How I Lost You

by Jenny Blackhurst

  “Well, you want this sorted out, don’t you? You want to know why he’s done this?”

  No, I don’t really. The fact is, there can’t be any good reason; there can’t be anything in this that is for my benefit. What was it he wrote in my album? To make me see? To make me see what I’ve done to my life? To see what I’ve done to my family? Well, congratulations, Dad. I see it more clearly now than ever.

  I’m saved from an explanation by the front door opening. I know it must be Cassie—at least I hope it is—she’s the only one with a key.

  “Only meeee—” She stops short, the smile gliding off her face when she sees Nick. “What are you doing here?” And to me: “Has he been here all day?”

  “Nice to see you too,” he replies, his face equally grim. “I could ask you the same.”

  “No, you couldn’t. You have no right to ask what I’m doing here. I’ve been here countless times, I have a key.” She produces it with a flourish. “I’m supposed to be here. You’re the one who’s out of place.”

  “Cassie, that’s enough,” I warn. Like a dog defending her owner, she retracts her teeth, but only slightly.

  “I thought he’d have gone back home by now, that’s all.” Is it my imagination or does she sound a little sulky?

  “There’s been something new.”

  Cassie looks confused. “Another photo? But I thought . . .” I’m certain she stops short of saying she thought I was responsible for the first one. She thought it was all cleared up. She thought Nick would be back in Doncaster.

  “Not another photo.” I retrieve the box from the table. “Carole from the deli brought this round. It was addressed to Susan Webster but the deliveryman let her sign for it because I wasn’t in.”

  “Oh shit. Is she going to tell anyone? What’s inside it?”

  I nod my head towards the sofa. “You might want to sit down. This might take a while.”

  Taking care not to agree with Nick in any way, Cassie insists I call my dad. I suppose if I’m going to do it I’d rather do it when they’re both here with me, so when she hands me the phone I take it. I almost hang up on the first ring, and the second, and the third, but somehow I manage to keep the receiver clasped tightly in my hands and wait for my dad to answer, which he does on the fifth ring. At the sound of his voice, just a simple hello, I almost lose my nerve a fourth time. It isn’t until he repeats himself that I remember that it’s my turn to speak.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  There’s silence at the other end while my father processes a voice he hasn’t heard for three years. I wonder if he’s hoped for this call, waited for those words that never came. Cassie smiles encouragingly, rubs my free hand.

  “Susan,” he whispers finally, and I can’t tell if he is pleased to hear from me or preparing to slam down the phone.

  “Yes, Dad, it’s me.” I suddenly realize I don’t have a clue what I’m going to say next, and I end up saying stupidly, “I’m out now.”

  “I know, Rachael called me.”

  Rachael called him? My lawyer Rachael? When? Have they kept in touch? Was it she who made him send me the blanket? My mind spins in confusion but I know now isn’t the time to ask this.

  “Can I come and see you, please?”

  I hold my breath, waiting for him to say no, sorry, it isn’t a good time, and I’m surprised when he replies simply, “Of course you can, Suze, I’ve missed you.”

  Tears fill my eyes as I once again picture him stooping in the gallery as the jury delivered their verdict. The lives of the people I love most, ruined, all in that one day.

  “Thank you,” I whisper, unable to say much more. “I’ve missed you too.”

  We’re meeting tomorrow. I declined the offer to go to his house, refusing to give the neighbors something to talk about; instead I’ve arranged to meet him at a pub we both know somewhere outside Bradford. It’s a two-hour drive but one I won’t lament making. Nick looks proud of me, and when Cassie’s not watching he squeezes my arm.

  There’s no point trying to convince Cassie to crash in my spare room; ever since Oakdale she’s refused to sleep anywhere but her own bed, even if we’ve had a drink. Despite the ridiculous charge for the thirty-minute taxi ride, she always makes her way home no matter what the time. Luckily Oakdale never had that particular effect on me and I can fall into bed anywhere—which isn’t as exciting as it sounds. I offer Nick the use of my spare room, I feel safer when he’s around. I really want him to take me up on the offer. It’s been so nice to just sit and chat, all three of us. Even Cassie forgot for a couple of hours that she can’t stand Nick, although she still refuses to use his name and refers to him as “the reporter,” even to his face. Nick politely declines my offer and orders himself a taxi back to the hotel.

  “Good night, sweetheart.” Cassie kisses me on the cheek and gives me a tight hug. “It’s all going to be okay, you know? Please call me as soon as you’ve seen your dad.”

  I nod, wondering why on earth I’m beginning to well up. Cassie leaves my house all the time; I don’t usually start crying. “Thank you,” I whisper, wanting to tell her how truly grateful I am that she’s trying to make sure I don’t spiral back into the depression that gripped me when I first went to Oakdale, but the words don’t materialize. Nick’s taxi arrives at the same time, and I’m suddenly convinced that the hatred is just an act, that they’re going to get into separate taxis just to go back to the same place. I picture Cassie running her hands through his hair and whispering how she may be a murderer but at least she isn’t crazy. Now tell me I’m not paranoid.

  Then the house is empty. It seems extra quiet now—my front room is so small that three people makes it feel like a village meeting—and my mind wanders to the place I’ve avoided all night. More than anything I know I didn’t trash my own house and I didn’t imagine the intruder. And I’m certain it wasn’t my sixty-two-year-old dad breaking into my house that night, so where does that leave my theory? Was it a coincidence? A vengeful neighbor who knows who I am? Or am I being watched? I shudder at the thought and cross the room to sit on the sofa furthest away from the door and windows, as if the short distance will save me from whoever might be outside. I turn the TV up louder so I can’t imagine that every noise is someone coming to get me, to really make me pay for what I’ve done. Three years in Oakdale isn’t enough, you see. I’ve always known it, that I got off too lightly for what I did. Now someone out there wants me to suffer, really suffer. My dad? I don’t know. But what I do know is that this isn’t over. It won’t be over until I find out who’s doing this to me.

  20

  When I wake, for the first few seconds I forget what happened the night before. Every day since Dylan left it’s been heartbreaking to wake up. There’s a few minutes, before I open my eyes, where I’m still in the dream I just had: my son is back in my arms, I’m giving him a bath or feeding him. Sometimes I swear when I wake my breasts still ache, heavy with milk that has long since dried up. When the truth dawns, my heart takes on that familiar heaviness, the constant ache that comes from remembering. Now I remember something else. The voice of my father, an image of Nick lifting Dylan’s blanket from a brown shoe box. The intense dread in my stomach tells me this is just the beginning of what someone wants to put me through.

  I want to close my eyes, roll over, and sleep again, dream of my little boy, but I can’t.

  Someone is outside; the doorbell’s intrusive ringing is what pulled me from my dreams. I have to face the real world again.

  “I wanted to be here when you got up.” It’s Nick, and he looks concerned. “I didn’t want you to . . .” His words trail off but I know what he means. He doesn’t want me to do anything stupid. I move to the side to let him in, my eyes sweeping the front step, the lawn, and the bushes outside. He hands me a paper cup of steaming coffee.

  “What time is it?”

  “Nine thirty,” he replies, the concerned look still on his face. “Are you okay?”

  “Of cour
se I’m okay.” I stiffen. “Why, what’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened, don’t worry.” He sits down on the sofa, the uncomfortable look he gives me reminding me I’m still dressed in my flimsy cotton robe, only a tank top and a pair of big pants underneath.

  “Sorry, I’ll just go and get dressed, give me a minute.”

  He looks embarrassed and I hope he can’t see through my robe. They really are hideously big pants.

  “Yes, of course, take your time. I shouldn’t have come so early . . .”

  Do I really look that bad? Seem so volatile that he felt the need to rush round here at the crack of dawn to check I’m not filling my water glass with pills? Christ, what must he think he’s got himself into?

  I pull on a pair of jeans, a tank top, and a fitted jacket; drag a brush through my hair; and slap on some mascara. The result is that I look slightly more together than I feel. Maybe if I make more of an effort to look sane, people will actually believe it. When I return downstairs, Nick is leafing through yesterday’s newspaper. He smiles when he looks up at me.

  “Hey, you look better. I mean, like you feel better. I mean . . .” He sighs. “Will you be okay seeing your dad today?”

  I nod reluctantly. “I guess I’ll have to. I mean, I want this to be over . . .” But I’m not sure I do. If this is over, Nick goes back to his life, back to Doncaster, and I have to deal with my father punishing me. Would I rather just not know?

  Nick sighs again as he sees my face crumple. “Shit, sorry.”

  “Just hearing his voice . . .”

  “Should I call Cassie?”

  It must be bad for him to suggest that.

  The sound of a mobile ringing saves him. “I’d better get that.” He fumbles in his pocket.

  I realize I have no idea who would be calling him, no clue of his life beyond my problems. Does he have family? Does he play football on Sunday or learn a language at community college? Does he prefer Facebook or Twitter, McDonald’s or Burger King, EastEnders or Coronation Street? How crazy that I’ve leant on him as an emotional crutch and I don’t even know where he grew up.

  “It’s just my colleague. I’d better call him back, check everything’s all right at work. Are you okay?”

  I nod because I can’t trust my voice to lie for me. He leaves the room to take the call and I hear him go into the kitchen. I have to resist the urge to follow him, to listen in on what is probably an innocent conversation and definitely none of my business.

  I’ve tried so hard to remind myself that Mark was right to walk away from my situation, and that I gave my dad no choice but to give in and leave me on my own, yet I don’t think I’ve really ever forgiven either of them for actually doing it. I have to realize that I was the one who turned my back on them, and that if I’d just let them in, shared my pain, things could have been different. I have to learn to let people in, I have to learn to trust again, and for a split second I wonder if Nick could be the one to teach me.

  21

  I drive myself to the pub. As I’m sitting in the car outside, it finally hits me just how big a deal the next few hours are going to be. I’ve avoided thinking about what I’ll say and feel when I see Dad again after all this time, but now that it’s almost upon me, it’s unavoidable. I’d always thought the bond between my dad and me was unbreakable; he was always my hero growing up, and after Mum died that bond only grew stronger. Mark and I had him over for lunch every Sunday; he was the first person we called when Dylan was born, and he was at my bedside within minutes of the call. I was both amused and touched to find that he had been sitting in the hospital parking lot whilst I’d been giving birth.

  Dad fell head over heels for our little boy from the very first heart-wrenching moment that he held him in his arms. The clumsy, sometimes gruff man I knew transformed into a soppy, gooey mess right in front of my eyes, letting the tears roll unashamedly down his cheeks as Dylan grasped his pinkie finger with his tiny little hand, then fell instantly back to sleep in the arms of a man who he somehow knew would protect him against the world. Dylan’s death devastated Dad every bit as much as it did Mark and me. I know why I made the decision not to let him come and visit me in Oakdale: I knew that every time my father walked through those doors I would see that vision, of him holding tightly on to Dylan as though he might be snatched from him there in the hospital. Looking down into his little face and whispering that he would love him forever, not knowing that forever would be cut so short.

  I swallow down the lump forming in my throat and blink furiously to push back the tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks. I’m grasping Dylan’s blanket, partly to convince myself that I’ve not imagined all this. I picture my dad sitting at his kitchen table, folding it into a neat square, then taking it down to the post office and handing it over at the counter, and I don’t feel angry, just sad. I made this relationship what it is; the only question is, can I fix it? Is it too late to just be father and daughter again? I can forgive him for a few days of hell, but will he ever be able to forgive me for four years of it?

  If I put this off any longer I’ll never go in. Turning off the engine, I lock the car and head towards the doorway of the Talluah Arms in search of the answer.

  The Talluah is busy and I don’t spot him straightaway. The long mahogany bar faces the doorway, and when I walk in, the young man standing behind it wiping the counter looks up briefly, then goes back to his task. I scan the tables of people: families enjoying their lunch and a few student types. My eyes eventually rest upon the table at which he sits, nursing a barely touched pint of Guinness.

  Life has taken its toll. My father now looks every minute of his sixty-two years. He’d looked old ever since my mother’s death, except those moments he spent with Dylan, but now he looks a different kind of worn: tired, crushed, and—my mind searches for the word—defeated.

  When I was a child, I used to climb onto my toy chest sometimes, after my parents thought I’d gone to bed, and sneak the curtains open just a tiny bit. My room faced the back garden, and if I heard the familiar crackling of the fire in the fire pit, I’d be there, at the window, watching. My mum and dad would be sitting on the swing seat, his big arms around her narrow shoulders, just gazing at the flames, folded up inside one another. They were so close it was like they were one person. She’d smile and I’d see her mouth form one word; Dad would laugh, a whole-face laugh that said they didn’t even need full sentences to communicate. Once, I dared to push open the back door and sleepily tell my mum I was hungry. Instead of sending me back to bed, she disappeared into the kitchen and returned clutching something in her hands, torn between exasperation and love. It was marshmallows; we stuck them on sticks and toasted them, the way she said she used to do with her own mum. My dad watched her, smiling like he always seemed to when he looked at my mother. He still smiled at her like that on the day she died, never letting anyone but me see his pain.

  Taking a deep breath, I head over to the table.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” Dad says as I stop opposite him. He was watching the door when I walked in and didn’t take his eyes off me as I walked over. His face, his voice after all this time render me speechless for a second or two. I pull out the chair across from him and sit down, still stupidly mute.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello?” he asks when I don’t speak.

  “Hello, Dad,” I reply, careful not to let my voice break. “How are you?”

  It seems such an idiotic thing to say when so many other questions, explanations, and apologies are running through my head at breakneck speed, but it is all my lips seem to manage. We can’t just sit here staring speechless at each other, wondering how it went so wrong.

  “Let’s get out of here,” says Dad.

  We escape the stuffy confines of the pub and go for a walk along the river, something we did an awful lot in the early days following Mum’s death, just to get away. As my pregnant belly got bigger, the walks got shorter, and the irony that I’d lost a b
est friend at the same time as gaining our coveted child became too much to bear. I shiver and automatically pull my jacket tighter around me to guard against the cold wind. Dad looks concerned.

  “Not enough meat on you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my weight,” I assure him. “I’m looking after myself, don’t you worry. Can you say the same?”

  “I’m doing my best, love,” he replies, and I feel guilty once more. I need to get this over with and get out of here. As much as I love seeing him again, this is slowly killing me.

  “Dad,” I start, and I see the look on his face darken.

  “And here it comes,” he says. “The reason we’re here.”

  “We couldn’t talk round it all day.”

  “No, you’re quite right.” His expression is serious. “I’ve spent all night wondering why you called me when you did, Susan.”

  “I got the photo you sent,” I tell him slowly, watching for the expression on his face. I expect guilt, not confusion.

  “What photo?” he asks, looking like he genuinely has no idea what I am talking about. That throws me. My father never did do lying well; I thought all it would take was a mention of the photograph and he’d come clean. What if I’m wrong? I pull out the photo of the young boy and hand it to him. He turns it over, sees the writing on the back, and his face drops. I know in that instant that I’ve made a huge mistake.

  “Where did you get this?” he asks, then, without waiting for an answer, “You think I sent this? Why would you think that?”

  “I, um, someone put it through my door at my new address.” I stumble over my words, caught by the hurt in his voice. “I didn’t think it was you, not until the photo album, then I got the blanket . . .”

  “The blanket?” My father rounds on me. “What blanket? What are you talking about?”

  I stop and my father follows suit. We stand side by side, looking out across the river. Taking a deep breath, I start at the beginning, the day I received the photo, and tell him everything.