Remember Me at Willoughby Close (Return to Willoughby Close Book 4)

by Kate Hewitt

  Laura murmured soothing words and stroked her hair, letting that be enough. She wasn’t so naïve that she thought a simple hug could cure everything, or even anything, but at least it was a beginning. She hoped.

  After what might have been ten minutes or half an hour, Laura couldn’t be sure, Maggie pulled back with a big sniff as she swiped at her still-streaming eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Mum,” she mumbled.

  “You don’t need to be sorry, Maggie. For anything.”

  Maggie looked up at her, her eyes like dark pools. “I’ve made your life so difficult. I know I have.”

  “It’s okay. I can handle it.”

  Maggie looked dubious, which made Laura smile. “But what’s really going on, Mags? Because James said you’d told him you were struggling to…to grieve for Dad.” She studied her daughter’s face, the familiar guarded expression, the tremor of vulnerability. “Is that true?”

  Maggie was silent for a long moment. Laura waited, longing more than anything to get to the bottom of whatever was troubling her daughter. “You can tell me,” she said softly, when she sensed that Maggie was struggling to confide in her. “Whatever it is. Whatever you think it means, or however you’re afraid I might react.”

  Still more silence, while Maggie nibbled her lip and Laura waited, wondering what on earth had been tormenting her daughter for so long.

  “I was angry with Dad,” Maggie finally blurted. “Before he died.”

  “You mean right before?” She’d been angry, in a simmering sort of way, for months before he’d died. That picked at her now, although she did her best not to think of her own feelings, but rather her daughter’s.

  “Yes. We got in a fight.” Maggie bit her lip hard, her eyes filling with tears once more. “He said he was going out and I asked him if he could drop me off at the Costa in town, to meet some friends. He said no, he couldn’t. He didn’t give me a reason, and I got mad at him and said he was really unfair and mean and stuff.” A tear slipped down Maggie’s cheek and she dashed it away.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Laura reached for Maggie’s hand and clasped it in her own. The details of that last morning for her were both hazy and terribly clear; there were hours Laura couldn’t remember, and moments that, over a year later, remained in stark clarity.

  Tim rolling out of bed in the morning; neither of them speaking as they got dressed. They hadn’t argued the night before, but they had been existing in a frozen sort of silence, because once again money was tight and Tim was frustrated by his lack of work.

  It had been a Saturday, a clear, cold day with a brisk wind off the sea, just a few weeks before Christmas. Laura couldn’t remember eating breakfast or waking up Sam; she did remember snatching her keys off the worktop to drive him to football practice. Tim had been slouched in an armchair in the sitting room, scrolling on his phone. His immobility had annoyed her, although she hadn’t said anything. She never did, but maybe she should have. Maybe if they’d talked through their problems, they wouldn’t have loomed so large.

  When she’d returned from dropping Sam off, both Tim and Maggie had been gone. She’d texted them both, asking them where they were. Maggie had texted back right away to say she was walking into town; Tim had never replied.

  It must have been about an hour later—an hour Laura couldn’t really remember—when the phone rang, and life changed forever.

  “Dad knew you loved him, Maggie,” Laura said quietly. “Even if your last words were harsh ones. He would have always known that.”

  “I know.” She sniffed. “I just wish it had been different.”

  “I know. I do, too.” Laura drew a shuddery breath. “The truth is, Dad and I were having some problems too. Nothing big, we weren’t going to separate or anything like that, but I don’t even remember if I said anything to him that last morning. I don’t know what my last words to him were.” Perhaps something about making coffee, or who should take Sam football, although those were just guesses. Had she actually said anything to him that morning? She couldn’t remember. She might never know.

  “Mum…” Maggie’s voice was achingly hesitant. “Why wouldn’t Dad drive me that morning? Where was he going?”

  Laura stared at her in blank confusion. “I don’t know, darling. Something for work, perhaps.” He’d been driving on the road out of town, towards the industrial estates where he got most of his equipment.

  “But…” Maggie licked her lips nervously, her eyes wide and dark. “Don’t you think it’s strange, that he crashed into a tree on a straight stretch of road? The one tree, and it was on the other side?”

  Laura’s insides seemed to hollow out as she kept her gaze on Maggie’s pleading one. “They think he must have skidded. He could have been distracted. On his phone.” Tim had had the annoying and dangerous habit of occasionally checking his phone for work texts while he was driving.

  “But what if he wasn’t?”

  “What are you saying, Maggie?” Laura’s voice came out more harshly than she intended, and she pulled her daughter into her arms once again as the implication reverberated through her. “Are you afraid he…he did it deliberately?” she asked quietly, barely able to form the words even though they felt carved on her heart. In the fifteen months since Tim’s death, she’d never let herself consider this possibility, and yet it had loomed large all the same, skulking in the shadows. The police had asked what Tim’s state of mind had been at the time of the accident, and although they’d ruled it out, Laura knew she never had, although she’d tried. It was, she knew now, the reason why she’d suppressed her own emotions, just as Maggie had.

  “He’d been so down,” Maggie said against her shoulder, her voice thick with tears. “I know he tried to hide it from us, but I could tell. He was worried about work and I think he felt guilty for moving us to Woodbridge just for his job when it wasn’t working out.”

  “Yes, that’s true. Your dad struggled with depression sometimes.” Laura had urged him to go to the doctor, get a proper diagnosis or some antidepressants, but Tim had refused, scornful of it all. Another reason she felt guilty… Should she have pushed him more to seek help?

  And what if he had done it deliberately—a single tree, a straight stretch of road, a moment of madness or just deep despair. It was, she knew with a terrible, leaden feeling, possible.

  “So do you…do you think he killed himself?” Maggie asked, pulling back to look up at her with eyes that were heartbreakingly wide.

  “I don’t suppose we can ever know for sure, Maggie,” Laura said slowly, struggling to keep her voice level as the emotion she’d been holding back began to rush through her. Guilt. Regret. Grief. “I’d like to believe he wouldn’t have done that, not even when he was feeling depressed. But even if he did…” She swallowed hard, trying not to cry herself as she realised afresh how much she’d been holding back. “He loved you and Sam, and me as well. He wouldn’t have wanted to throw all that away, even if in that moment he might not have been able to see past the sadness he felt.”

  “So you think he did?”

  Maggie wanted confirmation, and Laura could understand that, but it wasn’t hers to give.

  “I honestly don’t know, Maggie. Dad might have been on his phone. You know how he was, checking work texts. It’s possible. It’s what the police thought. But…” She made herself say it. “He did get down. Really down. I thought he hid it better from you and Sam but I guess he didn’t. I haven’t let myself wonder if he did it on purpose, but that thought has been there, in the back of my head.” She drew her daughter into another hug. “I wish I’d spoken to you about this before. I should have been more honest about my feelings. Maybe then you would have been able to be honest about yours.”

  “I didn’t want to upset you,” Maggie confessed with a sniff.

  “Likewise,” Laura admitted with a wobbly laugh. “What a pair we are.” Gently she gave Maggie a squeeze. “The important thing to remember is, he loved you. That I know absolutely, a thousand
per cent. And if he was depressed or down or anything like that, it was not your fault. It was never your responsibility.”

  And yet…like Maggie, she’d felt guilty. Guilty for not being a better wife, for getting so frustrated when she knew Tim was struggling, for feeling he was selfish when he was trying so hard.

  And guilt kept you from being able to grieve. That was why both she and Maggie were stuck, terrified of the future, unable to let go of the past. She and her daughter had far more in common than she’d realised, and yet it had been that very guilt that had kept them apart, isolated by the torment of their own feelings.

  “None of it is your fault, Maggie,” she stated firmly as she gave her daughter another hug before easing back. “Even if Dad did crash deliberately, and we don’t know that he did, it’s not your fault. I know you wish your last words with Dad could have been better, and heaven knows, I wish the same for mine. But we didn’t know they would be our last words, did we? I suppose it is a lesson to us to make every moment count, but it’s also a lesson not to tie yourself in knots with guilt. Dad knew you loved him, and I think you know he loved you. A lot. That’s what matters.”

  Maggie nodded, gulping as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry for being such a pain these last few months.”

  Could she have that on record, Laura wondered wryly, even as her heart suffused with love. “None of this has been easy,” she said, “and that’s okay.”

  “I just felt so angry all the time. Angry with Dad…and angry with myself.”

  Laura nodded her understanding. “I’ve been the same.”

  “Maybe you should see a grief counsellor,” Maggie said with a reproving look, and Laura smiled.

  “Maybe I should.” Actually, she knew she should. She’d had enough of trying to deal with her feelings by pretending she didn’t have them. She needed to get it all out in the open, as hard and painful as that might be.

  They sat in silence for a few moments, letting it breathe around them, turn into something more hopeful. Saying it all out loud really did help.

  “So, are you really dating James?” Maggie finally asked, her eyes still reddened and watery, her skin blotchy from crying even as she smiled. “Because, I have to say, Mum, phwoar. He’s pretty, you know, hot for an old guy. Not as old as you, though, obviously. And I mean, I don’t fancy him or anything. Because…ew.”

  Laura laughed and hugged her again. “Thanks, sweetheart, for the thumbs up. The truth is, I don’t know where James and I stand. I’ve come to realise I have a lot to deal with, and I need to get my head straight before I jump into a relationship.”

  “Maybe he can help you with that,” Maggie suggested. “You don’t have to do it all on your own, Mum.”

  “Wise words,” Laura answered with a smile, and Maggie grinned.

  It was going to be okay, she realised. Sometimes life was a long, hard slog, but it was going to be okay. Maggie was going to be okay. So was Sam, and she was, too. In time. With patience and trying and love.

  And as for her and James…well, Laura realised, they needed to talk. Properly. Honestly. In time. She wasn’t ready yet, and she might not be for a while, but she was definitely going in the right direction. She just hoped James was a patient man.

  “Shall we head off?” she asked Maggie, and her daughter nodded, giving her a fragile smile that broke Laura’s heart and bound it up all at once.

  Smiling back, she reached for her hand and helped her up from the sofa. It was time to go home.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  There was more than a hint of spring in the air as James released his Year Sixes to the world. They emerged leaping and howling from the classroom like a band of wild dogs; that was what a little sunshine and warmth did to the eleven-year-old psyche.

  It was early April, and the first day of the year when you could go outside without a coat. When the sun felt properly warm, and the daffodils were showing off their bright yellow heads; the flowerbeds lining the village green were bursting with a ridiculous amount of colour.

  It had been almost a month exactly since Maggie’s meltdown. Laura had returned to Willoughby Close where James had been sitting on the sofa with Sam, watching him play Minecraft and counting the minutes. He’d sprung up as soon as she’d opened the door, and she’d smiled tiredly at him. Maggie had shot him a look of hesitant apology and then scurried upstairs.

  “Is everything…” James had asked, not even knowing where to begin, and Laura had nodded.

  “Yes. At least, it will be. That is, if you were asking if everything is okay, which I suspected you were.”

  He nodded his affirmation as he reached for his coat. Laura looked exhausted. “I should go.”

  “Thank you, James, for everything.”

  That had sounded rather horribly final. “I was glad to help. If I did help, that is.”

  “You did.”

  She saw him to the door, and stepped outside with him just as she had earlier that night, which already felt like a million years ago. Then, to his surprise, she stepped close to him and put her arms around him, resting her head against his shoulder.

  James’s arms had closed around her automatically, and he’d savoured the sweet feel of her body against his before she’d let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her being.

  “I still need time and space,” she’d said, “but I’m getting there. I really am. I have things I need to deal with. Grief I haven’t let myself feel.” Her voice choked a little. “I will explain it all to you at some point, I promise.”

  “I can wait,” James told her.

  “Can you?” She pulled away to look at him frankly. “Because I said before I wasn’t a good bet, and I still feel that way. There have to be women out there who are less complicated and messed up than I am.”

  “No one is a good bet, Laura,” James said gently. “And in any case, that’s not what relationships are about. I care about you. I’m willing to wait. And if, when you’ve got your head straight, as you like to say, you realise you’re not ready to be in a relationship, or you don’t want to be in one with me, well, I can accept that. I’ll be disappointed, admittedly, but I want what’s best for you.” As he said the words he realised he meant them. This wasn’t about him feeling rejected the way he had with Helen. This was about loving Laura enough to let her go, if that was what she needed. To be at peace with the prospect, even if it hurt.

  She hugged him again, her arms wrapped around him tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered. He hugged her back silently, knowing that for now at least, there were no more words to be said.

  As he let her go, she stood on her tiptoes to brush a soft kiss against his mouth. It had taken everything James had not to try to turn it into something more, but simply accept what she’d had to give with gladness.

  And he was glad—glad that they still had a chance, that Laura was looking to heal. It made him realise that perhaps he needed to put a few things in order, as well. And so, a few days later, with much trepidation and grim resolve, he’d called his father.

  David Hill had been nonplussed, to say the least, by his call. He was a man who only used the phone for emergencies; he’d never bought a mobile, and never would. Having a heart-to-heart conversation on a telephone was beyond him, but then it had seemed so was having one in real life.

  However, to his father’s credit, he listened to James’s halting explanations of how he’d felt inferior because he wasn’t a farmer, and how he knew that was on him more than it was on his dad, but he wanted to do better. He wasn’t even sure what the point of the conversation was, except that it was stuff he needed to say.

  “I suppose I always knew you felt that way, at least a bit,” his dad said gruffly when James had finished his stilted lament. “I never meant you to, though, lad. I hope you know that.”

  James didn’t think he’d ever heard his father say so much before. So much about feelings. “I think I did,” he said slowly. “It’s jus
t we’re really quite different.”

  “That we are.” His father gave a dry chuckle that made James, improbably, smile. “You ought to come home more, James,” he continued, his voice as brusque as ever. “I know you’re not one for farming, but it’s in your blood whether you like it or not.”

  Which had made James realise that perhaps his father had felt the same sort of rejection he’d felt, over him choosing teaching rather than the farm…not that David Hill would ever say as much. But maybe he didn’t need to.

  “Okay, Dad,” he said. “I will.”

  “We’ll get you sheering a sheep yet.”

  He’d shorn plenty of sheep during his teenaged years, when his Easter holidays had been nothing but helping on the farm. Still, he kept quiet about that. “Sure, and maybe I’ll get you reading a book.”

  His father was strictly a newspaper only man.

  He gave another rasp of a chuckle. “Who knows, maybe you will,” he answered. “One day.”

  All in all, it had been a good conversation, and it had given James hope, even as the weeks of not seeing Laura had felt like agony. No glimpsing her at school any longer, no chats in the schoolyard, no Monday night suppers, no texts, even. He’d kept his word, and he hoped she’d keep hers, and that one day—one day soon—they’d talk.

  The last of the school’s pupils was trickling through the gate and into the bountiful spring sunshine when he saw her. She was standing by the gate, wearing a bright purple jumper and a darker scarf, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, the expression on her face, even from this distance, one of both hope and hesitation, making him feel the same.

  James took a step into the schoolyard. “Laura…?”

  “Is this a good time?”

  He had thirty math notebooks to mark, and parent-teacher conferences next week, but yes, this was a good time. It was a perfect time. “Sure.”

  She smiled, and James turned back to the classroom. “Let me just close up.” He turned off the lights, deciding to leave his jacket and bag to fetch later. The day still held the benevolent warmth of spring, and it really was one to go without a coat.