by Nancy Adams
However, as she stood watching the rain, Claire felt a pang that deflated her slightly.
It was a pang that had hit her intermittently ever since she had begun speaking to Sam. Basically, it was the fact of the child. The child that he was still blissfully unaware of. She had never contemplated before that she would ever be with him again, but here they were. Now she felt that this one secret that she held from him could ignite and explode everything. She felt certain that she had to tell him. But how or when, she did not know. She desperately needed someone to talk to, but she’d been unable to speak to either Beth or Annabel. Whenever she’d bridged the subject of Sam with Beth, her friend had merely told her that she was acting crazy. They had never even gotten as far as mentioning the boy. As for her mentioning anything to Annabel, she had been reluctant to mention too much about herself to her new friend; she would have to go through the displeasure of explaining the pregnancy.
On this issue, she was alone and would have to tell him eventually when the time was right. When that would be though, she had no clue.
What would be his reaction? she wondered. Will he scream and shout at me? Tell me to never contact him again? No. No, he’ll never turn me away. Maybe for a day or two, but he’ll always come back to me. He probably won’t even be angry. He’ll understand that I had no choice. He’ll hold me and tell me it’s all okay. But then what? Will he go in search of the boy? Is that what I’d want? A man with Sam’s power could find him. Then what? I have to start being a mother!?
These thoughts worried her. She worried that everything could be brought back to her—all the covering up, all the lies. How could I explain a child to my mother? she went on. It’s going to be hard enough to explain Sam. We’ve already agreed not to mention that we had an affair before. How, then, would I explain it if Sam goes and unearths a child?
“Food’s ready,” Sam called out from behind her, making her jump slightly.
“Okay. I’ll be in in a second.”
She let out a trembling sigh and strolled away from the window and went into the kitchen. Most of the furniture was stored away, including the dining table, so they were both eating at the breakfast bar.
“Mmm, smells nice,” Claire said as she walked in.
Sam was busy adding steaks to two plates that already had green beans in garlic butter and potato and mozzarella gratin on them. Claire watched as he spooned caramelized red onion onto the tops of the steaks. He then threw the frying pan in the dishwasher and, with a chef’s care, he wiped the edges of the plates with a towel.
Looking down at the meals with a grin, happy with the results, he looked up at her and said, “Viola!”
She smiled and seated herself on a stool at the bar. The length of it stretched out along the glass wall at the rear of the kitchen, so that when they sat they faced out at the rain-swept valley. Sam handed her a serviette, knife and fork and then sat down next to her.
“There’s not a telephone number on this one?” she asked as she took the serviette.
He smiled as he unfurled his own onto his lap.
“Not on that one,” he said with a wink.
Claire began tucking into her steak and when she started chewing it, she closed her eyes and savored its flavor. As she did, Sam couldn’t help but watch. He found her so unbelievably beautiful in that moment as she chewed the steak. So unbelievably beautiful that the feeling made him want to explode. It was at times like this, when she wasn’t paying attention to how she looked, that he loved her the most. When she’d let go of looking good for a few seconds to gurgle a cup of coffee through its lid, get her hair caught in her ice cream or wolf a meal down with rabid hunger. In these moments she was more naturally beautiful to him than anything else in the world and he could watch her forever.
“How’d you like the steak?” he inquired.
“Amazing,” she said with her mouth still full, giving a thumbs up.
“I fried it in the garlic butter.”
“You can tell, it’s so juicy.”
A drop of juice slipped from her mouth as she spoke and she blushed with embarrassment. As she went to take her serviette from her lap, Sam stopped her and used his own to delicately sponge it off. He looked deep into her eyes while he did it and said, “Claire, I’ve loved you since the first moment my eyes saw you standing on that hospital roof all those years ago. I still dream of that moment. Still close my eyes and see you standing there among those doctors. Then, sometimes, I dream about that last time I saw you, that last time I turned back to you as I walked away in the woods, the image of you sitting by the tree trunk branded into my memory. I imagine trying to walk back to you, to reach you and not walk away. But the harder I walk, the further you are from me, sitting at the base of that tree looking so sad. I run, but you’re still the same distance from me and I can’t reach you, and all the time you’re calling out my name.”
“I’m here now,” she said lightly.
He lifted his hand and touched her lips with his thumb, delicately wiping it over them, Claire closing her eyes as he did it and raising her own hand to touch his.
She shivered all over, something moving through her and said, “My God you open something up in me that feels so powerful, so strong, that it scares me.”
“We should learn to embrace it and not run away.”
“But it’s so forceful,” she said with her eyes closed, feeling that force and seeing it in the darkness. “I’m afraid where it will take me.”
“To me,” he replied as he bent forward and kissed her lips.
She took the back of his head in her hands, grabbing his hair, and pulled him into her. The meals, the kitchen and the Cliff Face melted slowly away around them as they drifted off in each other’s arms into the cosmos, their bodies merging as one.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jenna and Jess were out horse riding with Maud. The three of them were trotting along a pathway in the San Fernando Valley. It was a clear, bright day and the cheerful weather was doing its best to soothe Jenna’s broken heart. Since Sam had gone, two weeks before, they had only talked occasionally, and each time, she had sensed that he was further away from her than the last. The calls were short and superficial, only catching up and avoiding all talk of their relationship. Jenna felt like she was fading from his view and the only thing that had offered her respite from her emotions in that time was her burgeoning relationship with Jess.
The two had been getting along very well and the reappearance of Maud from her holiday hadn’t dampened that at all. As a matter of fact, Maud had been very pleased to come home and find their relationship repaired and openly encouraged it. However, this newfound respect between the two had caused Jenna to feel even worse when she was on her own. In those lonely moments, she would openly consider the reality that it wouldn’t be long before her and Jess were parted indefinitely. In every cell of her body, Jenna felt that Sam was slipping through her fingers and that nothing she could say or do would bring him back to her.
“Shall we race to that big oak tree up on the horizon?” Jess asked Jenna, pointing to the aforementioned tree.
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough of races for a while?” Jenna put back to her.
“Not at all. It’s like Dad said, you’re better off facing up to things as quickly as possible or they end up getting the better of you, and then you’ll never be able to face your fears.”
“Okay then,” Jenna gave in with a smile.
“Maud?” Jess said, turning to her au pair.
“I’m fine. Just be careful, Jessy.”
“Are you ready?” Jess inquired as she turned to Jenna.
“Oh yeah!” Jenna replied, tightening her grip on the reigns of the horse.
Jess dug her heels into her horse and the graceful beast flew off. Jenna immediately did the same and set off after her. The two galloped down a slope that led to a small stream running through the center of two hills. As the horse moved with fury underneath her, Jenna gritted her teeth
and kept glancing ahead at Jess, who no matter how hard Jenna pushed the horse, always seemed to be pulling away. The girl was a very accomplished rider and lighter than Jenna, so it didn’t take long before she was way ahead, jumping the stream well before Jenna. When Jenna joined the other hill and began going up toward the oak, her horse slowed even more and Jess went even further ahead.
Eventually, Jenna reached Jess at the oak tree just as the girl was jumping off of her horse.
“Too slow,” Jess remarked when Jenna reached her.
“I feel you have a slight advantage of being much smaller than me, as well as the rather expensive rising lessons you’ve had since you were seven.”
Jess smiled and the two tied their horses up, before sitting at the base of the tree, gazing out across the valley, Maud’s horse trotting slowly down the hill toward them.
“Do you think you and Dad will stay together?” Jess asked after a moment.
Without turning to her, Jenna replied, “I really don’t know.”
“It’s a shame,” the girl said softly. “I was just getting to know you.”
“Yeah. It is a shame.”
Jenna slid her arm around Jess and the two cuddled as Maud reached them. The old woman smiled at them as she got off her horse and tied it up with the others.
“You two seem happy,” Maud said as she sat with them.
“Yes,” Jess replied with a grin.
Without knowing fully why, Jenna began crying.
“Oh! Jenna,” Maud exclaimed softly as she noticed.
“It’s okay,” Jenna wept.
Jess turned away from the view to see and her expression suffused to one of sadness when she saw how unhappy Jenna was. She immediately spread her arms around Jenna’s neck and held onto her dearly.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, “I’ll speak to Daddy. I’ll tell him that he’s being cruel.”
Jenna simply smiled at the sweetness of Jess and continued to sob her heart out into the little girl.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
On the ER ward at St. Pancras, Paul stood observing a nurse as the man sat on a stool stitching up a female patient’s knee, her leg outstretched on a bed, the curtain of the cubical shut around them. The woman had fallen down the stairs of the subway and split the knee open. Paul watched in a daze. It was two days since he’d been back to work and he’d lost count of the amount of times he’d been scolded for not paying attention. His head was elsewhere and he felt somehow hollow inside, as though he were being bleached from view. After a week in the apartment on his own, he’d had to do something, otherwise he was on the verge of disappearing for good. So he’d called the hospital and come back to work.
“You good there, Paul?” the male nurse asked as Paul stood there with a blank expression.
Snapping out of his daze, he replied, “Yeah, sure.”
“Okay then,” the nurse continued, “as you can see, I’ve secured the wound with—”
Suddenly, the sound of someone shouting outside the cubical interrupted them. As Paul and the nurse listened out, they realized that it was the frantic cries of a distressed mother.
“Please help my little girl,” she was screaming out.
The nurse apologized to the woman whose knee he had in front of him and then got up to see what it was. Paul followed him out. There in the entrance of the emergency room, was a woman holding a little girl of about four in her arms. The girl appeared to be choking on something and there was foam coming from her mouth as she struggled to breathe.
“Help me, please,” the mother cried.
The nurse ran to the woman and immediately took the child. A doctor who had been called to the scene joined them and they took the girl to a cubical, where they laid her flat on her back. The whole time, Paul just floated in the background, unsure of what was needed of him. The sounds that the choking girl made filled him with terror. From her pale lips she emitted an awful gurgling hiss, like a death rattle.
“Right I’m going to need to perform an emergency tracheotomy,” the doctor said as he stood over the little girl, checking her airway with his fingers and shining a torch down her throat. “There appears to be something caught in the windpipe.”
He turned to Paul who stood off to the side and said, “Paul, I’m gonna need you to stand here and hold her down while I pierce her throat for an airway.”
But Paul heard only a faint murmur come from the doctor’s lips and he stood frozen, trembling all over as the girl writhed on the bed, gasping for breath, making a horrible sucking sound along with the gurgling, her little chest straining to fill itself with air. Panic constricted his whole body and the doctor looked at him with a frown.
“DOCTOR!” he shouted at Paul. “Come here and hold this girl down.”
Just then the nurse returned from the cabinet with a scalpel and tubing to perform the minor operation with.
“I’m not asking you to perform the operation just hold her,” the doctor continued to bark at Paul as the nurse handed him the knife.
In the end, the doctor got the mother to hold the girl down along with the nurse while he pierced the throat. The girl thankfully gasped with relief as air rushed into her lungs through the hole. In his frozen state, Paul felt relief too. But he also felt that he couldn’t remain there any longer. A terrible fear came over him and made him mortally scared of everything around him. He glanced to his right and, seeing the door, he marched right out of there.
Outside on the cold, wet street, he began to sob while he walked along with his white coat flapping in the wind, his name badge still pinned to its breast, stethoscope around his neck. The cold made him grip himself tight in an attempt to keep warm. Where he was going he couldn’t tell you; heck, he couldn’t tell himself. He just needed to run. To run away. Keep moving. Moving away from everything. Away from all his thoughts. From all his feelings. He sensed there was an abscess in his heart and it was about to burst open. He needed to get away. From the hospital. From the apartment. From New York.
He simply had to run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jules pulled up alongside his trailer and was pleased to see that no dramas were there to meet him today. Gwen was still in the hospital and would be for a few more weeks while she had several operations on her shattered face. As to her two boys, they had been absolutely no bother. In fact, it worried Jules that they were so quiet and he’d had to gently scold David once or twice when the latter had talked for them. Jules realized that the violence that they’d witnessed had had a devastating effect on them both and there were clear signs that they were suffering some kind of post-traumatic stress from it. A few days before, someone from the Social Care department had come around and assessed the boys. Apart from the evidence of mental scars, they were evaluated as physically okay and it was decided that they would stay with the Lees until Gwen was out of the hospital and they could assess the children in their home environment.
When Jules walked into the trailer, he overheard Juliette talking to someone in the lounge. Getting closer, his heart sank slightly when he heard what she was saying.
“Okay, Danny,” she went, “you go back in your room with J.T. and Robbie and play.”
J.T. and Robbie were two of Danny’s best friends from before.
“But, Ma,” David replied, “my name’s not Danny. That was your son before, remember?”
“Don’t be silly, Danny. You’re imagination is so wild, just like your father’s. I’ve never had any son except for you…”
She paused, and Jules watched from the doorway as her expression took on a worried look and she gazed blankly ahead for a moment.
Shaking her head, she said, “I’m sorry, David. I got lost for a moment. Can you forgive me?”
“It’s okay, Ma.”
Jules stepped into the room and they both turned to him.
“Papa!” David burst out as he spotted Jules.
Jules scooped the boy up into his arms and said, “Hey, Davey. You all good?�
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“Sure am, Pa.”
Jules then looked down at Juliette and asked, “You good, my love?”
She smiled nervously at him and nodded, saying that she was. Jules came up to her, bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
“Pa, you wanna see the new game I got for the Joy-Box?” David inquired excitedly.
“Sure do,” Jules replied as he carried the boy out of the lounge to his bedroom. “You gonna give me a chance on this one though?” he added as they reached the room.
Inside the boy’s bedroom, they found Randy and Casper already engrossed in a video game in which they were space soldiers, or something, running around battling with aliens, robots and other creatures.
“Pa wants to have a go,” David said to the other two as Jules placed him on the ground.
“Okay,” the two boys said in unison, before pausing the game, giving up the controllers and sliding out of the way of the television.
David took one controller and Jules the other.
“Okay, so what am I doing?” Jules asked as they began.
“You see that icon at the top of your screen?”
