

  No, of course she hadn’t. She hadn’t done any of it because she hadn’t dared to believe it would be all right, and now she felt sick with worry and shame and guilt towards Ben and Daisy. She bit her lip, and he shook his head and sighed.

  ‘Amy, do you really want to go back to work so soon? Or is this a purely economic decision? Because if it is, you don’t have to work if you don’t want to. I can afford to support you, but I want to be part of his life, and part of yours. And if you moved back to London, we could do all of that. It would be amazing. You’ve said you like my house, and we could live there and you could be at home with him and enjoy his babyhood, and I’d get to see him growing up.’

  It was the obvious answer, of course. If she lived with him, it would cost him hardly anything to support her, and he’d be with his son. But how much of it was to do with her and how much he loved her?

  Because he’d never said those words, in all these weeks of talking and getting to know each other again. Never once had he said he loved her, or tried in any way to touch her, kiss her, hold her in anything other than a supportive way.

  And she realised she had no idea at all where she stood.

  ‘What happens when something goes wrong, Matt? If I leave behind my job, my home, my friends—I’d have to start again. I’ve done that once. Believe me, I don’t want to do it again.’

  ‘What makes you think anything would go wrong?’

  ‘Experience,’ she said quietly, and to her relief Josh woke at that moment and she had a legitimate excuse to leave the room.

  He didn’t say any more about it that day, and the following day he left her in Suffolk and went back to London on his own. Maybe, he thought, it was time to let her cope alone for a while, ease himself out of her life and let her see what it was like.

>   He was helping her with all nappy changing and bathing, he did all the shopping, all the housework, he watered the garden and weeded the flowerbeds and washed her car and cleaned the windows—mostly to fill the time between feeds because he didn’t trust himself not to rush her if he was alone with her. She’d been so ill, was still getting over major surgery, whatever she might say to the contrary, and the last thing she needed was him coming on to her.

  So he took himself off out of her life, and rattled round his house alone and missed her every single minute he wasn’t at work.

  And then he got to work one morning and checked the calendar.

  It was the date they’d lost Samuel, he realised with shock. He’d never forgotten it before, never overlooked it. He was always in Harrogate on that day, always took flowers to the cemetery, but this time he had Amy to think about, and maybe it was time they confronted this issue together, today of all days.

  He cleared his workload, delegated his clinics and left London, arriving back at Amy’s house in Yoxburgh without warning and finding her sitting in the conservatory in tears. He’d let himself in with his keys, and he wondered if he should have done or if she minded.

  ‘Hey,’ he said softly, crouching down and touching her face with a gentle hand. ‘It’s OK, I’m here now.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ she lied, and he knew she wasn’t, because her face was blotched and tearstained and her eyes were swollen and she was in a sea of soggy tissues.

  He knew just how she felt. He’d done the same thing every year, but this year he’d been more worried about her, and he scooped her up and carried her into the sitting room and cradled her on his lap as she cried.

  Then finally she sniffed to halt and tried to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her, just held her against his chest and she gave in and rested her head on his shoulder and laid her hand over his heart.

  Could she feel that it was broken?

  She looked up at him, and with a soft sigh she wiped away his tears. ‘When is it going to end?’

  He kissed her gently, his lips tasting the salt of her tears, and he sighed quietly.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if it’ll ever truly go.’

  She closed her eyes, and the welling tears slid down her cheeks, breaking his heart still further. ‘I just wish I had somewhere to go—a focus for my grief. Somewhere I could go and remember him, once in a while. All I’ve got is the scan photo and my armband from the hospital. Nothing else.’

  ‘There is something else,’ he said softly, kicking himself for never thinking of it, never telling her, never sharing their grief. If only he’d known how she felt, if only he’d thought about it. ‘I asked the hospital to arrange his cremation, and I went to the…’ He couldn’t say funeral. ‘To the service,’ he went on, after a moment. ‘The hospital chaplain said a few words, and they scattered his ashes in the garden there. I go every year and put flowers in the garden, but they wrote his name in the Book of Remembrance, and I’m sure you can view it. I’m so sorry, I should have told you, but I’d just put it out of my mind.’

  She stared at him blankly. ‘There’s a book with his name in it? Can we see it?’

  He nodded. ‘I think so. I’m pretty sure you can. I’ll have to phone, but I think so.’

  ‘Phone them now. Please, Matt, phone them now! It’s only eleven o’clock. Maybe we could go today.’

  He used his phone to find the number, and rang. Half an hour later they were heading north on their way to Yorkshire, the baby fed, Amy’s clothes packed haphazardly, but that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was that they were together, today, and anything else was irrelevant.

  The book was open at the date, and she ran her finger down the page and found the entry.

  Samuel Radcliffe Walker, beloved son of Amy and Matthew. Always in our hearts.

  The words swam in front of her eyes, and she sagged against Matt, his arm firmly around her, supporting her. Joshua was on his chest in a baby sling, fast asleep against his father’s heart, next to the cherished memory of their other son, and she laid her hand against the baby’s back, making the connection.

  ‘I thought he’d been forgotten,’ she whispered.

  His arm tightened slightly, and she felt his lips brush her hair. ‘No. No, Amy, he’ll never be forgotten. He’ll always be our first son.’

  She nodded, her finger tracing the words once more, and then she nodded again and turned away.

  ‘Thank you—thank you so much,’ she said to the kindly man who’d shown them the book. He was hovering quietly behind them, giving them space, and Matt shook his hand and thanked him, and led her back outside into the sunshine.

  ‘Where are his ashes?’ she asked unsteadily, and Matt showed her the place. He’d never seen the book, but every year he’d brought beautiful cottage garden flowers from a lady who sold them from a little barrow outside her cottage just down the road—real flowers, not a stiff arrangement of scentless hothouse blooms.

  They’d bought some on the way here today, and Amy kissed them, then laid them on the grass, taking a moment to remember him and say goodbye, then she straightened up and snuggled against Matt’s side, his arm automatically going around her holding her close. He pressed his lips to her hair, and she rested her head against his shoulder as they stood for a moment staring at them, and then she sighed and turned away and they strolled quietly along the paths in the sunshine, arms around each other, hanging on.

  They found a bench and sat down, by tacit agreement, not quite ready to leave just yet.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Mmm. You?’

  He smiled wryly. ‘I’ll do.’

  ‘Thank you—for bringing me here, for coming to see me. I’m not normally that bad. It seemed worse this year, somehow.’

  ‘Mmm. Maybe it’s having Josh. It sort of underlines what we’ve lost,’ he said, his voice unsteady, and she nodded.

  ‘I’m so glad we came. I feel so much better now—as if I’ve done something I’ve been waiting all these years to do. And I’m glad you were there for his funeral. How did you do that?’ she asked, bewildered. ‘I wouldn’t have been strong enough. How did you cope?’

  He gave a hollow little laugh. ‘I didn’t really. Mum offered to come, but I wanted to do it alone. I didn’t want anyone seeing me like that. I was in denial, and if nobody saw me, I could pretend it wasn’t happening.’

  ‘That was why I ran away to India,’ she admitted. ‘So nobody I knew would see me as I fell apart.’

  ‘You were in India?’

  ‘Yes. I went backpacking on my own. Probably not the most sensible thing, but while I was there I spent a couple of weeks living on the fringe of a village where the child mortality rate was dreadful, so it put it in perspective.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Amy, I had no idea. I thought you were somewhere in London, one of the other hospitals. I didn’t try to find out, either. I thought, if you didn’t want me, there was no point in pursuing it.’

  She turned and looked at him, seeing the pain in his eyes, and she shook her head slowly. ‘It wasn’t that I didn’t want you, it was that I felt you didn’t want me.’

  He gave a soft grunt of laughter. ‘Oh, I wanted you, Amy. I’ve never stopped wanting you. I just didn’t know how to talk to you, how to deal with it. Mum suggested bereavement counselling, but I turned it down flat because I didn’t want to be made to think about it.’ He touched her face, his fingers gentle, and his eyes were filled with sorrow.

  ‘I let you down. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I let you down, too. I should have stayed in England, talked to you instead of letting you shut yourself away. I never wanted to end our relationship, Matt, I just couldn’t cope with the idea of a party. That great big wedding, with all our family and friends all gathered there just weeks after we’d lost him—it seemed wrong, somehow. It would have been wrong.’

  He nodded. ‘It would, but I wasn’t sure then if it would ever be right, or if we’d
lost each other as well along the way. And then you disappeared off the face of the earth, and I bought the house, in case you changed your mind and decided you wanted me after all, but you never did. You’d handed in your notice, and you were gone.’

  ‘You could have found me. I’m a registered midwife, you could have tracked me down.’

  He smiled. ‘Probably not legally, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to. You knew where I was. I thought, when you were ready, you’d come back to me, but you never did, and I gave up hope.’

  ‘And then Ben met Daisy, and there you were again in my life,’ she said softly. ‘And now we have another son.’

  ‘We do, and I have a feeling he has rising damp,’ he said with a smile.

  She laughed quietly and felt the edge of his little shorts. ‘Oops. I think you might be right.’

  ‘Can you cope with my parents?’ he asked, his eyes concerned, and she smiled and nodded.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I can cope with them. I’d love to see them. Can they cope with us, though?’

  ‘I’m sure they can.’

  They were overjoyed to see them.

  There were more tears, and tea, and lots of hugs, and then they offered to babysit so Matt could take Amy out for dinner.

  ‘Go and have a quiet meal somewhere by yourselves. We can cope. You can express some milk and we can feed him if he wakes.’

  ‘We haven’t got any bottles,’ Amy said, but Liz had an answer.

  ‘Ben and Daisy have been up here and they brought a steriliser and some bottles with them so we could look after Thomas. Now what else are you going to come up with as an excuse?’ she teased, and Amy laughed.

  ‘Nothing. Thank you. Dinner out with Matt would be lovely.’

  ‘In which case, if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone call to make,’ Matt said, and he dropped a kiss in Amy’s palm, closed her fingers over it to keep it safe and with a little wink he walked out with a spring in his stride she hadn’t seen for years.