We sat together, the three of us taking in our sadness and releasing our loss.
She could claw, punch and scream at me for as long as she needed to. It was all I could do, all I could provide—a channel for her grief so immense that it had already changed her irrevocably.
‘She’s gone, Clara. Please, you have to let her go.’
‘They have to do something. Tell them. Please,’ she repeated this mournfully until long after had only been just the two of us sitting on the hospital bed. She hugged her shoulders and rested her chin on her chest as she slowly rocked her body. I kissed her head and was met with a pained stare. I stroked her cheek with my thumb just like I had done to Lily hoping that part of her strength and love would be passed on to her forever.
I held Clara close and whispered into her hair that Lily was so beautifully perfect and would always be ours. I thanked her for bringing her into my life even though it was far too short.
I wanted to believe we would recover from this, but we were lying on fractured foundations long before Lily died. Something changed in me as I held her, stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. I’d promised Lily’s tiny fingernails and long eyelashes that I would care for her broken mother silently sobbing in my arms.
I promised to try.
So did Clara.
But we could never try hard enough.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Abi
Now.
I held him as he cried, and he held me back with a force so strong I could feel the pain through every bone in his fingers. He talked about his loss, the intense feelings of grief for his daughter and how insignificant life felt for him after her death.
‘I promised her, Abi. I held her and I promised I would try to make it work. I tried for her sake. I tried to fix things. We both tried.’ His body jerked with the force of his tears and he hid himself away from my eyes. I held him until he was calm, but I still felt the force of his loss as he moved away.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeated, knowing I couldn’t say anything that would take away his pain.
He stopped crying when he talked about Clara. I couldn’t imagine what they had been through. I listened with such despair as he talked about how the death of their daughter had impacted on Clara so greatly. It made my hurt and pain seem insignificant. I felt embarrassment and shame for the anger I’d felt towards Clara, believing that she had taken away the love of my life. That anger had now turned into nothing but sadness and compassion for the woman struggling to recover from a loss so great it consumed her.
He shared another photo of himself holding Lily. She was wrapped in a cream crocheted shawl. He said his mother had made it in the final months of her life, taking every bit of her strength because she was determined to offer a keepsake for the granddaughter she would never meet. I felt a sharp stab of sadness at the irony that she would not get to hold her granddaughter had she lived.
She died three months before Lily was born.
‘Lily was so tiny, her little hand curled in yours.’ I wiped the tear that was falling down my chin and onto my chest to focus everything I had on that beautiful photograph.
‘They couldn’t fully explain what had happened, but what would it matter if they could? It wouldn’t bring her back or make any difference,’ he sighed.
I nodded for no reason other than because I didn’t know what else to do with myself. My heart was breaking for the man who was my one true love, the man who had once held all of me, and if I was truly honest with myself, still did. He had been through the worst pain, a pain you would never fully recover from, but that in itself had placed us miles apart from the Abi and Jamie of before.
We stayed holding each other for a length of time I couldn’t even measure. He didn’t want to let me go and I didn’t want to lose the contact. My mind was rushing with questions. As he sat up against the bed, I decided that in order to move forward, I needed to know the full story.
‘Did you get married before or after Lily died?’ I asked, trying to piece it all together.
He let out a harsh sigh, like he knew he had more to say but didn’t have the words left.
‘We got married as soon as we could after we found out Clara was pregnant,’ he said, putting the photographs back inside his wallet.
‘That was quick. I’ll pretend it’s not you we’re talking about so I can gush over how romantic it is,’ I said, trying to stop the sobs.
‘Not romantic. Not in the slightest,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I had to marry her; there was no choice.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Clara’s Irish. Her family are strict Catholics; they take their religion very seriously. They’re also wealthy racehorse breeders, very well known across Ireland, so their reputation means everything to them.’
‘They wouldn’t have approved?’
‘No, Clara was adamant that the pregnancy would devastate them. Her faith isn’t as strong as her parents’ faith, but she certainly doesn’t believe in abortion and didn’t consider it as an option. To be honest, neither did I,’ he said, finally lifting my face towards him by putting his finger under my chin. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’
I sighed and closed my eyes for a second. There was too much to take in that I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. My stomach growled in what was quite possibly the worst timing in the history of emotional breakdowns, but he smiled briefly, which was good because he hadn’t smiled in such a long time.
‘My stomach’s telling me I’m hungry,’ I replied as I looked at the clock. It was now 10:30 a.m. and Jamie was due to start his seminar in half an hour.
‘Ignore the time. This is more important,’ he said quietly, releasing his hand from my face.
‘I want to know why you felt you had to marry her. It was a pretty monumental decision.’
‘So was having a baby,’ he replied hastily, looking to the floor with either shame or regret; I wasn’t sure which. ‘I rushed into it and made all the wrong decisions. She was a good friend and I felt a sense of duty to her after getting her pregnant. I know this is hard for you to hear, but once I got used to the idea, I was looking forward to being a dad. It was a good thing in my life through all the bad. I thought there was no going back with you, and Mum was getting worse. I had something else to focus on.’
I dropped my head and pulled in my stomach as I jangled those words around in my conscience.
Crushed didn’t cover it.
He immediately grabbed my hand like he knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘You know what I thought about most? I thought about my dad and having to grow up quickly without him around. He was so important to me that the thought of not being there for my child cut me up.’
‘You would have been there. You wouldn’t have walked away. You didn’t have to marry her,’ I said, wiping a fresh round of tears from the corner of my eye.
‘I know it’s hard to understand.’ He smiled as he rubbed my tear away with his thumb and continued. ‘She came to me breaking down; she didn’t want to hurt her family. She was terrified of losing them if she went ahead with the pregnancy as a single mum. It all just seemed to make sense at the time.’ He sighed quietly but it was so loud in my head I wanted to scream.
‘Last night, you said she was ill.’
‘She hasn’t been coping well. Not since…since she had a breakdown. Things have been hard. For both of us.’
‘I can’t imagine going through something so horrendous.’ I held his hand again and looked down at our joined fingers.
‘She’s taking medication, which was helping, but now she just seems so low.’
‘Do you love her?’ I whispered, afraid of the answer.
‘I love her as a friend and I care for her, but I’m not in love with her. I’m in love with you.’
I smiled through a sob and hid my trembling lip with my hand.
‘I thought about you so much. In order to try to justify it, I just told myself you would understand, you’d do the
same thing, because under that Rottweiler bark, you’re a good person. You have a heart of gold. Rainbows pop out of your nostrils when you sneeze.’
We laughed at the inappropriateness of it all, but that was us. We understood the path to emotions was taken through the winding bumps of humour first.
I held my hand to my collarbone, stroking the tattoo for comfort. Elle told me I did that a lot. I’d never really thought about it until now. ‘We got a flat together in London. She moved in and I was backwards and forwards until Mum passed away.’
‘Is that why you stopped replying to my letters?’ I asked, wanting to push further until I knew everything.
‘I stopped when you told me you’d met someone else.’ My stomach dropped and shifted. ‘I got the letter, the one where you told me you’d lied about seeing someone else. I couldn’t write back because by then, I couldn’t say what I wanted to say.’
‘What did you want to say?’ I gasped.
‘That I loved you and wanted to come back, try again, work it all out. But I couldn’t say that. Clara was pregnant and I’d agreed to marry her. How could I tell you that in a letter? I was in too deep. I just repeated over and over to myself that it was the right thing to do.’
‘I went to your mum’s house, but you’d already left.’
He took a deep breath. ‘I’m glad we weren’t there.’
We.
We sat in silence holding hands and staring at the floor.
‘You need to go. Your seminar starts in twenty minutes,’ I said, pointing to the clock.
‘I need you to know that I’ve never stopped loving you. I was always thinking about you.’
I stood up and walked towards the door but he rushed in front of me, shielding it so I couldn’t leave.
‘We’re barely existing. It’s safe to say we’re the worst married couple ever. Most of the time, I feel like her older brother, looking out for her, checking she’s taken her medication, reassuring her that things will get better when I haven’t got a fucking clue if they will. I’m only her husband on paper. You have everything else. Always will.’
‘Is that supposed to reassure me?’
‘I don’t know what it’s supposed to do. I just needed you to know.’
‘Well, now I know,’ I whispered. I was losing faith in the heartfelt pleas and words of love that he wasn’t able to follow through on.
‘I can’t stay away from you. Something big has brought us back together. I can’t ignore that.’
‘Don’t. This isn’t fair on me and it isn’t fair on your wife.’
‘I want you. I need you.’
He rubbed his hand across his neck in that fantastic way of his. I wanted to tell him that watching him smile and nervously playing with various parts of his face had been life changing for me, but I knew it wasn’t the time or the place. I’d keep that for another earthquake of a moment we seemed to be so good at encouraging.
I wanted more time and more moments like the night before when we were able to pretend for a while. I knew that was insane because I didn’t want to pretend. It wasn’t enough. I wanted it all.
I spoke with urgency because if I didn’t say what I wanted to say now, I didn’t know when I would get the chance again. ‘If you need me so much, you have to make the decision to leave her. Go away somewhere, tell her you’re leaving, go to a hotel room, whatever you need to do, but don’t leave her for me. Make the decision to leave yourself. I don’t want to be the other woman. I’m too good for that.’ He smiled and suddenly he seemed lighter. Relief moved across his shoulders and straightened his spine. He stood and moved towards me, but I held my arm out to keep the distance, knocking my shoulder blade on the door. ‘Don’t come to me until you’re certain and everything’s been sorted between the two of you. Make decisions, but don’t make them for me; make them for you.’
He nodded a few times but his eyes soon moved to the direction of his phone on the dressing table when it started to ring. I could see her name flash up.
‘Hello…Shit. When…How did you get her phone? Is she OK? I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
I pressed myself into the door and rubbed my shoulder as he spoke because I knew everything I’d just said to him was going to be wiped away in the next sentence.
‘It’s Clara. She’s been taken to hospital. I need to go.’
Chapter Forty-Eight
Jamie
Now.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Shane, Clara’s brother, was standing outside the ward frantically tapping the screen of his phone as I rushed down the corridor of the hospital.
‘I was away on a work commitment,’ I said too firmly, finding that his tone was pulling at my last nerve.
‘How could you leave her in that state? Honestly, Jamie. What’s going on with you two?’
‘What are you talking about? Do you think I would have left her if I’d thought she was going to do…this?’ I said, motioning my hand towards the ward.
‘She was on the fucking bathroom floor, Jamie. Bottles of pills beside her. It doesn’t take a genius to know what the fuck she was trying to do.’ His constant motion was making it hard to follow him, but his words were clear and angry.
Shane shared Clara’s colouring—pale and freckled with red hair; his was bright and wild, but hers was a more subtle shade that suited her beautifully. His clenched jaw and rigid arm muscles reminded me of the stereotype that redheads have a fiery temper. I quickly realised that we were heading in the direction of discovering if that was true.
‘Don’t you think I would know if my wife was trying to fucking kill herself?’ I spat, getting too close to his face, so close I could smell coffee on his breath.
‘I don’t know, Jamie. All you ever think about is yourself.’ He pushed me back with his hands. I was flexing my hand into a fist ready to knock the judgmental sneer off his face when a nurse opened the door.
‘She’s asking for you,’ she said to him before smiling towards me. ‘Are you Mr Dawson?’
‘Yes, I’m her husband.’
Shane blew air out of his nose in a sarcastic laugh and pushed past me, walking past the nurse who was still holding the door.
‘Follow me and I’ll take you down to her.’
The corridor could have been three miles long. The ward was full of people, some smiling, and some with vacant looks on their faces as their family members tried to hide their despair.
‘Here she is. She’s very quiet but she’s been co-operative, which is a good step. I think she realises she needs some support,’ the nurse said, patting me on the back as she walked away. I wanted to follow the clack of her shoes.
Clara was lying on a bed wearing a hospital gown. Her clothes were in a pile on a chair next to her. She looked pale. She didn’t look up at me when I walked closer to the bed, but I noticed that she squeezed Shane’s hand tightly.
‘Hey, how are you doing?’ I asked quietly.
She stared into the distance.
‘What happened, Clara?’ I asked as I moved the clothes off the chair and sat down.
She didn’t answer.
‘You should have said you were feeling this low; we could have got you some help.’ I went to touch her hand but she moved it away from me, turning to her side and gripping the pillow with her fingers.
‘Clara.’
She closed her eyes, and as she did, a single tear ran down the curve of her nose.
Two days had passed since that tear and she still hadn’t spoken to me. Her brother stayed for most of that time, only leaving to catch a few hours of sleep and to refill his coffee. Their parents were due in the next few days, unable to come immediately, explaining that they had a few things to sort out with the business. Horses came before people in their world. How I hadn’t seen that so clearly before, I’d never know.
Shane had calmed down somewhat and we were able to talk more civilly. He openly talked about his disgust that I had moved her away from London when she had suffered such a
huge loss, essentially believing that I had taken her away from everything that was familiar, her support system and her work.
After banging heads and shouting out our mutual frustrations, I admitted that our marriage was failing. Although it was difficult to admit, I eventually agreed that moving to Nottingham under the guise of having a fresh start was a purely selfish decision. I didn’t tell him why because I kind of liked my face as it was and didn’t fancy explaining away two bruised eyes and a broken nose to the team on Monday morning.
I waited beside the empty bed as Clara went to meet with one of the therapists. When she returned, she seemed brighter. She’d always been a talker, so I knew that any type of talking therapy would help her. She actually smiled as she sat back down on the bed.
‘How did it go?’ I asked cautiously, not wanting to break the smile I hadn’t seen for months.
‘Good, thanks.’
‘That’s really good to hear.’
‘She thinks it would be beneficial if you come to some sessions. Would you be willing to do that?’
‘Yes, of course; if you think they would help.’
‘I think we need to talk about what happened and then…perhaps…talk about us.’ She fiddled with her fingernails in order to avoid eye contact.
‘Why do we need to talk about us?’ I asked, nervously shifting around in the chair.
‘There’s a lot we need to talk about. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking—’
‘Clara, tell me what happened. Did you want to end your life?’ I asked, cutting her off, my hands tracing the creases of the sheet on the hospital bed giving me something else to focus on.
‘Jamie, we’ve made a complete mess, haven’t we?’ She took my hand and placed it on her lap. ‘No, I didn’t want to end my life. I was really struggling with some…thoughts. Thoughts I’ve had for a while. Since the start…I was waiting for you to come home, but the more time that passed, the more my head just starting thinking crazy things. I just couldn’t shake it off.’
Let Me Be Your Hope (Music and Letters Series Book 2) Page 23
