Despite the awfulness of the situation, the impact really only hitting the both of us in the aftermath, neither Vicky nor I have told anyone. Our secret is still safe, and I only hope that in time my usual bubbly, vivacious Vicky will return, and we can move past this. All I can do is hold her when she cries. Rock her like the baby she’s lost and keep telling her how much I love her … and how very very sorry I am.
“Mum and Dad, please repeat after me,” the officiator of the naming ceremony addresses Michelle and David, who dutifully follow him in making their parental promises to their daughter.
“We promise to keep you and clothe you,
shelter and protect you.
To love and support you as long as you need,
to the best of our ability.”
We will surround you with love and affection.
Make as sure as we can that no harm comes to you
and throughout our lifetime,
always be there for you whenever you need us.”
They smile lovingly at each other after they finish speaking, as the baby reaches up to touch her mother’s face.
“David and Michelle have chosen three family members to be Supporting Adults to Jessica,” the officiator continues. “Supporting Adults are chosen by the parents to take a special interest in their child’s upbringing and personal development.”
Michelle walks in front of the officiator and passes Jess across to Vicky, who’s standing in between Mellie and I, as we face the 40 or so seated guests in the function room which is laid out for the ceremony. Both of their faces light up instantly when Jessica recognises Vicky’s warm smile, their bond obvious for everyone to see.
“Melanie, Christopher and Victoria, please repeat after me,” the officiator instructs us,
“We promise to support you in all that you do.
To inspire your imagination and help you fulfil your dreams.”
Vicky rocks and singsongs the Supporting Adult promise to a smiling and gurgling Jessica as the three of us continue.
“We promise to be an ear to listen,
a voice to advise
and a pair of arms that will always have a hug waiting when it’s needed
and sometimes when it’s not.”
The promises over, the officiator turns and addresses the full crowd. “As we draw this ceremony to a close I say to you, Jessica, may life’s richest joys and blessings be yours. May you grow in health and may it be your good fortune to live a positive and fulfilling life that brings joy to you and to the lives of those whose paths cross with yours.”
“On behalf of David and Michelle, I’d like to thank all of you for your attendance today and for your support to this family in the past, the present and now the future. And finally, Michelle has a poem she’d like to read out to everyone,” he finishes, as Michelle steps forward for the reading.
“A Mother’s Wish,” she begins,
“I hope my child looks back on today,
And sees a mother who had time to play.
There will be years for cleaning and cooking,
But children grow up when you’re not looking.
Tomorrow I’ll do all the chores you can mention,
But today, my baby needs time and attention.
So settle down cobwebs; dust go to sleep,
I’m cuddling my baby, and babies don’t keep.”
There isn’t a dry eye in the house when Michelle has finished the reading. I subtly reach my arm around Vicky’s waist and rub her back in support as I pray she was too wrapped up with bouncing and rocking Jessica to hear the poem, or to transpose any of its meaning. Once Michelle has finished, the officiator begins a round of applause signifying the end of the formal part of the ceremony.
Michelle and David disappear into the crowd, shaking hands, air kissing friends and relatives and thanking everyone for coming. Meanwhile in the corner of the room, Vicky continues to mother the baby. Rocking her, singing to her. Both of them lost in their own private little world. I stand quietly next to her, watching them interact and my heart bleeds.
I’ve stolen this future from Vicky. When I should have stepped up, been a man and been strong enough for both of us, I let my fear overtake me and I crumbled and ran away. Vicky didn’t have that choice. She had to stay strong. She had to find a way to deal with her emotions and her fear and to go through with the termination, abandoned and alone. Had I been stronger, this right here is what she should be looking forward to with her own child, but instead she’s become a surrogate to my sister’s baby.
“Would you like anything to drink?” I ask tentatively.
“Yes please, Chris, that would be lovely,” she replies, smiling warmly. Her energy seemingly buoyed whenever she’s holding Jess, “I’ll have a white wine spritzer please.”
“Coming right up,” I reply before heading off to the bar to order the drinks.
I return a few moments later but she’s no longer where I left her. Drinks in hand, my eyes scan the room looking for her, assuming she’s disappeared into the crowd with the baby. However, I can see that Michelle is once again holding Jessica, balancing her on her hip while she unconsciously sways as all new mothers do, from foot to foot, a glass of wine in her other hand, chatting to some of our cousins who have travelled down from Gloucester for the event. My eyes dart around the room from face to face, group to group but I can’t see Vicky anywhere. Where is she? Knowing how prone she’s been to erratic behaviour lately, I’m instantly worried. On more than one occasion when she’s gone missing, I’ve found her wandering through Abney Cemetery opposite our flat, touching the headstones, talking to the statues of angels, looking up to the heavens. I’ve not made any comment when I’ve found her in this state. I’ve simply hugged her gently, then led her back home.
From the other side of the room, I spot Mellie rushing towards me, concern plastered all over her face.
“Chris, come quickly,” she says in urgent but hushed tones.
“What is it?”
“It’s Vicky. Come. Follow me.”
I put the drinks down on the nearest surface and follow my sister out of the function room, through the ornate lobby and past the marble staircase. I can see she’s leading me towards the Ladies’ Powder Room, but before I have any chance to hesitate, thinking I shouldn’t enter this female sanctuary, Mellie grabs my hand and pulls me inside.
Sat on the plush carpet underneath the hand-dryer in a corner of the room, Vicky is hugging her knees and rocking incessantly. Her make-up streaked with tears, her shoulders heaving in big wretched uncontrollable sobs. The horrific sound that escapes her body the unmistakable sound of a grief-stricken mother who has lost a child.
“I found her like this, Chris,” Mellie says kneeling down next to Vicky, “but she can’t tell me what the matter is. I’ve never seen her so upset before.”
“Hey, Vicky,” she says softly placing her arm round Vicky’s shoulders. “What’s the matter, Chook? Why are you so upset? What’s happened? It’ll all be OK. Chris is here now.”
“It’s OK,” I say to my sister, “I’ve got her now,” kneeling down on Vicky’s other side.
“Shh, shh. There, there,” I say, gently pulling Vicky onto my lap so that I can hug her like a baby.
“It’s fine now, sis,” I say to Mellie. “Just make sure Michelle doesn’t come in here for the next ten minutes. I wouldn’t want her seeing Vicky like this – not until she’s had a chance to refix her make-up,” I offer as a way of buying us some time.
“OK, Chris. I’ll keep her tied up in conversation.”
Mellie stands back up and heads back out of the room, leaving Vicky and I on the floor together. Turning Vicky’s face towards me, I tenderly tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, like I’ve done a million times before.
“Come on, sweetheart. Time to dry your tears. Everything is going to be OK,” I say softly. “I know this is impossibly hard. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it is for you. Tell me what I can do
to make it better?”
Slowly, very slowly her sobs begin to subside. She raises her gaze to meet mine. I smile warmly at her, trying to give her as much love and support as I can through my eyes. After a long pause, her sobs still catching in her throat every time she tries to speak, she says finally,
“Take me home, Chris.”
“Of course. I’ll just tell Michelle and David that you’re not feeling well, and we need to leave now.”
“No Chris, I mean take me home-home. Back to New Zealand. I can’t do this anymore. It’s just too painful. I can’t be here. Every part of my life here is just a constant reminder and I can’t be around Jess. I love her, I think you know that.”
I nod my head in agreement.
“My heart fills with joy every time I hold her, I feel like I will explode with love, she’s all I can think about. When I’m not with her, I’m only thinking about the next time I will be with her. But my heart breaks in two all over again whenever I have to hand her back, and there are only so many nights of the week I can offer to babysit or drop in unexpectedly. I just can’t keep doing this. Keep torturing myself. I need to put as much distance as I can between her and us. I do know she’s not my child… but it feels like she belongs to me.”
“I understand,” I say quietly.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get past this, Chris,” she looks at me with sad eyes, “but if you and I have got any chance of rebuilding our lives, rebuilding our relationship, I think we need a fresh start.”
“I agree. A chance to start over,” I say. “God, I love you, Vicky,” I add hugging her as tight as I possibly can. “I can’t keep saying sorry but you do know how very sorry I am.”
“I know, Chris. You did mess up - big style. But what’s done is done and I can’t change the past,” she pauses as I hear her take a deep breath in. “I still haven’t forgiven you, not completely anyway… but there is a part of me, that I can’t deny still loves you.”
“Oh, Vicky,” I reply, my shoulders softening on hearing her words as I bury my head deep in the soft folds of her soft cashmere jumper. I now have a second chance to turn things around, to be the man she needs me to be. To step up like I should have done when she needed me to. Now I have that chance, now I have hope.
Chapter 22
Victoria
Three months later
Bing.
The sound of the ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign illuminating is followed by the Chief Purser making the familiar inflight announcement,
“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has now switched on the seatbelt sign as we will shortly be landing in Christchurch…”
I tune out her voice, leaning my head against the small oval window, feeling the hardness of the cool plastic press uncomfortably against my forehead. The plane banks a hard right, as the shoreline comes into view. The bright sun blazes through the window and I close my eyes against the blinding light, feeling the warmth of the sun’s rays hit the back of my eyelids. I pray to God that the comforting heat that permeates my whole body, is a sign that this fresh start will be just that - a fresh start. I know I’m still dealing with my own burdens. I’m in no way past them. I don’t know if I ever will be.
Chris reaches across for my hand, lifting it to his lips. He smiles warmly, and I smile back. I know I can’t be mad at him forever. He’s human and he made a mistake. I do believe he’s deeply sorry for the pain he’s caused. Cruelly turning away from me in the weeks after finding out we were pregnant, then brutally abandoning me that fateful evening. I just wish he’d stepped up and given me the support I so desperately needed before the damage was done. Why did he have to cause so much heartache before taking responsibility for his actions? Why was he so immature? I know it’s his major flaw. Act without thinking, deal with consequences later. Focus on the fun and avoid anything too serious.
If I’m honest though, that was one of the qualities that I initially found so attractive in him. Never one to play by the rules, to do what society or authority dictate is ‘the right thing’. To go after what he wants no matter who or what gets in the way - not thinking, just doing. That’s how he seduced me, even though I was committed to someone else at the time. I remember I’d felt flattered, desired… wanted. Except the flip side of that same coin, is the instability and lack of maturity needed to be able to deal with the hard stuff life throws at you. Perhaps I’m hoping that he has grown up as a result of this episode, or that by being back on his home turf he can step up. Live up emotionally to the physical masculinity he portrays.
I hear my own warning to myself repeating in my mind, the words I remember saying to Chris when we were at the cinema watching Four Weddings and a Funeral, over eighteen months ago, “You’re not going to turn into another person who ends up breaking my heart, are you?” Never when I said those words could I have imagined the rollercoaster I was stepping onto.
If it was possible to love someone with such an all-consuming passion, yet at times feel let down by them with an equal amount of intensity, that would pretty much describe how I feel about the man sat next to me. I know he loves me, as I do him. He is my only source of love, support, encouragement, belief and now too, financial security and yet at the same time, I know, even if he never meant to hurt me, he is the source of my greatest pain. It’s a hell of a cacophony to handle. I suppose the question now is, can he mend my heart after he was the one to break it?
I still don’t really trust my own emotional judgement. I know I’m still too fragile and therefore unsure of how I really feel. About him. About us. My emotions having been tested to the maximum since Chris and I met. It’s so confusing.
Chris is the one man who originally opened me up. Made me fully trust a member of the opposite sex for the first time in my life, made me trust him, made me trust myself, made me truly feel things, made me fall in love… with him. Those first few months when we first got together were, without doubt, the happiest I’ve ever been. That first summer was so fantastic, I’ve never felt so loved and cherished or had as much fun as I had in those first four months until he left that first time to go back to New Zealand and sell his first shipment of cars. So trying to rationalise him as also being the cause of my greatest pain is so jarring.
I know exactly when it all started to go awry - after that one incident when he’d returned home the very first time. Although we’d thought we’d easily got past those early issues still bouncing along in the hedonistic passion of a new love, nevertheless, the sacred trust in the relationship was broken. Once we’d reconciled there’s no doubt that’s when I became needier, more reliant on him for my emotional needs and he became more reliant on me for his physical needs. Is that what led to such a violent outburst of jealously in Hong Kong and his need to separate me from all of my male friends? Perhaps. But before we had had a chance to redress that balance, we were ripped apart once again, leaving a gaping hole in my heart as we desperately yearned for each other, our relationship once again suspended. Living phone call to phone call, letter to letter, while we attempted to maintain our connection long distance. This was followed by our passionate reunion when I flew to New Zealand and spent three magical weeks there, experiencing all of the wonder of the South Island and rekindling our romance.
There’s no doubt New Zealand is a magical place and it was a magical holiday. At the time it had felt like those first few months of our relationship again, spending that first summer hanging out with friends and family, using every weekend to travel around the UK and Europe, falling deeply and passionately in love. But did our time in New Zealand feel like that because it wasn’t real life? Almost like a holiday romance, but with someone you already know and love? Then once again, this period of nirvana was followed by yet another long period of uncertainty and separation.
Then we were finally reunited, hoping to start the next chapter of our lives together cohabiting. Living, working and setting up home together just the two of us, finally learning how to live together as a normal couple, we’d
hardly had a chance to catch our breath and adjust to our new lives living in London when suddenly we were coping with the toughest decision and situation of our young lives. Looking back, although I can’t say for sure, I must have fallen pregnant almost the instant Chris returned, perhaps even that very first night. But then after being apart for so long, we did go at it like rabbits for those first few weeks so it’s not surprising that if there was even the slightest drop in my contraceptive protection, my womb must have been swimming with his soldiers, it was inevitable that one of them would hit the jackpot.
The one glimmer of positivity that has emerged from this hideous chapter, is realising the depths of my own emotional resolve. When he was weak, I was strong. When he ran away, I stayed the course. But then, I had no other choice. Perhaps I am stronger than I give myself credit for? Even if I don’t feel it at the moment.
Crouched on the carpet in the Ladies’ at Jessica’s naming ceremony, I had an out of body experience. As if for its own self-preservation, my own soul had had to leave my body, unable to handle the very real physical pain that had gripped my body like a vice. In that moment it really felt like I would die from a broken heart. My ethereal self had been calmly standing on the opposite side of the room and I’d watched my own body rocking uncontrollably, unable to communicate to Melanie, wailing like a wounded animal, hardly able to catch my own breath - then Chris had walked in and I had seen the colours change in the auras surrounding us both. I’d watched as the light greens, blues and pinks from Chris’s aura transferred to me, brightening up the dark dirty browns and greys of my own energy. His colours lifting mine. And I had felt a warm glow enter my spirit. The last remnants of love still there, buried beneath all of my grief. His compassion in that moment, his protection, him putting my own needs before his own, I had decided then and there, that I had to give him one more shot. One more chance to see if we can make this work. If we can rebuild upwards from here. If we can finally find a way to love each other without causing each other so much pain.
Belonging: Two hearts, two continents, one all-consuming passion. (Victoria in Love Book 1) Page 34
