‘It’s okay,’ he says, and I can hear he’s smiling. ‘She’s not buried here, it’s just a tree.’
‘Why else would you be taking me outside in the middle of the night,’ I mutter to myself, then take a deep breath. ‘I’m so embarrassed.’
‘Don’t be, it’s fine.’ He squeezes my shoulder, then takes off his coat and lays it down next to the tree, beckoning for me to sit beside him on the ground.
‘It’s because I watch a lot of real crime shows, that’s just where my mind goes – it’s not that I think death or murder is funny, it’s really not funny—’
‘Lucy, can we stop talking about serial killers now?’
‘Yup.’ I pinch my lips closed. I’m desperate to keep apologising, but I don’t trust that I won’t dig myself into an even deeper hole. I settle for reaching up and squeezing Sam’s hand which is resting on my shoulder. Then there’s a rustling in the bushes that makes me jump. ‘What’s that?’
Sam sighs, ‘Probably just a mouse.’
‘A mouse!’ This is not reassuring.
‘Look, I thought this would be a poignant place for me to tell you something important, but maybe we should just go back inside?’
‘No, no here’s fine. Sorry.’ I don’t want to ruin the moment any more than I already have so I try to focus on Sam, on the tree, and to ignore the rustling sounds in the hedge.
Sam takes a deep breath, then starts, ‘So you asked why I don’t write songs any more . . .’
There’s a howling noise from somewhere nearby.
‘What’s that?’ I shriek.
‘A fox.’
‘It doesn’t sound like a fox.’
‘Let’s go in,’ Sam says, making to stand up, but I grab his arm.
‘No, sorry, please, tell me. I’ll ignore the howling.’
He pauses, and I wrap my hand tighter around his arm, encouraging him to go on.
He takes another breath and then begins, ‘I wrote “The Pulse of Love” for Chloe, before she was even born. No one knows it’s about love for an unborn child. Then Chloe was born, and she was sick, and the song came out and everyone hated it.’ He makes a ‘hmmm’ sound as though this is hard for him to say. ‘I don’t mind if people don’t like my music, but that was the most personal thing I’d ever written. The day Chloe died, I heard it on the radio, and I just couldn’t stand it—’
‘Oh Sam, I’m so sorry.’ I shiver involuntarily, and he rubs my shoulder.
‘I never wrote anything real again, which meant I couldn’t write anything good, so I stopped trying. Now it’s this huge mental block.’ He shines the torch back onto the plaque at the base of the tree.
‘I can understand that,’ I tell him.
‘You once told me that everyone dies twice. Once when your body takes its final breath, then again when someone says your name for the last time. You made me promise we’d keep saying Chloe’s name, so part of her would always be here with us. I think that’s why you not remembering her feels particularly cruel.’ He turns to plant a kiss on my head.
‘I really do wish I remembered,’ I tell him.
‘When we planted this tree, it was a Sunday afternoon. Felix was sitting over there on a play mat while we dug a hole. We turned our backs for a minute, and he was in the hole, tipping a watering can over himself, grinning from ear to ear. He started flinging mud at me. You walked across to him, I thought you were going to pick him up, but you just grabbed a handful of wet soil and threw it at me too.’ Sam laughs. ‘Felix thought it was hilarious, you both did. Whenever I look at this tree now, it’s not just Chloe I think about, it’s us covered in mud laughing, even through the worst – the absolute worst.’ He leans into me, and I rub a hand up the back of his neck. ‘I thought of that when you talked about the small moments – not just the headlines like marriage, birth and death. I worry I haven’t told you enough of the good stuff, even the good bad stuff, if that makes any sense?’
‘It does,’ I say, hugging both my arms around him.
‘Now when I see this tree, I’m going think about serial killers too.’
‘Oh no, don’t!’ I say, burying my face in his shoulder.
‘In a good way,’ he says, laughing. ‘If it’s possible to think about serial killers in a good way.’
‘Maybe we should look at the moon for a minute, try and give the moment a little reverence,’ I say, half joking, but we both look up, and there is indeed something awe-inspiring about the moon – one side luminous, the other, shadow. It’s one sight that doesn’t change. As we hold hands in the cold, sitting beneath our daughter’s tree, I feel immensely grateful he has shared this with me. Maybe I’m not missing out as much as I feared. Maybe this is one of those small, important moments.
There’s another animal cry from somewhere nearby, so Sam gets up and helps me to my feet.
‘I don’t know if that is a fox, you know,’ I tell him.
‘Oh, it’s probably just Bob and Mary, the serial killers who live next door,’ he deadpans, and we’re both laughing childishly as we return to warmth of the hall.
Chapter 30
‘Have you remembered anything else from the in-between?’ Felix asks later that week while I’m reading him a story before bed.
‘Not really, nothing definitive,’ I tell him. ‘Small glimpses, maybe.’
Felix looks thoughtful. ‘Molly thinks you’re Peter Pan.’
‘Peter Pan?’
‘It’s a book.’
‘Yes, I do know it.’
‘Molly said he’s this boy who can fly, but if he ever starts to doubt he can fly, he won’t be able to do it any more.’ Felix pauses, pulling his duvet up to his chin. ‘Do you still believe in the portal, Mummy?’
I’m quiet for a moment, before saying, ‘Honestly, I don’t know. Why?’
Felix shifts on the bed, hugging his cuddly armadillo. ‘I don’t mind if you want to stay, if you like it here now. You’ll be my mummy either way. But I think if you stop believing, and start remembering stuff, it might be like Peter Pan not being able to get back to Neverland.’ Felix bites his lip. ‘That’s what Molly thinks anyway, and she’s the smartest person I know.’
‘Smarter than me?’ I say, smiling.
‘Yeah, she knows her thirteen-times table and everything.’
‘Well, she is definitely smarter than me, then,’ I say, kissing Felix on the head and turning on his night light. ‘I think we’ll be okay, Felix, whatever happens. Night night.’
But as I shut his bedroom door, I feel a nagging pull of panic in my chest. Over the last few days, I haven’t thought about going back at all. I haven’t even checked the forum recently. I logged out because I was getting too much spam. Is Felix right? Have I stopped believing I can fly?
Sam is out teaching his tai chi class, so I put a wash on, then empty the dishwasher, for what seems like the thousandth time this week. I lay out Felix’s sports kit ready for the next day, wipe down all the surfaces in the kitchen, then I really should sit at my desk, do a few hours’ work, but first, I take a minute to log in to the arcade game forum. There are no new messages, but even checking reassures me I have not given up.