The Day My Husband Left: An absolutely gripping and emotional page-turner

by Amy Miller

  Until now, she thought. Johnny had changed everything, and she didn’t know how she felt about that: furious or thrilled?

  Feeling light-headed, she took the piece of paper and the Polaroid of her holding William while sitting on the rose chair downstairs. Leaning it up against the computer, she googled the Blackbird Café. An idea flashed into her head. Perhaps she would ring the café to find out if they had a William working there. Just to confirm things to herself. It was the sort of thing Scarlet would do; go directly to the heart of the storm.

  Before she had time to change her mind, she called the café, breathless with panic.

  ‘Hello, Blackbird Café. How can I help?’ said a female voice after one ring. Heidi’s heart thumped in her ears.

  ‘Hello, I wondered if you have a William working there please?’ she asked.

  There was a noise as the person on the other end held the phone against their chest and called the name ‘William’. A few more seconds passed, before more rustling, and a cough, then:

  ‘Hello, this is William,’ a deep male voice said.

  His voice sounded like Johnny’s! Heidi’s legs gave way and she slumped down into the Chesterfield sofa, still clutching the phone. She wasn’t expecting his voice. Heidi could see him, vividly, standing there in the café, holding the phone, dressed in black T-shirt and black jeans, blinking and waiting for a conversation to start. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t find a single word. What could she say anyway? She didn’t even know if he knew about her existence. Had he ever actually met Johnny? She didn’t know that either.

  Without making a sound she finished the call, pressing the ‘End’ button with trembling fingers, then closed her eyes.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ she said to the empty room. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. God, what am I doing? Stupid, stupid, stupid!’

  Throwing down the phone, she moved into the kitchen and leaned up against the kitchen counter, humming her go-to tune until she felt calmer. She needed to think carefully. If she did want to contact William, she had to make the decision with a clear mind. People spent months or even years trying to track down their adopted or adoptive families; finding William like this had happened too quickly. If Johnny had talked about this to her, if he had shared what he was doing and not kept it secret – maybe she would be able to get her head around the conflicting, confusing emotions rinsing through her.

  You can’t just phone someone up and tell them you’re their mother, she chastised herself.

  No, if she went ahead with this at all, she would have to go through the formal process of searching through the contact register for adoptees and birth parents and see if William had tried to make contact. Or do it her own way, start a campaign on social media or something. She’d heard about someone else doing that – holding up a board with their baby’s birth date and birth name on it, asking for it to be shared on Facebook. Within days she had found her child. But she already had a phone number to call and a place to find William. Had Johnny already met him? If he had – and had suddenly disappeared – how did William feel now? Had William been there that day when Johnny died? Her head pounded with questions.

  ‘Argh!’ she said, lifting her hands to her head.

  At that moment, Heidi’s mobile rang, making her jump. Physically shaking, she thought for one terrifying moment that William was calling her back. She located her phone and checked the number. Scarlet. Her heart continued to pound.

  ‘Mum, it’s me,’ said Scarlet. ‘I’ve got classes soon, but can we talk? I didn’t want to bother you with all of this, but I need your advice. I’m having a bit of a nightmare.’

  Heidi swallowed, recalling what Zoe had told her. Scarlet rarely showed vulnerability. Even as a child, when she fell over and took the skin off her hands and knees, she refused to show that she was suffering. Heidi knew she mustn’t overreact.

  ‘Of course, Scarlet,’ she said, hearing Scarlet sigh with relief.

  ‘Can we go to Jack’s? said Scarlet. ‘On Saturday?’

  ‘I’d love that,’ Heidi said, blinking away the sudden tears that had hit her eyes. Jack’s was a reclamation yard near Scarlet’s university – Johnny had loved it there and could spend literally hours wandering around the yard or talking to Jack, who was full of stories.

  After ringing off, Heidi clutched her phone and stood frozen to the spot, but the sound of Zoe’s key in the door prompted her into action.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Zoe called through the door. ‘I’m back. Leo’s gone home.’

  Heidi followed her into the living room and watched her throw her coat onto the Chesterfield before heading towards the computer. Heidi swallowed. She had stupidly left the photograph leaning against the computer and the Blackbird Café website up on the screen. Her legs turned to water.

  ‘Zoe!’ Heidi shouted.

  ‘What?’ Zoe said, spinning around to face her.

  Heidi could see from Zoe’s eyes that she’d been crying. Heidi frowned.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she started, but Zoe changed the subject.

  ‘Who’s this?’ said Zoe, picking up the photograph.

  Heidi’s ears hummed with panic as she struggled to find an explanation.

  ‘Is it you?’ Zoe said, looking more closely. ‘When you were really young?’

  ‘It’s me, yes, years ago,’ said Heidi, her voice cracking. ‘Holding my aunt’s friend’s baby when I visited once I think.’

  ‘Why do you have a nightie on?’ said Zoe, frowning. ‘You look so eighties!’

  ‘It was the eighties!’ said Heidi, trying to sound vague and disinterested. ‘I’d probably just got up. I have no recollection. It was a lifetime ago.’

  Zoe dropped the picture down by the keyboard without giving it more consideration and climbed the stairs to her room, giving Heidi the chance to close down the computer and tuck the photograph between the pages of a book. She exhaled. ‘Out of sight, but never out of mind,’ she muttered.

  Physically shaking, she felt as if the walls were closing in on her. She needed to calm down.

  Changing into her swimsuit and pulling on her clothes over the top, quickly gathering together her swimming bag, she called up to Zoe before she left.

  ‘I’m going for a swim,’ she said, waiting for the muted ‘okay’ from Zoe’s bedroom.

  Closing the front door, she headed to the beach, where the water was choppy and the waves messy. She quickly undressed, leaving her things in a pile on the beach, and ran into the water, thinking only of the man in the café. William.

  Nine

  ‘I think I’ve changed since Dad died,’ said Scarlet as they wandered through Jack’s Yard, past reclaimed chimney pots, sinks, stained-glass windows, a phone box, garden statues and a huge enamel advertising sign for Coleman’s mustard. She paused to stroke a black-and-white cat curled up in a stone garden planter.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ said Heidi.

  ‘I think I’ve realised that you only get one shot at life,’ she said. ‘I’m more honest with myself now and have started questioning what I’m doing and asking myself if I’m really enjoying it, rather than just going along with things.’

  Heidi nodded.

  ‘You should get some of those for Grandma and use them as planters,’ said Scarlet, pointing to a collection of galvanised metal buckets. ‘She’ll be planting her dahlias now.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Heidi said, picking up a couple of buckets and checking the price. ‘So, you were saying you feel like you’re being more honest with yourself. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?’

  Scarlet murmured her agreement but didn’t divulge anything further. On the way to Jack’s, Heidi hadn’t asked any questions because Scarlet was very much like Johnny. When she was ready to talk, she would, not before. And besides, Heidi wanted to make this last as long as possible. Being with Scarlet helped her stop thinking about William and that mad, wild phone call she’d made. Knowing that he was close by was a wonderful, yet terrifying, secret.


  ‘Shall we get coffee and cake?’ she said to Scarlet.

  They went inside Jack’s warehouse, which was full to the rafters of yet more lovely old things, from vintage mirrors and wardrobes, to crockery and jewellery. Heidi lugged the buckets to the till and paid, while Scarlet ordered coffee and carrot cake and found them somewhere to sit down. When Heidi joined her, Scarlet yawned.

  ‘I’ve not been able to sleep, so I’m binge-watching Killing Eve on Netflix,’ said Scarlet. This morning, with her hair gathered on top of her head, she reminded Heidi of Johnny. William had looked so much like Johnny. Would Scarlet, Heidi wondered, recognise herself in William, should they ever meet? Stop, she told herself, taking a gulp of the scalding coffee. Stop.

  ‘You and me both,’ said Heidi. ‘I don’t mean the Killing Eve bit, but I couldn’t sleep either. I haven’t slept well since your dad died. I feel like I did when you were born. You wanted feeding every forty-five minutes, so I didn’t sleep for months.’

  Scarlet rolled her eyes.

  ‘I thought you’d blame me!’ said Scarlet. ‘But apparently breast is best, so you did the right thing. I heard a radio show about it. Babies are less likely to have allergies or get ill, infant mortality rates go down, new mums are less likely to develop ovarian cancer. The list goes on. I suppose there’s no reason why any good mother who was physically able wouldn’t breastfeed.’

  Heidi suffered a blast of guilt, thinking of William.

  ‘Each to their own,’ she said. ‘Some women have all sorts of reasons for not breastfeeding. You mustn’t be all almighty about it. You can’t really judge a situation until you’ve lived it.’

  Scarlet rolled her eyes again. She was the queen of eye-rolling.

  ‘You would say that,’ she said. ‘You’re always looking out for the underdog, forgiving everyone for everything.’

  ‘Course I am,’ said Heidi, with a smile.

  ‘And I wouldn’t have you any other way,’ said Scarlet, gently squeezing Heidi’s arm. ‘Imagine if you were one of those strict mums who disapproved of everything?’

  Heidi thought of Rosalind, who had disapproved so strongly when Heidi fell pregnant. The disapproval had been so painful she had striven to make Zoe and Scarlet feel they could tell her and Johnny anything, however terrible. ‘Even if you accidentally kill someone or get involved in some hideous crime,’ she once told them when they were wide-eyed youngsters, tucking into fishfingers and beans, ‘I’ll be here for you. Always.’

  Scarlet had immediately taken her to task, quizzing her over various awful scenarios. ‘So, if I suddenly murdered six innocent people,’ she said, ‘you’d support me? You’d actually stick by me and visit me in jail? Even if all those people’s families sent you hate mail or spat at you?’

  ‘I would,’ was Heidi’s reply.

  ‘If I ever kill someone,’ Zoe had said, after thinking it over, ‘I wouldn’t want you to visit me. I wouldn’t want anyone to visit me.’

  ‘So,’ ventured Heidi now, ‘why aren’t you sleeping?’

  Scarlet sipped her coffee and stared into the distance.

  ‘When Dad died, I started thinking about relationships – how you and him have been together forever,’ she said. ‘It just hit me when I was at a Mexican restaurant one night that I didn’t love Charlie in that way. I had stronger feelings for someone else. Romantic feelings. Whatever you want to call it.’

  Heidi nodded, desperate for Scarlet to feel relaxed enough to get everything off her chest.

  ‘And does this someone else feel the same about you?’ Heidi asked. Scarlet nodded and sighed.

  ‘Charlie isn’t taking it very well,’ Scarlet said. ‘I’ve asked him to move out of my room, and at first, he refused, until I put all his belongings on the street outside. Then he got furious, said I was a heartless, selfish bitch and that I was doing all of this because I hadn’t dealt with Dad’s death properly. Apparently, I’m in denial. When I told him that wasn’t true and that actually I’d fallen for someone else, he went mad. He punched the wall and cut his knuckles! I didn’t know what to do. I handled it all wrongly. Shouted a lot. But now, he won’t leave me alone. He goes to the places he knows I go to, you know, the bars, and waits outside. He emails me all the time. I feel this kind of dread whenever I see him.’

  Heidi nodded, her heart aching at the tremble in Scarlet’s voice.

  ‘There’s no excuse for him to lash out at you or follow you around,’ Heidi said. ‘You’ve broken up with him. He has to accept it. Are you frightened of him?’

  Scarlet shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m just sick of him.’

  ‘And who have you fallen for?’ Heidi said.

  ‘I’ve fallen for a woman called Frankie,’ said Scarlet. ‘You have to understand that everyone is much more open to experimentation these days and to allowing themselves to be attracted to the person rather than a gender. It’s not that I don’t still like men, I do, but I also like Frankie. She’s on my course.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Heidi, ‘and what’s Frankie like? Is she clever and ambitious like you? Is she the first woman you’ve had a relationship with?’

  Scarlet smiled.

  ‘You and Dad are so normal,’ she said, emphasising the word normal as though it were an insult. ‘You’re so conventional and straight down the line and black and white.’

  ‘We are not!’ Heidi said, aware that they were both referring to Johnny as if he was still alive. She grinned at Scarlet, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I’ve got earrings and a tattoo. Your dad played in a band and smoked a joint on his thirtieth birthday!’

  We’ve got a long-lost son who your dad found before he died. That photograph he took, it wasn’t an accident; it was a message. A gift.

  ‘Joint! That’s not even a word now, Mum. Oh, you know what I mean,’ Scarlet said. ‘Anyway, my point is that I don’t want to be pigeonholed as gay or straight.’

  ‘I wouldn’t pigeonhole you, Scarlet,’ Heidi started, ‘I’m totally supportive of whatever makes you hap—’

  ‘So basically,’ interrupted Scarlet, ‘what I’m trying to tell you is that I’m flexisexual. It basically means my sexual attraction is flexible; it changes.’

  Heidi had never heard the term before, but she grinned and hit the table with the side of her fist to demonstrate her enthusiasm and encouragement.

  ‘Well that’s brilliant,’ said Heidi. ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘Don’t be all weird,’ sighed Scarlet. ‘I knew you’d be weird.’

  To be truthful, Heidi didn’t give a damn whether her daughter was in a relationship with a man or a woman – what she did care about was whether that man or woman made her happy. She felt suddenly silently furious with Johnny. Him dying meant she was left to bring their daughters up alone. Make the right decisions. Point them in the right direction. Be a father and a mother. What if she got it all wrong? Suddenly she felt the choking weight of Johnny’s absence bear down on her chest. She breathed deeply and reached across the table to hold Scarlet’s hand.

  ‘Darling girl,’ she said. ‘I love you, and no doubt Frankie loves you, and Charlie still loves you because you’re an incredible young woman. Clever, funny, determined, strong and beautiful. Whoever you fall in love with and have a relationship with is lucky. I’m supportive of you in every single way. I might have been a bit… absent… since Dad died and not as good a mum as I should be, but I love you and Zoe so much. I hope you know that.’

  Scarlet blinked.

  ‘You’re always a good mum,’ she said in a wobbly voice. ‘I love you too. It’s been really hard breaking up with Charlie. He’s made such a performance out of it. I think he’s one of those people who will hold a lifelong grudge. When I see him randomly in thirty years’ time, he’ll probably ignore me or tell me that I ruined his life. Hold me personally responsible for all of his life’s failings.’

  Heidi’s face fell. ‘Don’t say that,’ she replied, Scarlet’s words hitting her raw nerve. Did William feel the s
ame?

  ‘Maybe he’ll surprise you,’ she added hopefully.

  ‘I don’t like surprises,’ Scarlet said. ‘They never end well.’

  Heidi didn’t like surprises either. She thought about the enormous surprise she might be about to unleash on her girls. Perhaps it was impossible. Perhaps, even if she did instigate contact with William, she would have to keep him at arm’s length and his existence secret from the girls. Was that fair on anyone? No, it wasn’t. Despite instructing herself to not breathe a word about William’s existence to Scarlet, she felt a compulsion to confess everything. She needed an ally.

  ‘I miss Dad so much,’ Scarlet said suddenly. ‘I can’t get over the thought that we’ll never see him again. He was always so gentle with us when we were kids. I can’t ever remember him shouting. When he had his first heart attack, I was so shocked. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing him, and now we have. There’s nobody like him.’

  Heidi swallowed. There’s nobody like him. Was this the moment to tell Scarlet about William?

  ‘Scarlet, I—’ she started, her words instantly drying up.

  ‘There’s this massive void,’ Scarlet went on, ‘where he once was, isn’t there? A Dad-shaped void. I suppose it will always be there. Nobody could fill it. I sort of wish Uncle Edward lived here, so at least we had someone similar around, but he’d never be as good. There could only ever be one Johnny.’

  Heidi couldn’t speak. All she could do was nod and reach over to Scarlet and pull her in for a hug, her heartfelt words ringing in her head. There could only ever be one Johnny.