The First Time We Met: An utterly heart-warming and unforgettable love story

by Jo Lovett

  Really, the reason that he hadn’t tried to work those things out was that he’d been scared. He hadn’t wanted to expose himself further to the hurt that came with loving people, hurting when they hurt, or hurting when you lost them.

  So that had worked out well. He was hurting like hell now.

  And he was going to carry on hurting. It was possible that if he’d told her how he felt, they’d have got together. And now he’d be happy. And yes, maybe he’d get sad somewhere down the line, if something happened to her, but now he’d be happy.

  What a dumbass.

  It was too late even to try now. She was with Dominic. Stupid name.

  He’d really like Izzy to know about Barney’s debating success, though. She and Barney were down to monthly sessions but their next one was coming up. Barney should tell her.

  Sam turned the gas down under the sauce, another thing he’d like to tell Izzy about; he’d just made some sauce, what she would call gravy, from scratch, for a proper British roast dinner. And then realised that it was disgusting and had to make some from a packet, but he’d tried. A few months ago, he wouldn’t have attempted any kind of sauce, even packet-based.

  Once they were seated with their roasts, Sam said to Barney, ‘Congratulations on making the debating team. I’m so proud of you.’

  ‘Hey, Barney, that’s amazing.’ Liv smiled at her brother and Barney smiled back at her.

  Barney started to stutter a word out and then he stopped for a second and then said, ‘It’s cool, yes. Thank you.’ Clearly using one of Izzy’s suggested strategies.

  ‘Izzy would be really pleased to hear about it. Maybe you could tell her?’ Sam concentrated on loading chicken, potato and broccoli onto his fork. He sensed Liv looking at him.

  ‘Sure.’ Barney shrugged, like it was no big deal. Sam put his forkful into his mouth.

  ‘You still hung up on her?’ Liv asked. Sam nearly choked on his chicken. Barney started to whack him energetically on the back. Sam waved him away and took a drink of water.

  When his eyes had stopped watering and his throat had stopped burning, he said, ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ Liv said. ‘What are we, children?’ Uh, yeah? Sam didn’t reply. What was there to say? ‘I know Izzy told you to work less.’ Sam nodded, because still no words.

  Silence stretched between them, not a comfortable one.

  Then Barney said, ‘I like Izzy.’ Sam nodded.

  More silence.

  ‘Liv likes her too.’ Barney nudged Liv.

  ‘She’s okay,’ Liv said eventually, staring at her chicken.

  ‘If you like her you should tell her.’ Barney’s words had come out in a rush. ‘Liv?’ Wow. Barney never did this.

  After a few seconds, Liv looked up. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’ Barney nudged her.

  ‘Okay.’ Liv put her cutlery down. ‘I hated her because I knew she liked you and you liked her, a lot, and I was worried that it meant that you’d have even less time for us and that you’d forget about Mom. But, yeah, I know that isn’t true, because you gave up work for us. And, yeah…’

  ‘We know you miss her,’ said Barney. ‘And she’s really nice.’

  ‘Wow,’ Sam said. ‘You do know how much I love you both? And how much I loved your mother?’

  ‘Yeah. We do,’ Liv said. ‘Did you ever tell Izzy you were in love with her?’

  Sam didn’t choke this time, because he’d had the common sense to stop eating.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just, you know, because.’ Was it normal for a forty-year-old man to be sounding like a petulant teenager while his teenage daughter questioned him?

  ‘You should tell her now,’ Liv said. Wow again. It was kind of a relief to be having this conversation. And kind of all wrong, because Sam was supposed to be the grown-up here.

  ‘She’s married. You don’t tell a married woman you love her.’

  ‘Don’t think she is,’ Barney mumbled through a large mouthful of his own.

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘No,’ Barney said. ‘She isn’t. She still calls him her ex-husband in emails.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Sam looked up from his plate.

  ‘Yep. I’ll show you.’ Barney reached for his phone. On this occasion, Sam was pleased that teenagers were never more than a yard or two away from a device.

  Barney swiped for a few seconds and then held the screen out to Sam.

  Wow. Sam’s heart rate actually quickened when he saw the open email with Izzy’s name in it. A rush of memory back to when they were emailing all the time and the little thrill of happiness, excitement, he didn’t know what to call it, maybe, just, love, when he used to see a message come in from her.

  Hi Barney,

  Apologies, but are you free to change the time of our session this weekend? My ex-husband has changed the day he’s seeing Ruby.

  Would 10 a.m. New York time on Sunday work for you?

  Pleased that you’re still enjoying the baking!

  Best wishes,

  Izzy

  Liv had stood up and was craning over Sam’s shoulder to read the email.

  ‘She totally isn’t back with him,’ she said. ‘Barney’s right.’ Sam wasn’t so sure. You could interpret that email in different ways. ‘I’m pretty sure she’s in love with you.’ Sam should rise above this conversation and not ask Liv why she thought that.

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘Little things. The way she looked at you when we met her in the café. The expression on her face when you rescued the old man from the lake. She laughed at all your lame jokes. She looked really sad when I showed her the photos of Mom. She’s totally into you.’

  Sam should stop this conversation right now. It was ridiculous to discuss important adult life matters with your own child, who used expressions like ‘she’s totally into you’.

  ‘So are you going to tell her you love her?’ Liv said. Annoyingly persistent.

  ‘No,’ he said. Maybe.

  ‘Why not?’ Seriously. His daughter had turned into a very scary woman. Sam had a strong urge to whine Leave me alone, like a miserable teen.

  ‘You know, I’m going to think about it. Now leave me alone.’

  ‘Love you, Dad.’

  ‘Love you too, Liv. And you, Barney.’ He was a very lucky man. He knew he was. His kids were amazing.

  The question was, was he going to try to get even luckier?

  * * *

  Later, when the twins had gone to bed, Sam sat down at his laptop. He’d made the decision. He was going to write to Izzy. It would be the early hours of Monday morning now in London.

  What exactly was he going to write?

  Hey Izzy, I hope you’re well. I’m just writing to say that I love you and I should have told you that before. One of the reasons I was holding back was that Liv hated you but turns out she doesn’t any more. So would you like a trans-Atlantic relationship with me? I mean, obviously, that isn’t likely to work, is it? But I’d love to go back to best-buddy-emailing. Exclusive best buddies. No best-buddying other people. No dating either, actually, because, as I just said, and should have said weeks, months, ago, I love you, and I don’t want to date anyone except you and I don’t want you to date anyone else either. And when I’m in London we could kiss again, because that was incredible. We could do other stuff too, because I’m pretty sure that would be even more incredible than the kiss, if that were possible. I couldn’t come to London too often, because of the twins. And we couldn’t really stay in a hotel together very often, because of all the kids. And you probably couldn’t come to New York much, so, again, that would make sex and in fact any one-on-one time at all difficult. So, yes, we can’t possibly have a relationship. But, Jesus, I love you so much, Izzy.

  No. He absolutely was not going to write that. Hard to think of an alternative, though.

  Right. Think of it like work. He’d never had a problem there. Break it down into clau
ses. A thank you for everything she’d done for Barney, obviously. And for them as a family, with her pep talks in the park and in the pub. Tell her about the life changes he’d made and thank her for her input. Address their kiss. Say he loved her. Or was that too much?

  Okay. Time to start a draft. He flexed his fingers, rolled his shoulders and his neck, and started typing.

  Hey Izzy,

  Long time no mail.

  Was that a lame way to start? Trite?

  He should just push on and edit it afterwards.

  I’ve missed you.

  Wow. This was hard.

  Eventually, he had his draft.

  That had taken a seriously long time to write. It had taken about twenty minutes just to compose the title. And he’d ended up with ‘Hello and thank you’. Punchy.

  He wondered if she’d agree to his suggestion that they see each other in London next week. He was pretty sure that after Liv’s one-eighty on his relationship with Izzy, there’d be minimal objections from the twins if he said he was going to London. Would he go even if Izzy didn’t reply to the email, or said that she was busy? Maybe. And try to engineer a meeting. Or would that be a bit stalkerish?

  Was it too much that he’d told her he loved her, in writing, out of the blue? Was it too little? Should he have mentioned their kiss? What if she actually was with Dominic? Would she even read the email? He needed to think of a better title for it.

  He should sleep on it, re-read it in the morning, edit it and then send it.

  He couldn’t sleep. He sent the email, unedited, at 1.30 a.m.

  Part Four

  Thirty-Two

  Izzy

  Izzy was in a deep, dreamless sleep when the alarm on her phone went off. Ruby had had an accident in the middle of the night, and Dominic had got up in the dark at about five fifteen, to go back to his flat and get changed for work after two nights with Izzy. After being disturbed by Ruby, Izzy had managed to get back to sleep; but she’d struggled to after Dominic had crept loudly round the room for several minutes. She’d lain wide awake for a while, worrying about whether their reconciliation was right for Ruby, about work, about the cod in the fridge that needed to be cooked today except she had no time to make a fish pie but pie was the only way Ruby would eat fish. She’d finally gone back to sleep, too close to her getting-up time.

  She turned the alarm off, buried her face in her pillow and went back to sleep. Five minutes later it beeped again. She turned it off and re-buried her face. And woke up to more beeping five minutes later. Okay, now she was in that state where your body was incredibly heavy-limbed, basically still asleep, but your mind had pinged awake. Her mind was telling her that Ruby would have been watching Disney films for too long already this morning and that if she didn’t get out of bed and into the shower now they were going to be late for school again, and her body was telling her Piss off, she wasn’t moving.

  At least – now that it was proper daytime rather than still the middle of the night – the things she’d been worrying about seemed a lot smaller. Except the ‘was it right to have got back with Dominic’ one, but she was pretty sure that if she worked hard at ignoring that thought all would be well. And once he moved properly back in, next weekend, she’d have no time to think.

  She reached her outside arm down and picked up her phone, to get on with her usual morning ‘blue light from screen dragging herself into physical action’ routine. Chin on mattress, she looked at the headlines on her BBC news app first. Yep, all good, no major tragedies had occurred overnight. She read a heart-warming story about ninety-year-old twins who’d been separated when they were fourteen and had finally met up again. It was a long story and now she and Ruby were really going to be late.

  Izzy was nearly ready to get out of bed. She wiped a sentimental tear from her eye and pressed the email icon on her phone to see how many annoying, crack-of-dawn messages she’d had from Ruby’s school or work. There was one from school, about swimming kit. There were three from colleagues. There were quite a lot of the usual shopping ones. One from an early-rising girlfriend who lived in Dublin, sent at 6 a.m.

  And there was an email from Sam. Its title was ‘Hello and thank you’.

  Woah.

  Izzy rolled onto her back, holding her phone to her chest, and looked up at the ceiling. Just seeing Sam’s name brought back so many emotions. Ones that a happily married woman shouldn’t – and surely wouldn’t – feel about another man.

  Should she read the email? Should she read it now?

  No. She should have her shower now. Maybe she’d read it later, maybe she wouldn’t.

  They were later than usual for school. That twins-reunited story had been very long. The upside of the lateness was that Izzy got a parking space right outside school, so she was back in her car in time to read Sam’s email before she set off for work. If she wanted to.

  Actually, she didn’t. She’d rather arrive at work in good time. She probably wouldn’t read the email at all.

  The morning was busy, as always, back-to-back appointments. She found herself a number of times losing focus and thinking about Sam and having to force her thoughts back to the matters in hand, really bad, really unprofessional.

  At lunchtime, she smiled her last client of the morning out of the room and then looked at her phone. Nope. She wasn’t going to read the email. She was fine, totally over Sam, and she didn’t want to become un-fine again.

  She went to the café round the corner and bought a salad and a packet of salt and vinegar Hula Hoops. It was drizzling and December-cold. Not pleasant for sitting or walking outside in. The best idea would be to eat in her consulting room, while she went through her admin.

  She sat down at her desk, put her phone down next to her and started eating.

  It was like the phone was signalling to her. Read me, read me.

  No.

  At first, when she and Sam had stopped emailing, it had been awful, like an actual break-up. Properly painful. She’d kept thinking about Sam, wondering every time she looked at her phone if there’d be an email from him, imagining what he might be doing. She’d even sometimes thought that she saw him out and about. And, even though she knew that he was almost certainly in New York, when whichever tall, broad-shouldered man she’d noticed turned round and she saw that they looked similar – but nowhere near as perfectly, gorgeously Sam-like as actual Sam – she felt another stab of misery, every time.

  Now, she was a lot better. The pain was more like a diminishing, dull ache. She didn’t expect emails from him any more and she thought about him less. Sometimes things reminded her of him and she’d feel a sharp pang again, but, basically, she was recovering from her ridiculous infatuation, and that was a good thing, given that she and Dominic were back together.

  Clearly, reading his email wouldn’t help. Although, she’d seen that it was there. If she didn’t read it, she was just going to wonder. So, actually, reading it probably wouldn’t make any difference. In fact, on the evidence, not reading it was going to make her go mad with wondering.

  Bugger it, she was going to read it. She was going to read it and then ignore it and carry on moving on from him.

  She picked her phone up and button-pressed it into life.

  No, she couldn’t read it. She couldn’t go there.

  And, oh God. There it was. The other thing she couldn’t do. She couldn’t go through with getting back together with Dominic. Not when she hadn’t felt that happy all weekend, and when just seeing an email from another man made her feel like this. And it was clear that Ruby was now happy with them living separately as long as she saw Dominic regularly.

  She should tell him immediately. This evening. Before he started packing for the weekend’s move. And before he turned down the promotion he’d been offered in Milan.

  ‘It just doesn’t feel right. And so, I’m so, so sorry, but this is it.’ She and Dominic were sitting on the kitchen sofa holding hands. Izzy could see tears on Dominic’s cheeks and feel
hot tears on her own. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered again.

  ‘Better now than in a year or two,’ he said eventually.

  God, it was horrible when something that felt so right was also so painful.

  ‘Listen,’ Dominic said, his mouth and chin squeezed in an ‘I will not cry any more’ way, ‘we won’t be like your parents. We’ll always put Ruby first.’ He was such a nice man. He just wasn’t Izzy’s One.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. And then they both bawled their eyes out, and held each other for a long time.

  Forty-eight hours since she’d resolved to finally split from Dominic, and Izzy still hadn’t read Sam’s email. It didn’t feel right. She was about to start formal divorce proceedings with her husband; her mind should not be on Sam. But that email was burning a hole in her inbox. For the third day running she’d spent the whole of her lunch hour wondering what it said.

  It probably said nothing interesting. She should just read it, and then move on.

  Right.

  Hey Izzy,

  Long time no email.

  I’ve missed you.

  If you and Dominic are back together and happy, I wish you all the very best.

  If not, I hope you’ll read the following. There are a number of things that I think I should have said to you but never did.

  Firstly, I have a lot to thank you for.

  I’m incredibly grateful for everything you’ve done for Barney. You’ve been a fantastic speech therapist for him. Thirteen was very much our lucky number. You know how badly his stutter was impacting on his confidence when you first started working with him. Today I got an email from his school saying that he’d been selected for their debating team. On merit. I think that sums up exactly how far he’s come. Thank you.