I’m at Mum and Dad’s, playing with Leo. See you later when you pick him up.
Opening the message, she read the rest.
We’re having a whale of a time. Your son is ADORABLE. xxx
Livvy stared at the message, speculations drifting through her mind like wisps of smoke, evaporating before she had a chance to study them properly. For a long time, she sat at the kitchen table, gazing alternately at her phone and then at the stairs, trying to decide whether the hint of doubt was legitimate or not.
Shaking her head as if to tip the suspicion out, she tapped out a reply to her sister.
Ah, sorry! Dominic’s coming to collect him. I’m having a rare half-hour alone. Glad you all had fun. xxx
Making her way up the stairs to run a bath, she pushed the unwelcome thoughts into the furthest recess of her mind and closed a door on them.
ANNA
LONDON
Zahira stares at me, visibly shaken, and I don’t know what to say to fill the void. It is still too new, too raw, for me to have found the words to ameliorate somebody else’s shock.
‘I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how you must feel. It’s such a terrible thing to learn, after everything you’ve already been through.’ Zahira shakes her head, as though she cannot get the story to settle. She calls out to Elyas to be careful as he clambers up a wooden slope to the peaked-roof playhouse, and he pauses for a second, stares across the playground, before continuing his journey.
Watching him, my grief feels unwieldy. Elyas is only eight months older than Henry would have been had he lived. The knowledge of it seems too cruel to exist in any fair, kind, just world. And yet I know it is true.
It is two days since I discovered I had once been a mother. For the past forty-eight hours, I have felt as though I am existing in two parallel worlds: the real, present world of grief, guilt and self-reproach. And an imaginary world in which Henry is still alive, in which he’ll soon be two and a half, in which we come to the park together every day, his hand in mine as we collect leaves, spot green parakeets, splash through puddles in brightly coloured wellingtons. A world in which his words are joining forces in the creation of sentences, in which he has favourite books, favourite toys, favourite games. A world in which my little boy is alive and thriving and I am free to love him as any mother should.
For the past two nights, I have lain awake, Stephen sleeping soundly beside me, wondering how I will ever forgive myself for failing to check on Henry that final night. Stephen may have forgiven me – or, at least, is doing a valiant job of feigning forgiveness – but it is more than I deserve.
Since first catching sight of Zahira and Elyas in the park a fortnight ago, I have been aware of an ache deep in my heart, and I didn’t understand where it had come from. But now I know who it’s for and I cannot absolve myself for ever having forgotten. Because what kind of a mother forgets her grief at the loss of her child?
‘Why didn’t he tell you before?’
Zahira’s question punctures my thoughts, and I remember Stephen’s crumpled features as we sat on the sofa, anguish writ large on his face. ‘He thought it would be too much for me, after finding out about my parents.’ I do not tell her that I fear he was right, that there are moments when I do not know how to bear this trio of losses. I feel strangled by grief, as though it is sucking all the air from my lungs until there is nothing left but a pair of spent balloons.
‘I’m so sorry, Anna. I can’t imagine what this must be like for you, or what you must be going through.’
Neither of us speaks for a few minutes. Looking around the playground at the collection of pre-schoolers, I wonder if it is a form of perverse self-punishment coming here: a stark, brutal reminder of all I have lost.
Zahira calls over to Elyas, reminds him to share the playhouse with two little girls trying to get through the door. She watches as he steps back and allows them inside. ‘I don’t want to interfere, but I do think it’s important that your husband’s honest with you about your past. I understand how difficult it must have been, having to tell you such painful things. But there must be a whole life of yours that you don’t yet know about. Wouldn’t it be better to find out?’
Zahira’s voice is gently persuasive and yet her words cause my pulse to race. ‘I think I’m scared that whatever I find out will be bad. And what if Stephen tells me everything and I still don’t remember? Where do I go after that? Maybe it means I’ll never remember anything for myself.’
Zahira rests a hand gently on mine. ‘I understand. I know it’s not the same but there were times after I found out about my ex-husband’s affair when I thought every new piece of information might destroy me. But however hard it was at the time, it was really important for me to face it head-on. I don’t think I’d have recovered if I hadn’t.’ She pauses, checks on Elyas, turns back to me. ‘Maybe you’re right, maybe finding out more about your past won’t be the silver bullet you want it to be. But isn’t it better at least to try?’
It is a rhetorical question and I let it revolve in my head.
‘Believe me, there’ve been plenty of moments when I wished I’d managed to turn a blind eye to Joe’s affair. It would have been so much easier in some ways to stay married to him, to stick together as a family.’ Zahira pauses as Elyas runs towards her, holds out a wet hand, wipes it on his sweatshirt before she has a chance to find a tissue. She sends him back to the playhouse, continues speaking. ‘But I would have been living a lie and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have made me happy. I can’t tell you how much courage it took for me to call time on my marriage when I had a newborn baby. But sometimes being scared of something is precisely the reason you need to do it. Seriously, what’s the worst that can happen if you ask Stephen to tell you more? At least you’ll have a better picture of what your life looked like before the accident, even if it is second-hand.’
I try to absorb what Zahira is saying. ‘I know you’re probably right. It’s just a lot to think about.’
‘It must be so hard. And I do understand why your husband found it difficult to tell you about Henry. But I’m not sure I understand the rationale in telling you so little about the rest of your life.’ She pauses, and it is as if I can hear her searching through a thesaurus in her mind, choosing her words carefully. ‘It’s almost like he doesn’t want you to remember.’
I shake my head. ‘Of course he does. I think he just wants to protect me from things he knows I’ll find upsetting.’
‘But he can’t protect you forever. And how will you ever have a full picture of your life unless he tells you everything – the good and the bad? You have a right to know it all – not just what Stephen chooses to tell you.’
I turn Zahira’s reasoning over in my mind, trying to unpack how I feel about it. Part of me knows she is right – at some point I will have to learn everything – but remembering my devastation on Sunday night, I understand Stephen’s reluctance to have told me sooner.
Elyas runs up to Zahira, announces that he is starving. Zahira feeds him half a banana before he zooms across the playground, clambers onto one end of a low-swung see-saw, bounces gently up and down.