by A Zukowski
I tried to keep her still in my arms. It wasn’t hard
given she was a slender thing and about a foot
shorter than me. I almost cried thinking somehow
I’d hurt her. I didn’t know how to make her happy
anymore, how not to upset her whenever I came
home to Essex. She stormed off.
I buried my head in my hands, sitting on the floor
in the gym. My physical strength was an illusion
because I was emotionally broken. I hadn’t faced
the fact that I’d been suffering from depression.
When she returned, she shoved a pregnancy test
in my hand. Two red lines in the small window. I
stared at it, but I was confused.
“What?” I asked.
She rubbed her eyes, her make-up already
smudged. “Positive. I’m fucking pregnant, Alex.”
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I’d been on a bender. I ogled her, trying to
understand what she was telling me. I assumed that
she was pregnant with our child. Why wouldn’t she
be? Shouldn’t she be happy? Shouldn’t we look
forward to being parents? My thoughts were going
wild in ten different directions.
“That’s great, isn’t it?” I asked when I saw the
frown on her face.
She hit my head with her fists. “It’s probably not
yours. D’you know what I’m saying to you, you
stupid twat?”
Her tear-streaked face came into focus. “What do
you mean? I’m glad we’re having a baby. Don’t you
want it? Why?” We hadn’t used contraceptives for a
year or so even though we didn’t discuss it. I
thought she had wanted a kid, and it was fine by me.
She pushed me again. “Wake up, Alexander. I
wasn’t going to tell you. I was going to have an
abortion as soon as you went back to London.”
I became angry then. Why is she getting rid of
our baby? Why was she going to lie to me? The
alcohol was clouding my head, so I couldn’t think
straight.
“It might be Charlie Tait’s.” She added this last
bombshell in a whisper.
Charlie was one of her dad’s henchmen, for want
of a better word. He was younger than us, and he
always seemed like an arrogant prick to me. Sam’s
face was close to mine, and now I saw the challenge
in her eyes. She was taunting me.
My vision went nuclear.
“What the fuck? You’re fucking Charlie Tait!
Bitch.” I spat the last word out. I would regret
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everything I said and did that day.
“Yeah, when you’ve got a woman up in London,”
she shouted back. “Why shouldn’t I fuck whoever
the fuck I want?”
“Stop saying that. I don’t have a woman in
London.”
It didn’t matter. Sam was venomous.
“Do the fucking maths, Alex. It’s been six weeks
or so since we had sex. What if I don’t know whose
baby this is?” She put her hands on her belly.
“How many months are you, then?”
She shrugged. “The doctor said eight weeks. You
weren’t here eight weeks ago, Alex.”
I was furious. It could have been mine if the
doctor was wrong, but I knew in my heart Sam was
pregnant with Tait’s baby. I was desperate to go and
find Charlie and kill him. The image of Sam having
sex with him enraged me.
“Fucking bastard. How many times? How long
have you been having an affair?” I shook her. She
felt so vulnerable in my strong grip.
“No, I wouldn’t call it an affair.” Her eyes
reddened, but she refused to look at me.
“How many times?” I demanded again. Does it
matter, Alex?
“I don’t know.” Her voice was small and pathetic,
and full of regret.
I slapped her but took care not to hurt her. Even
in that state of mind, I wouldn’t harm her. I couldn’t
beat her up. She bawled and said she was sorry.
Sam held on to me and wouldn’t let go. We
bickered some more and fought. Deep down, I knew
it wasn’t Charlie’s fault. Even if it was not him, it
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would have been someone else. I drank some more
alcohol—whiskey or brandy, I can’t recall—and I did
a few more lines. Anything to numb myself until I
had to face all the problems in our relationship. I
asked Sam to stop drinking. If I’d known she was
pregnant, I wouldn’t have let her drink and take
drugs, but she was already high. All afternoon, I
tried to persuade her to keep the baby. Even with a
chance that the baby wasn’t mine, I didn’t want her
to get rid of it. I would support her. She cried some
more and said she was sorry.
I felt like my whole world was crumbling into
dust, and I didn’t know what to do other than to
stop myself feeling through more alcohol.
At some point, we had sex, the kind of after-
argument sex when we were raw and emotional.
Sam agreed that she wouldn’t have a termination.
Instead of relief, I felt completely, utterly exhausted
from everything: from the fights, from being there
with her. I wanted to escape back to London and my
training even though she needed me to comfort her.
I planned to go back to the city the next day to give
us some breathing space. We could talk about
things later.
It was early evening when Sam told me she’d been
having backaches and cramps. She had started
bleeding, and soon it turned heavier with blood
clots.
My Sam was wild. I loved her for that. She
panicked and was hysterical. I felt helpless, so I
carried her out to my car without thinking whether I
was fit to drive. That’s what being a destructive
drunk does to you. I was coming down and was
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more sober than earlier, but I was still too
intoxicated to drive. All I thought was that I needed
to take her to the hospital.
She didn’t put the seat belt on.
No one knew about the baby other than her
family. The details all came out during the court
case, hidden from the public because of the media
reporting restrictions. Sam’s dad would have killed
me if not for the fact that they had all known about
her affair with Charlie and they never told me. The
pregnancy and the miscarriage had completely
tipped me over the edge. My father-in-law had some
sympathy for me. The judge took pity and gave me a
lighter sentence.
The road was windy and narrow, and it was dark.
The night was opaque, as though the moon had
decided not to appear at all. The bright headlights
approached out of nowhere, dazzling me, sending
me into a tailspin. I was speeding along on an icy
surface in deep winter.
Tipped over the edge. I remember feeling free for
a moment, a split second when I was flying. The
moment was cathartic but far too fleeting.
I woke up in the hospit
al with this scar and
screaming. Sam had died instantly. She was having
a miscarriage. The other man drove a small family
car, and, against my fast sports car, there was no
way he was going to survive.
~~~
An innocent man and the family he’d left behind.
Sam shouldn’t have died either. Alex should be the
one being punished. That’s why he accepts the
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hopelessness, the guilt, the depression and
insomnia as his punishments.
“I wish every day, every waking hour that I could
take back that momentary lapse in judgement,” Alex
concludes.
Chris has been holding Alex’s hand, and now
teardrops fall on her arm. She looks up.
“You didn’t kill the baby.”
“Didn’t I?” Alex is overcome by grief, sadness and
self-hatred. “If I hadn’t crashed the car, Sam might
have survived. It might have been mine. I wouldn’t
have cared either way. I’d have been happy to be a
dad.” Alex rakes his fingers through his messy hair.
Chris is speechless.
“This was…is my crime. I’ve had nightmares.
They come almost daily. In them, I always hold Sam
in my arms after the crash and she is bleeding to
death right there. I try to scream, but no sound ever
comes out. In reality, I couldn’t move in the wreck
and I couldn’t reach her. I was trapped unconscious
behind the damn airbag until they managed to pull
me out. I couldn’t comfort her in her last moments.
What kind of husband was I?”
Alex trembles so Chris moves closer and hugs him
tightly. “One fucking mistake, and my whole world
just…”
Crumbled. Destroyed.
Chris holds on to Alex and lets him cry.
“I’ve never cried like this in front of anyone.”
“You cry all you need, honey. You have a heart.”
Finally, Alex lifts his head and asks, “Do you still
want me, Chris?”
Chris kisses his scar so tenderly it breaks him all
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over again. “Yes. Why wouldn’t I?”
Alex lowers his head, and points to his chest.
“Because this here is dead. What would you do with
that?”
Chris puts her hand over Alex’s heart, then places
it over hers. “I’ll take your broken heart and you can
have mine. It’s not pretty, either, but it’s yours if
you want it. You know, like an organ transplant? It’s
a few years younger if nothing else.”
Alex nods and forces a smile. “I’ll cherish it…
cherish you. I want you. If you ask me what my
intentions are, I’ll love and care for you if you let
me.”
“I do. We sound like we’re exchanging bloody
wedding vows.”
Alex has given his promise and she hers.
“Do you want a wedding? You’ll look great in a
white dress.” Alex seems serious.
Chris pushes him in jest. “No, I won’t. Who’s
going to marry you anyway, Big Blue?”
“You love this big man.” Alex kisses Chris with
force, bruising her lips.
“Oh, fuck off! We should be taken out to be shot.
People making promises to each other…are clearly
wrong in their heads. Gah!”
Chris feigns annoyance when they break off for
breath, but her flushed cheeks tell a different story.
Alex forces a smile despite the wet tears clinging to
his cheeks.
~~~
Alex faces Sam Taylor’s mansion for the first time
since his crime. As he approaches the tall black
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gates, two security guards step forward. They eye
Alex up in the most unfriendly and threatening way
possible.
“You’re trespassing on private property.” One of
Taylor’s men challenges Alex, flexing his muscular
arms in preparation for confrontation. His padded
jacket likely conceals some kind of weapon he might
draw on Alex.
Unintimidated, Alex pushes his chest out. “I want
to see your boss, Samuel Taylor. Can you tell him
Alex Whale is here?”
Alex never likes to throw his weight about, but
there is no other way for him to get close to his ex-
father-in-law.
The two guards look at each other because Alex’s
name still commands attention. After several beats,
the one who spoke tells Alex, “Wait here.”
He walks back towards the house while talking
into his mobile.
Alex turns away, squinting at the sun behind his
dark glasses. He has impulsively come to talk to
Sam Taylor, and now as he waits, nerves creep in. A
good ten minutes pass before the guard returns and
asks Alex to follow him. His colleague stares with
the same coldness, reminding Alex of a hawk
considering its prey.
Nothing much has changed in Taylor’s sitting
room. The TV got bigger in his absence. The leather
sofa is new. The décor’s bold and expensive, but
Alex hasn’t a clue how to judge the aesthetic taste of
Taylor’s home.
“What is it you want, Alexander?” Sam’s voice has
always been gruff as if he smokes forty a day. As far
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as Alex knows, the gang boss doesn’t touch
cigarettes. Whiskey and cigars, yes, but not ciggies.
His sharp eyes penetrate Alex as though tempting
him to spill all his secrets.
Alex watches the older man sit in the plush sofa.
He swallows to prepare himself.
“I cancelled the tour, or rather, the main sponsor
dropped me after I went back to jail.”
Sam is quiet for a few seconds, then he nods with
slow deliberation. It dawns on Alex. Tony, the
promoter, the sponsor, and everyone else involved
should have been madder than they were. Sam
Taylor and Alex’s gazes meet with the flicker of
recognition.
“You paid them off, didn’t you?”
Sam inhales. “I oiled the wheels, Alex. Your
sponsor was a bit dicey about your comeback gig
anyway after you were recalled.” He views the
younger man levelly.
“Thanks. It’s worked out fine for everyone,” Alex
admits.
He didn’t want to fight in the first place. It would
have drawn too much media attention back to the
original court case and Sam Taylor’s family. Neither
of them want that. Alex wonders how Ryan is. Chris
gave a statement to the police while they were still
in the hospital, claiming they didn’t see who shot
them. Taylor’s men managed to persuade the law
that the man had fled the scene with the gun, which
was never recovered.
The older man taps his ringed fingers on his lap.
“Anything else?”
The honest answer is anything and nothing. Alex
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can do little to ease the pain he has caused. Taylor is
a hard and dangerous man, but he is also devoted to
his family. Alex looks intently a
t Sam’s lined face.
His dead wife resembled her father, except the
blonde hair. Something bitter bubbles in his throat,
threatening to gag him.
Alex stands shakily and approaches Taylor. He
drops to his knees, his fists hitting the ground
beside him. Chris has taught him that men can cry,
so he lets his tears run down his face freely. Five
years of hurt and remorse erupt and Alex has no
desire to stop them.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
Alex’s voice is breaking, the words barely coming
forth, and they are suffocating him. He gasps, trying
to breathe. He should have done this a long time
ago. He loved Sam so fucking much. In one
moment, he destroyed two families.
He would repent. Then, now, and forever.
Through the tears, Alex can see his ex-father-in-
law’s feet and the shiny dress shoes. Taylor lets him
cry. The mansion is silent but for his sobs.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock ticks and it
sounds like his beating heart, the one he has
exchanged with Chris. Chris didn’t have much more
than him, but they gave it anyway. Chris has been
like a balm soothing Alex enough for him to carry
on.
Eventually, Sam’s rough hands are in front of
Alex, taking his arms and pulling him up.
“I know, son.”
When Alex faces Sam again, he can see tears on
the older man’s face. Two small rivulets that are
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drying, as if he, too, has been healing and coming to
terms with his family tragedy.
~~~
Liam and Ali come along to help Alex and Chris
move even though their meagre possessions hardly
merit the extra people power. Still, Ali is the
designated driver. With a borrowed van, Ali and
Alex have already transported the larger items—
Chris’s double bed and wardrobe, Alex’s training
equipment and a small dining table that Ali has
donated to them.
Liam peers out of the car window on the way to
the new flat, licking his lips in contemplation.
“Wow, Green Lanes. You guys are going to move
to suburbia soon,” he teases.
They’ve chosen to move north, along a
thoroughfare of Turkish businesses. Liam reminds
Chris that when she came to see the flat, she
couldn’t hear a word of English on the bus. It was
almost exclusively Spanish and Turkish.
Chris muses, “That’s me. Two point nine children
and a semi-detached house.”
Ali interjects, “Two point four.”
“Nearly three, aren’t we contributing to the
