by Jo Kessel
My index finger had got a blister from frantically pressing the redial button, trying to get to Adam before he got to me, but each time I’d rung his mobile I got an American ‘sorry, this network is busy, please try later.’ I’d spoken tirelessly to our home answer-machine, in the unlikely event he’d drop off his luggage before coming to the hospital, saying it was urgent, he had to call me AT ONCE. The last contact that had been made was Anthony leaving a message on his phone when my waters had broken. I’d contemplated sending Kayla to the airport, to intercept, but quickly dispensed with that idea. It wouldn’t have been fair to involve her that way, such a ghastly go-between and in any event, I’d been certain he was on the first plane back to London, whatever the cost, whichever the airport. Which meant there’d have been only the remotest chance Kayla would even go to the right place.
And so it was he got to me before I got to him, one hour after Anthony had left. Unkempt, unshaven, a huge bunch of flowers peeking out the top of his rucksack, he’d been jumping with excitement when he’d spotted me, propped up on my hot, rubber mattress in an NHS post-natal ward for four. It had been the dreaded moment, panning out in the most frightful way, no privacy and nowhere to hide. How can you tell a lawyer’s about to lie? He opens his mouth. That’s how the joke goes, but this was no joking matter. I’d been lying to Adam for months, not expressly, but by omission. As he approached my bedside I braced myself for the guts and gore of the Trojan War, for the launching of a thousand armoured ships.
“Adam, I’ve got something truly terr-”
He’d interrupted, leaning down to kiss me and only then had he glanced sideways at the incubator with Jasper in it, shifting from side to side, stirring.
“Where’s our baby?” he’d asked.
It had been the lowest moment of my life. My revelation was always going to be appalling, but leaving it so late to break the news was monstrous. What I’d done, to Adam of all people, a good person, an unwitting, thoroughly undeserving victim of my weakness was shameful, unforgivable. His face had been so bright, so elated and so anticipatory. I’d shaken my head.
“I’m sorry, Adam. I’m so sorry.”
Against all the odds those were the last words spoken. He’d just stared and stared first at me, then at the baby, standing, completely still, reading my expression, his face a complete blank until suddenly his eyes registered a click of comprehension. His reaction was completely unexpected. He didn’t throw daggers, he didn’t hurl hatred, and he didn’t lay a finger. He swung one arm free from his rucksack, pulled out the bunch of flowers and turned to leave without giving me a second glance. He’d been about to dump the roses in the bin by the door, but changed his mind at the last minute and gave them to the new mother opposite. The only sound that had filtered into the powerful silence was Jasper, who had started to cry.
***
I’d left it a fortnight before knocking at his door, not to reclaim half of what was mine, but to explain. I hadn’t wanted to leave it like that. An ending without words after eleven years. It wasn’t until the final hurdle that our edifice had started to crumble. Most of the time we’d spent together had been brilliant. I’d been lucky to share a third of my life with him. All this, I’d felt, needed to be said, but Adam had had no desire to hear it. He’d looked out the window to see who it was and refused to let me in. I didn’t bother getting out my key because not only would that have felt like trespassing, I knew for sure that it wouldn’t work. He’d told Kayla he’d had the locks changed when he went to dump most of my stuff in her flat the day after he’d come to see me in hospital. Poor Kayla! She’s still with Paul, despite her invidious position as piggy-in-the-middle.
It was Adam’s prerogative not to see me. If I’d been in his shoes I wouldn’t have wanted to see me either. If I’d been in his shoes I too would have refused to answer the door the handful of times I visited. I too would have returned unopened the lengthy tomes I’d penned. The last letter I sent, however, never winged its way back to me. I’d got so used to the charade that I’d presumed it lost in the post. Until a postcard, in his handwriting, landed on my doormat, saying ‘I think we should meet’. Which is why I’m still here, twenty minutes after our arranged rendezvous time, praying Adam will actually turn up.
***
The Adam I knew hated facial hair and lived in a pair of brown moccasins so worn out that the soles had started to flap. The Adam who’s just walked in, however, has grown a goatee and is wearing a new pair of shoes – designer, suede slip-on mules. He looks comfortable and at ease. He probably wouldn’t be here if it were otherwise. Because of Kayla, I’ve known exactly what’s going on in his life. His recovery was relatively swift. He’s now got a new (much younger) sexy blonde Psychiatrist girlfriend who’s recently moved in. All this makes how my life’s panned out much easier to bear. I’d been prepared to get a place on my own, with Jasper, but Anthony wouldn’t hear of it. His home was now ours, he’d said. That was where we belonged. From day one it had felt a perfect fit. We’re a good team and that special connection hasn’t dwindled, despite the demands of a newborn baby.
Telling my parents, the gang at chambers, well, it was a shock to everybody, requiring a huge leap of faith. My Mother’s primary concern was whether Anthony planned to marry me. Neeta was insistent I was spinning a yarn. Maxwell Hood QC was the only person to give his unequivocal blessing. “Good luck to the two of you,” was what he’d said. Most of the people that matter have slowly got their heads round it. It’s not all been easy though. Like this, right now. I’m far more anxious than Adam. My hands are slightly wobbly. I haven’t touched my café latte. Adam orders a freshly squeezed orange juice at the counter, comes to join me, pulling out a chair. I gulp hard. It feels awkward, strange to have this man feel like a stranger.
“Hello Adam,” I say.
He stares at me, like he did in the hospital. There’s no telltale sign of nervousness, none of the usual thumbnail chewing. His fingers are calmly clasped on his lap.
“You need to know that I’m here for Paul, not you,” he says.
I nod.
“He didn’t want there to be a lifetime of bad feeling, just in case, you know-”
“That’s fine,” I say. “I completely understand.”
This is Adam’s get-together, his call. I know what I’d like to tell him, but think he should take the lead. There’s a long, long pause, broken only by the clank of his orange juice being laid on our table and Adam’s ‘thanks’. I’m about to break the silence, wondering if he’s waiting for me, for the full-blown face to face apology, when he starts to speak.
“You know, I’ve gone over and over what I would say if I ever set eyes on you again,” he starts. “I was going to shout and swear and spit, tell you exactly what I thought of you, and now……….now………you know what, now that you’re sitting in front of me Ali, the moment’s gone. Now none of it seems to matter quite so much.”
He shakes his head.
“It doesn’t excuse what you did. What you did was utterly reprehensible.”
“I know,” I whisper. A gush of apologies, begging forgiveness, screams of repentance, are stacked up in my mind, pushing against the back of my throat, but when I open my mouth it’s simple. “I never meant to hurt you.” That’s it. That’s the truth.
He focuses on the glass that he’s holding in both hands for a while, then looks up.
“You were right about one thing though, Ali.”
“Sorry?” I splutter. Nothing I did could be considered ‘right’.
He explains how at first he’d wanted to hate me and hurt me and wish all manner of evil on me. I’d destroyed his life, his hopes and his dignity. But as time passed and with the help of Fiona (new Psychiatrist girlfriend) he’d come to realize that I’d been right. Not in my actions, but that our relationship had run its course. I thought he’d been in blissful oblivion, but even he had recognized that we’d become stale. It had been easier to stay together than to split up. We were
all we ever knew. Our comfort zone had become too comfortable, only we hadn’t wanted to admit it. There’d been lots of love, but somewhere along the line we’d stopped being ‘in love’. He’d not been able to put his finger on it, but he’d sensed something was up for months, which is why the revelation in the hospital hadn’t been the complete, utter surprise I’d have expected.
“All I want is for you to be happy,” I speak quietly.
I wipe away a tear with the back of my hand, the emotion of the occasion overwhelming me. Adam was my best friend for years. My desire is genuine. I want him to have what I have.
“Then your wish has been granted,” he says.
“Good.”
I smile through my tears as I start to cry properly, unleashing a ton of feelings that had been put on hold, yank a handful of serviettes from the metal holder on our table.
“Have a nice life Ali,” says Adam.
For the briefest of seconds he touches my arm, makes eye contact. And then he goes. Without drinking his orange juice, without giving me the chance to give back my engagement ring. It’s still sitting in my trouser pocket, wrapped in tissue. He leaves me under no illusion that we can ever patch things up, that there’s room for one another as friends in each others lives, but somewhere, somehow, out of all this mess, we’ve reached some kind of resolution, a sense of closure.
EPILOGUE
“Ali?” whispers Anthony, laying a gentle hand on my shoulder.
I open my eyes, marvelling first at the sight before me, father with son cradled under one arm, both looking beautifully delicious, then at the time on my bedside clock. It’s eight-thirty in the morning. At long bloody last, a lie-in. Anthony must have slipped our child a Mogadon!
“It’s breakfast time,” he says softly, opening a chink in the curtains single-handed before passing Jasper over. I take the precious bundle, wriggle up to sitting and position the baby to my breast. Anthony lifts a tray from the floor, places it on the middle of the bed. It’s loaded with a pot of tea and two plates of toast topped with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. This man makes the creamiest eggs imaginable. Luckily I’m treated often. He gets back into his side of the bed, pulls up the duvet, leans over to pick up a slice of toast and looks at us, smiling, with his face and his eyes. A gush of pleasure and love overwhelms me. This isn’t an infrequent phenomenon. It happens at least once a day, a sense of feeling wonderfully alive, blissfully happy, blessed beyond belief.
Anthony’s been around loads since Jasper’s arrival. He’s not taken full-blown paternity leave, but he’s cut right back on his hours. He wanted to do it properly. When his daughter was born eight years ago he was working like a maniac, only really saw her at weekends, by which time he was too exhausted to really enjoy it. With our baby, he wanted to remember every last little bit. Life’s too short, he said.
We’ve spoken loads since about us, how we’ve ended up together. At first I was worried he was doing it to be chivalrous, do the right thing by me, but straight away he put paid to that. “Ali Kirk,” he tells me frequently, “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you and nothing’s changed.” Yes, divorce had made him wary of commitment. Yes, the responsibility of another child made him nervous, but did he have any regrets at the way things had turned out? Not for a second! He’d apparently been so close to telling me how he felt on so many different occasions – when I’d broached him about that blonde bombshell Solicitor Louise, before he’d bit into Adam’s engagement ring, just after we’d won the Scott Richardson case – but he’d held back. “You were pregnant and about to get married,” he said. “I just couldn’t.”
Anthony’s home now feels as much ours as his. Bit by bit I’ve introduced some of my belongings – the chaise longue, a wooden blanket box, a freestanding mirror and a couple of paintings. Nothing dramatic, but it’s been nice to put a stamp on his flat in some small way and there’s been no objection.
I’m thankful for how things have turned out. From day one Anthony and I felt very natural, not at all forced, as it could have been, from the situation. The stresses and exhaustion of parenthood haven’t affected our intimacy. As I pop the last piece of smoked salmon into my mouth, Jasper’s eyes start to close. There’s not a second to waste.
“Mozart time?” I ask.
Anthony putting the tray back on the floor tells me that my subtle question has been understood. I get up, lay my little boy carefully down in his cot and switch on his musical mobile, which gives us a sure-fire symphony-filled fifteen minutes of freedom courtesy of maestro Wolfgang. Anthony’s waiting to pull me towards him as I jump back into bed.
THE END
About the Author:
When I was ten years old I wrote a short story about losing a loved one. My mother and big sister were so moved by the tale that it made them cry. Having reduced them to tears I vowed that the next time I wrote a story it would make them smile. Happily I succeeded and with this success grew an addiction for wanting to reach out and touch people with words. I live in London with my husband and three small children where I work as a TV and print journalist. I tell life stories (some sad, some happy, never dull) and can often be found travelling the globe researching the next big holiday hotspots for readers to enjoy. Since becoming a Mummy anything even remotely sad has me crying uncontrollably. I’m a sucker for a good romance and tear-jerker movies are the worst. I’m that woman in the cinema, struggling to muffle audible wails as everyone else turns round to stare. And I’m pretty sure that one of my daughter’s has inherited this gene.
If you’d like to know when new books are released please drop by my website http://www.jokessel.com
Also by Jo Kessel
Weak at the Knees:
US http://amzn.to/18UXn8c
UK http://amzn.to/1htajqF
One Last Thing…….
Thank you for taking the time to read Lover in Law. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it. When you turn the page, Kindle will give you the opportunity to rate the book and share your thoughts through an automatic feed to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you believe your friends would enjoy this book, I’d be honoured if you’d post your thoughts and put a review on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever else you like to go to find books. If it turns out to make a difference in their lives, they’ll be forever grateful to you. As will I.
Table of Contents
JANUARY
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
FEBRUARY
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
MARCH
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
APRIL
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
MAY
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
JUNE
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
JULY
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
AUGUST
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
SEPTEMBER
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
OCTOBER
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
NOVEMBER
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
DECEMBER
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
SIX MONTHS LATER
EPILOGUE
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