by Fiona Lucas
Of course he was going to forgive her for being afraid; it would be highly hypocritical of him if he didn’t, but there was something more here. He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked from the bedroom into the living area, needing more space. He’d told her the truth. After last night, they couldn’t stuff their relationship back into the same shape it had been before. It had outgrown that. It had shed that skin. They both had to face that if they were going to go forward.
“I don’t want to be just your friend anymore, Anna.” He paused, gathering the words he knew he had to say inside his head before he let them out, making sure they were all lined up in the right order, ready to make sense. He was only going to say this once. “I want more than that.”
“Brody—”
He cut her off before she could interrupt him further. “I love you.” He could hear her breathing, but she didn’t say anything. He understood that. He understood how the fear could freeze your thoughts, paralyze your mouth. “And I think the reason you ran away from me last night is that you have feelings for me too.”
There. He’d said it. Put it all on the line. Now it was out there. I jump, you jump. Come on, Anna. Show me how brave you can be . . .
He could sense her struggling, fighting what he’d said. He sat down on one of the dining chairs and put his phone on the glass-topped table, switching it to speaker, and silently willed her to make the leap with him.
“I can’t tell you what you want to hear, Brody. I just can’t.”
“Why?”
“I can’t feel about you the way you want me to.”
She was lying. The knowledge made him irritated and elated in equal measures. “Why not?”
“Because you’re not Spencer.”
He almost laughed out loud. “Bullshit!” She’d always said he never pulled his punches. Seemed he couldn’t even stop himself even if he wanted to. “You’re scared. I get that.”
She made a noncommittal huff.
“And do you want to know why I get that?”
He told Anna anyway, whether she wanted to know or not. He began with his first panic attack, how his world had shrunk smaller and smaller until she’d come into his life, how fear had ruled him for years, but also how she’d inspired him to challenge it. Not just that, but to conquer it. He told her about his journey to London to meet her, how he’d had to battle fear a hundred times, how he’d stood on that viewing platform, clenching that damn railing for two hours waiting for her to turn up. How he’d had his worst panic attack yet the moment she’d sped downward in the lift.
“That’s everything,” he finally said. “Everything I’ve never told anyone else because I was too ashamed of how weak and broken I felt. Because I was too scared.”
There was an uncomfortable shuffling on the other end of the line. He might have heard her stifle a sob or wipe her nose too. He really wasn’t sure. “Oh, Brody . . .” she said, and her voice was thick with tears. “I . . . I didn’t know . . .”
Brody nodded to himself. “I wouldn’t have expected you to. I’ve done a good job of hiding it from everyone for years. Even myself. But I’m not hiding anymore, Anna, and that’s because of you. I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
The sound at the other end of the phone line didn’t change, but he had the oddest feeling she was holding her breath.
“You don’t have to be scared either. We can try again . . . Come to the hotel and we’ll find somewhere to go out for breakfast, somewhere small and quiet, and we can talk?”
“I can’t, Brody. I can’t! You know why.”
Yes, he did know why. But it wasn’t the reason she was giving him; it was the one she refused to admit to herself.
“Please . . .” she whispered, and the tremor in her voice tore his heart. “Please, don’t push this. Let’s just go back to talking . . . Being friends?”
Brody pushed back in the chair and stood up, leaving the phone on the table. “But I can’t do what you want either,” he said. “I don’t want to lie to you anymore, Anna, and that’s what you’re asking me to do.”
“Then, I can’t . . . We can’t . . .” She trailed off and he felt the silence turn from jagged and uneven to smooth and gray and flat, like concrete. Before she spoke again, he knew what choice she’d made. “I think you’re right,” she said finally, and this time her voice didn’t waver or tremble. “We can’t go back.”
“Anna—”
“I think we need to take a break, you and I.” The aloofness in her tone cut through him like an icy gust of air.
Brody turned to the window and laid his forehead on its cool surface and closed his eyes. It was no good. He’d hit a brick wall. One he couldn’t smash down; one he couldn’t climb over or dig under. He’d built an identical wall once upon a time, and it had ruined his marriage, ostracized his family. His wall had stood hard and proud for years, until Anna Barry had come along and dismantled it brick by brick, damn her.
Unfortunately, he also knew there was nothing he could say or do to make her take her wall down. Just as Katri had begged him to bulldoze his, to support each other in their grief over Lena, yet he’d stubbornly refused. He hadn’t been ready then, just as Anna wasn’t ready now. She might never be.
And to prove her point, Anna said the words he’d never thought he’d hear her say to him.
“Goodbye, Brody.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Anna lay on her back, the covers pulled up over her head. She stared at the underside of her duvet. It was Sunday morning, and she’d got up three hours ago, but now she was back in here, at a loss for anything else to do. Would someone please tell her how to make it stop hurting, how to get that nice, calm, white bubble thing going again? That would be really helpful, thank you.
Oh, God, she was such a coward.
Especially after everything he’d told her.
He’d been wrong about her. Spencer had been wrong about her. She wasn’t strong. She was pitiful. She was a jellyfish.
And whoever had said “knowledge is power” was also wrong. This knowledge of how she felt about Brody didn’t make her any stronger. It didn’t change anything. Because what she had told Brody was true. She didn’t have it in her to love that way again. Not because she didn’t want to but because she just . . . couldn’t. It would break her. Weren’t people always saying prevention was better than cure? This was the perfect example.
And here she was, thinking again, when she’d deliberately been trying to do anything but.
Anna sighed and felt her warm breath reflected back to her by the duvet cover. She lay there for ten more minutes before she flipped it back and stared at the ceiling. The second day of January was as gray and heavy as she felt, and she could just about make out the reflected shape of her sash windows on the painted plaster above her head.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her phone lying on the bedside table. She itched to reach out and pick it up, to dial the one source of comfort she’d found when things were dark and bleak, but that was impossible now, wasn’t it? Pain and comfort had been rolled into one convenient package.
It seemed like a lifetime since she’d last talked to him. Not fourteen hours and twenty-five minutes . . . No!
Not those numbers. Those were the wrong numbers.
Anna threw the duvet off and got out of bed, something driving her. She found herself in front of Spencer’s wardrobe and opened the doors, but there was no row of soothing shirts inside, only a higgledy-piggledy pile of ugly black sacks.
She pulled out the top one and rested it on the bed, then she plunged her fingernail into the stretchy black plastic, tearing the hole she’d made in the early hours of New Year’s Day wider. It was very satisfying. She hooked both hands on either side of the rip and pulled outward. Spencer’s shirts, which had been neatly folded and stacked, spilled onto the floor.
One at a time, she picked them up and returned them to their hangers, smoothing out the creases on the shoulders as she went. And the
n she disemboweled bag after bag, returning their innards to their proper places, until everything was right and neat and exactly the way it had been before—three years, nine months and ten days ago.
BRODY’S PHONE LAY in its new home on the kitchen counter. He glanced at it as he walked past. The screen was black and empty. When he’d got it, he’d thought of it as being a piece of equipment that would allow him to contact the outside world. It hadn’t occurred to him—or mattered—if any communication could come back the other way. Now it was all he could think about.
In the past week, he’d called her a handful of times, not wanting to be too pushy. She hadn’t replied. He’d described Anna as brave, amazing, kind . . . But now he knew he could add “stubborn” to that list. If he hadn’t been feeling so dull and empty inside, he might have laughed about that. This level of pigheadedness made them the perfect match. But he wasn’t finding it very funny at the moment. Not at all.
Brody thought for a moment then turned and headed for his study. He hadn’t been in this room much this past week. Every time he sat in that old armchair it only made it seem all the more glaring that his phone remained silent, so he’d just stopped sitting there. He didn’t want to be that guy. Watching, waiting. Pining.
In fact . . .
Brody stared at his armchair. If possible, it looked shabbier than it had done before. He stared for a few seconds more then walked over, picked it up by the arms and wrestled it out through his cottage and into the yard, where he dragged it into a secluded corner round the back of one of the outbuildings.
Once he got it in exactly the right spot, he marched into the workshop, picked a plastic container of fluid off the shelf and returned outside. He unscrewed the lid, poured the barbecue lighter all over the upholstery and arms—silently thanking the gods that the chair’s age meant it was constructed of wood and metal and horsehair rather than toxic foam—and then he lit a match and tossed it onto the seat. The flames caught even before the match landed. He stood there, watching it burn, and a slow smile formed.
He felt the warmth of the flames on his face and chest and he thought about Anna. He’d hoped that they could go forward together, but no matter what she chose, he needed to be able to do it on his own.
The armchair crackled as the flames began to eat through the upholstery and into the padding underneath. Brody turned and walked back across the yard toward his house.
Moving forward.
That meant he had a few phone calls to make.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
The next day, Anna arrived far too early at Tullet’s Garden Centre, having encountered a bewildering lack of traffic even for a Sunday afternoon in early January. She made her way to the café, opened a reading app on her phone and settled down to wait. She’d managed three chapters of her novel by the time her phone pinged to life—a text from Teresa: ETA five minutes.
Anna carried on reading, every now and then glancing up to the end of the café that merged into the sales floor, and after a few minutes she spotted Teresa navigating her bulky stroller through the display stands full of Wellington boots and gardening gloves. Anna stood up and was about to wave when she saw another figure alongside Teresa.
Gayle.
Their mother-in-law strolled behind Teresa, hair set, posture perfect. Gayle spotted Anna when they were about twenty feet from each other. She stopped briefly, her jaw tightening, then began walking again. It seemed that neither of them had been expecting an extra guest.
Anna turned to Teresa as she parked the stroller beside the table. She was looking nervous but resolute. She gave Anna a hug, while Gayle stood stiffly by, then Teresa pulled out a chair and sat down. Anna looked across at Gayle, and Gayle looked back at her, and in the absence of any other ideas, they both sat down too.
“Sorry for the subterfuge,” Teresa began, but then corrected herself. “Well, maybe I’m not very sorry.” She looked between Anna and Gayle, her eyes asking for understanding. “Something had to be done. We’re family . . . And family gets through things. Family doesn’t let stuff fester—at least they shouldn’t.”
Teresa was right, of course, but Anna wasn’t sure this was going to do any good. Gayle hated her. She glanced across at her mother-in-law, who looked as if she’d just sucked a lemon. If she’d needed any confirmation, there it was.
“Right, I’m going to go and get us all some coffees. Cappuccinos?” Teresa took in both Gayle’s and Anna’s nods and added, “I’m going to leave this little man here rather than try and deal with a stroller and a tray, and while you’re minding him, you two can talk. Okay?”
Anna looked nervously across the table at Gayle. Although this had to be the most uncomfortable coffee date ever, she knew Teresa was just trying to help, and she loved her for that. However, she didn’t want Teresa to endanger her own relationship with Gayle and Richard.
But when Gayle turned to smile at her grandson as Teresa walked away, Anna realized she needn’t worry. The balance of power had shifted in that relationship, thank goodness. From the warm look in Gayle’s eyes as she gazed at Little Spencer, she wasn’t about to do anything to jeopardize being able to spend as much time with him as Teresa would let her.
Anna breathed out, knowing that made what she was about to say easier. Even though she hadn’t come here prepared, it was suddenly clear to her what she needed to do. She couldn’t control what her mother-in-law did, whether she chose to hold on to this grudge or not, but she could stop being a coward and take responsibility for her own part.
After a couple of moments of staring at the acrylic tabletop, she took a deep breath and said, “I would like to apologize, Gayle. For what I said to you on Spencer’s birthday. I shouldn’t have said those things, and I’m sorry that I shouted at you in front of the rest of the family. It was wrong of me to do that.”
Gayle turned away from her grandson, looking slightly taken aback. “Th-thank you.”
“And I want you to know that I didn’t bring Jeremy”—Gayle’s eyes narrowed at the mention of his name—“To the party to upset you or cause problems. I had intended on bringing Gabi, but plans changed at the last minute and Jeremy stepped in. I . . . I know him from my salsa class.”
Gayle was watching her carefully. “But he’s more than that, this man. He’s not just a salsa partner?”
To deny this completely wouldn’t have been honest. “He was. We went out to dinner a few times,” she said calmly. “But there’s nothing wrong with that, and at the party we didn’t do anything. We didn’t even touch each other. I wanted to be sensitive . . .”
Gayle huffed slightly. Her expression told Anna exactly what she thought about that. It was tempting to do what she always did—what everyone did—and go along with Gayle for a quiet life, but she knew she needed to draw a line in the sand now, or nothing would ever change. “I might not want to be on my own for the rest of my life, Gayle. Surely you can understand that?”
Gayle looked away. She did understand, Anna guessed. She just didn’t want to.
Gayle spent a long time staring at her grandson, holding his hand and playing with his chubby fingers as he beamed back at her, and then, without looking around, she said, “I saw you with him, and I . . . I . . .” She turned and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I thought it was him at first, you see. Just for a split second. The same sort of height, the same color hair . . .”
“Oh . . .” Anna replied, her voice trailing away as she realized she didn’t know how to respond to that. Did Jeremy look a little like Spencer from the back? She hadn’t thought so, but maybe he did. “That must have been . . . hard.”
Gayle’s mouth wobbled slightly. “And then when I realized it wasn’t him, that you’d chosen someone who looked so much like him, as if you’d just . . . replaced him . . .” She shook her head disbelievingly “I saw red.” She took a moment to compose herself. “I am very sorry, Anna, for what I said to you that night. It was wrong, and I didn’t mean it. I’ve wanted to tell you that for month
s now, but every time I thought about calling you or dropping round I . . . couldn’t.” Her gaze dropped to the tabletop. “I was just so ashamed of myself.”
“I appreciate that, Gayle. Thank you. But it wasn’t just the party, was it? Even before that I could sense that you were freezing me out. Why?”
“Because it didn’t seem fair,” Gayle muttered, eyes still downcast. “You could marry again, find someone new to love . . . But I’ll never be able to replace my son.” She looked up at Anna. “And I could sense it coming,” she said, looking both fearful and distraught. “I could tell you were getting ready to do that, and I suppose I was jealous that you could find someone to fill that hole in your life when I would never be able to. The easiest thing was to push you away, so I didn’t have to deal with it.”
Anna swallowed. This was something she definitely couldn’t judge her mother-in-law for, especially as it was a Herculean effort to hold everything she’d been feeling since New Year’s Eve at bay. “I understand that.”
“I don’t hate you, Anna, honestly I don’t. In fact, if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have been bothered about any of this, but I just got so wrapped up in how I was feeling that I didn’t stop to . . .” She looked at Anna pleadingly. “I’m so sorry. Will you forgive me?”
As Anna regarded Gayle, she discovered she could. She nodded, but before they ended this discussion, she realized there was something else she needed to clear up, otherwise it was just going to rear its ugly head again in the future. “I’m not seeing Jeremy anymore,” she said, and saw Gayle’s expression brighten. “But I might find someone someday. If it had been me who had died instead of Spencer, if he was sitting with you here today, wouldn’t you want him to be happy?”
Gayle initially stiffened at the reminder of what she’d said at the party to Anna, but as she thought of her son, her eyes misted. “Of course.”
“Then why is it so wrong for me to want the same—whatever shape that happiness comes in, whether it’s a man, or a new family, or something else?”