Sowing The Seeds Of Love Part 15

'I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry.'

'Thank you.'

'How's Liam?'

'Coping, I think.'

'That's good.'

There was a brief silence.

'Do you want me to come over?'

'No.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

Silence again.

'What happens now?'

'You go and be with your wife.'

I heard his sharp intake of breath.

'Is that what you want?'

'Yes.'

'For ever?'

'For ever.'

'I'll call you again in a few '

'Don't.'

'But just as a friend.'

'No. I don't want that. I need you to respect my wishes. Please, Peter.'

'Okay.'

'Goodbye, Peter.'

''Bye, Aoife.'

I was letting him off the hook.

And that was the last time I ever spoke to him. It was the last time I ever saw him too. He and Lara moved away shortly after that, out of London to the countryside, to make a new start. Lara sent me a beautiful card around that time. I have it somewhere still. I wondered if what had happened to my family had made them value their own all the more.

I didn't miss Peter. Not once. Events had thrown everything into a stark perspective. What I'd had with him meant nothing. It had been meaningless l.u.s.t. A petty excitement. A sordid betrayal. I couldn't understand how I'd been so blind, so deluded. My emotions were not to be trusted. I clearly was not to be trusted.

I missed Michael like a hollow ache that wouldn't go away. Our bed was cold and empty and huge. I'd spent the last couple of months of our life together trying to escape his embraces. Thank G.o.d he'd never found out why. Did he know now? Up in heaven looking down?

'Forgive me, Michael,' I whispered, over and over. But I didn't think I'd ever be able to forgive myself. I knew I was being punished for my betrayal. I hadn't valued them enough so they'd been taken away from me. My Michael and my Katie. My baby girl. When I wasn't in our bed, wrapped in Michael's dressing-gown, I was in Katie's room, on the floor in front of her chest of drawers as if it were a shrine. I would take out her tiny pink clothes and smell them. Then I'd fold them and refold them, rearrange them until they were perfection. I'd always loved to see them lined up in neat rows. I spent hours doing that. When I'd finished, I'd start all over again. It may have been meaningless, but so was life. And it gave me comfort. Afterwards, I'd curl up into a ball on the floor beside her cot and fall asleep.

I slept a lot in those first few weeks. I think it was the drugs the doctors had given me. Or maybe I just didn't want to be conscious. My mother took over Liam. I was useless to anyone so much so that eventually she had to say something.

She called around one day to find me on the couch wearing Michael's socks and dressing-gown, a cup of cold tea in my hand, staring blankly at the blank TV screen. 'Why don't you come back with me, love?'

'I'm okay here, Mum.'

'But you need to be with people.'

'I'd rather be on my own.'

My mother knelt in front of me and forced me to look her in the eye. 'Listen to me, Aoife. I know you're feeling just awful. I know your heart has been broken. G.o.d knows, we're all shattered. I remember how I felt when your dad died, and I know that this is much, much worse. But, my darling, it's not all about you. If it was I'd say, "Fine, wallow in your misery for as long as you need to." But you have a little boy to think of. Your son. Liam needs you. He's missing his mummy desperately and there's only so much I can say or do. It's you he needs. You have to pull yourself together for him, love. I know it feels impossible but you have to try.'

The tears were back, pouring down my face as usual. Hadn't I cried enough already? No wonder I was dehydrated, my skin desiccated. I nodded and blew my nose. 'Okay.'

'Okay, you will? You'll come home with me?'

'Yes.'

'Good girl. Jump into the shower first. You'll feel the better for it.'

But I was in no condition for jumping into anything. Instead, my mother helped me up the stairs, linking me all the way. Then she turned on the shower and, encountering some resistance, removed Michael's robe.

'Now,' she said, 'will you be okay from here on in?'

I nodded.

'Good girl. See you in a few minutes. I'm going down to make a fresh pot of tea.'

My mother shut the door behind her and I removed my pyjamas. It was like shedding a second skin, I'd been wearing them so long. I looked down at my body. My skin seemed grey, tired-looking. I was skinnier than I remembered. I seemed to have shrunk. Maybe I could disappear altogether.

I stood under the hot jets and willed them to wash it all away.

I did feel slightly better once I was clean and wearing different clothes. Immediately I felt worse for feeling better. What right had I to feel anything but despair? My husband and child were dead and it was all my fault. If I hadn't sent them out on the roads in the dark... If I hadn't submitted to my l.u.s.t... If I had been a better mother, a better wife, a better person... It was the downward spiral that kept on spiralling downwards.

Downstairs, I allowed my mother to fill me with hot, sweet tea.

'That's better,' she said, stroking my damp hair.

She drove me to her home, a few miles away. I kept thinking that every car was going to career into us. I half wished they would.

Liam was sitting on the floor in the middle of the sitting room, surrounded by miniature diggers consolation toys. Everything leaped when he saw me his body, his expression, his heart. He ran towards me and I knelt on the floor and opened my arms to him.

'Mummy!' He flung his around my neck and clung on for dear life. 'I yuv you, Mummy.'

'I love you too, Liam.'

It was a minute before I tried to extricate myself, but he clung even tighter. 'Don't go, Mummy.'

'I won't, darling. I won't.'

The first anniversary was brutal. But the day after I felt a kind of relief. At least I'd no longer be thinking 'this time last year'.

When I saw a girl-toddler on the street, I averted my eyes.

Liam became my everything. The whole universe focused into his dear little face. He was the reason I ate, slept, lived.

The house was mine now. Michael's death had cancelled out the mortgage. It was cold comfort. For a long while I was just existing, putting one foot in front of the other, putting each day behind me with relief that I was a little bit further away from the source of my pain. But I had to think of our future. Liam would be school age soon. Did I want to carry on living here?

One night I had a dream. It was a dream like no other I'd had before or since. A perfect record of a conversation I'd once had with Michael. I dreamed about him often, but this dream was so vivid, so real, that I woke up newly bereft, the feeling so strong that he was with me still. I could almost smell the coffee he was making in the kitchen, could almost hear the shower as he stood under its jets. But the house echoed with nothingness. And that was when I knew I had to leave.

He was never coming back.

The memory was this. It was mid-morning on a Sat.u.r.day. The sun shone through the window as we sat at the kitchen table, the morning papers spread out in front of us, the children playing at our feet.

'You know,' said Michael, suddenly putting down the part of the paper he'd been reading, 'we should move to Ireland.'

'What?'

'It's the perfect time to do it. The economy there is strong. I'd get a job no problem.'

'What about my job?'

'You'd get one too. It might take you a little longer.'

'But I like the job I have.' Peter was there.

'The kids could start school in Ireland. Just think, they'd have Irish accents.'

We smiled at the thought.

'Are you serious about this?' I asked.

'Yes. Why not?'

'It's a really big step.'

'I know. But what have we got to lose? It'd be a better quality of life for us. Just think about it.'

I hadn't really thought about it, my mind taken up with other matters at the time. But I thought about it now, sitting in my empty bed, enveloped by the warm feelings the dream had engendered. Why not? There was nothing for me here. Well, that wasn't strictly true. There was my mother, Liam's nana, who'd been such a support in the last year or so. But I was stronger now. And she could visit. Dublin was only a short plane ride away. Because it was always Dublin for me. That was my home from home. And it would make Michael happy, I smiled to myself, his son growing up to be an Irishman. A proper Paddy, not a plastic one like me and his father. It was settled then. That was what we'd do. For better or worse.

26.

It didn't take Emily long to make up her mind. Not after she'd heard Aoife's story. Or, at least, the parts Aoife had deemed fit for her young ears.

She rang the woman in the adoption agency later that afternoon, sitting on the swing seat in her sensory garden, the beginnings of honeysuckle to her left, the stirrings of jasmine to her right. She rocked herself gently as she held the phone to her ear, one leg tucked under her, boots kicked off. 'h.e.l.lo. Can I speak to Stephanie, please?'

'Certainly. Can I say who's calling?'

'Emily Harte.'

'Hold the line, please.'

The seconds ticked slowly by as Emily rocked to and fro, waiting for the opportunity to transform her future.

'Emily, Stephanie here.'

'Hi, Stephanie.'

There was a short silence during which each waited for the other to make the first move. Stephanie broke it. She was used to awkward pauses: they were part of her daily round. 'Are you calling to make an appointment to sign the consent papers, Emily?'

Emily noted the professional compa.s.sion in the other woman's tone and was grateful for it. 'I've changed my mind,' she said, feeling as if her heart was going to jump right out of her mouth and land on the ground in front of her. She pictured it coming to rest on the camomile lawn.

'About what exactly?' Stephanie's voice was cautious.

'I want to keep my baby.' Emily was exultant, the adrenalin racing around her body and forcing her to her feet. She began to pace as Stephanie breathed at the other end of the phone.

'Are you quite sure about this, Emily?'

'I'm one hundred per cent certain.'

'You don't need more time?'

'No. I've had enough time. Too much.'

'Okay, then. I'll put arrangements in place.'

'What does that mean?'

'That I'll organize a handover for a few days' time.'

'You mean I can have my baby back?'

'Of course you can have your baby back. She's still your baby.'