“Are you sure you got the address right?”
“Yes. Number one hundred and thirty nine. That’s what dad told me.” I looked down at the piece of paper in my hands just to make sure.
“Well this must be it then.” We both looked at the quaint converted Victorian house standing in front of us. It wasn’t what I’d expected, with its cute little well-tended front yard. Knowing James’s history I’d imagined him in some poky dive somewhere. “Are you ready?” Craig asked looking over at me, waiting for my cue.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I sighed and looked back toward the bright red door ahead of us. Craig grabbed my hand in his and entwined our fingers, squeezing to let me know he was with me.
Craig rang the doorbell and after a brief moment when I began to think nobody was home the door creaked open. Standing in the doorway was a young woman, in her mid-twenties. “Hello, can I help you?” she asked, looking between Craig and me like we were about to start preaching religion to her, or try and sell her double glazing.
“Yeah, um, hi. I’m Amber, James’s sister.” Her eyes widened in surprise and her mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ shape.
“Oh my gosh, it’s so nice to meet you. Come in, come in.” She stepped aside and eagerly gestured for us to step inside. Once we were all in the hallway and the door was closed she turned back to look at us. “I’m sorry but James isn’t here at the moment.”
I froze for a moment. This woman, whoever she was, didn’t know about James? I remained frozen until Craig nudged me with his elbow. As I looked up at him he must have seen the confusion, or maybe it was fear in my eyes.
“Hi, er, sorry what was your name?” he asked.
“Oh, I'm sorry! Please, forgive my manners. I’m Marika.” She smiled warmly.
“Hi Marika. I’m Craig, Amber’s fiance, it's-”
“Fiancé?” she shrieked. “James didn’t say you were getting married. Wait till he gets home. I’ll kill him for not telling me,” she joked, and I froze again.
Craig cleared his throat, appearing to be just as uncomfortable as I was. “Um, can we take a seat somewhere?”
“Oh, of course. Please through here.” She led the way into a cosy living room decorated with contemporary large black and white floral print wallpaper. “Take a seat.”
Craig and I sat on the sofa while Marika sat opposite in an armchair. “It’s so nice to meet you guys. James has told me so much about you Amber.”
“Is this your place Marika?” Craig asked.
“I don’t own it, no. I was lucky that this is where the housing association put us when-.” She cut off when a loud shrieking noise came blaring from somewhere in the room. Marika leaned down at the end of the sofa for a second and the noise stopped. “Excuse me for a moment please.” Then she left the room leaving Craig and me alone.
“She doesn’t know,” I whispered.
Craig sucked in a deep breath. “I know. When she comes back in here we have to tell her.”
“Do you think… do you think they were together?”
“I’m not sure, but it looks that way to me.” I pulled my hand to my mouth to stifle a sob. Not only were we there to collect clothes to dress my dead brother, there was also a very good chance we were there to tell his girlfriend he wouldn’t be coming home.
The door opened again and Marika walked in holding a baby swaddled in a pink blanket. “I’m sorry about that. It’s bottle time.” She smiled down at the child in her arms. “Amber, would you mind holding her for me while I go and warm a bottle?” Without waiting for a response she leaned down and held the baby out. With my emotions scattered I didn’t think about what I was doing and took the crying tot, rocking her in my arms. “Can I get you guys anything while I’m out there? A drink or anything?”
Craig said something and Marika left the room but my eyes remained focused on the baby. She had straw coloured hair, and hazel eyes so much like my own, and a nose that was so familiar it was like looking at an old family photo.
A few minutes later Marika re-entered the room with a smile on her face until she looked at me. “Marika is this…” I couldn’t finish.
“Oh God, yes, I’m sorry. This is Giana, James’s daughter.”
CHAPTER NINE
Amber
James had a daughter? I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend. I had just assumed he was living from one sofa to another, from one dodgy deal to the next. It never occurred to me that he had responsibilities, why would it? He never acted like the responsible adult he should have been.
Marika looked at me, her eyes clouded with worry. “Would you like to feed her?”
I looked down at the fragile infant in my arms. She had settled somewhat and was staring up at me. “Sure,” I replied in a soft voice and took the bottle that Marika handed me. Settling back on the sofa I positioned us both for comfort and offered Giana the bottle which she accepted greedily. “How old is she?” I asked, and looked up to see Craig watching me with an odd expression on his face.
“She just turned seven months a few days back. We would have celebrated, seeing as it was New Year’s Eve and all, but James went off on one of his disappearing acts.” She frowned and her whole expression darkened. “He has a habit of doing that just when you need him most. I’m sure he’ll be back soon, pleading for forgiveness, and I’ll give in. I always do.”
She really had no idea what had happened. “Marika, there is something I need to tell you.” I drew in a deep breath and looked down at the baby still guzzling her milk. “Um, James, he, um-” I couldn’t find the words. How was I supposed to tell this woman that her boyfriend and the father of their daughter wouldn’t be coming home?
“What she’s trying to say,” Craig continued for me. “Is that…” I saw the very millisecond that Marika realised something was wrong, so very wrong. Her face fell and all colour drained from her cheeks. “James was found unconscious on New Year’s Eve and was rushed to hospital. He’d been seriously beaten.”
Marika’s eyes widened as she leaned forward in her seat, hugging her arms around herself. “Seriously? How seriously?” she whispered. “Is he…?” She looked over to me and I nodded as tears began to fall from my eyes.
“No,” she screamed, and jumped to her feet. “You’re lying.” But even through her words, I could see she knew it was the truth. “Don’t say things like that, it’s cruel, it’s-”
“His injuries were just too severe and he passed away on Tuesday afternoon.” Craig interjected, wanting to try and calm Marika before she headed into a full tail spin.
She had gone ghost white and her whole body was shaking as she stood motionless, staring at Craig.
The world around us seemed to slow and everything became a mass of dark haze so I tried to concentrate on the blissfully unaware infant in my arms. My niece. I had a niece! A beautiful baby girl, who would grow up having never known her father.
“What happened?” Marika murmured as she slumped back onto a chair. “What did he do this time?”
“We’re not entirely sure. All we know is he was found alone and unconscious in an alley. Someone called for an ambulance and he was taken into ITU. He died the next day after he suffered further complications.” Craig told her.
“Amber, did you see him?” Raising my eyes to meet Marika’s, I nodded. “Were you there when he…” I nodded again. “At least he wasn’t alone.” Her voice waivered and it was clear she was battling to hold back her emotion.
“Would you excuse me for a minute?” Without looking at either Craig or myself, Marika stood and hurried out of the room.
“God, Craig, this is so hard,” I whispered, not trusting my voice and not wanting to alarm Giana. “I had no idea he was in a relationship, let alone had a child. I’m an auntie, Craig, and I didn’t even know it.”
“I honestly don’t know what to say at the moment. This whole situation seems like one big cluster fu… mess.” Craig looked down at the baby in my arms and gently stroked her silky hair. “Sh
e’s certainly a cute baby. Cute like her beautiful aunt.” His eyes met mine and they were tormented. I knew it was because there was nothing he could do to make the situation any better. He knew I was hurting, he knew my guilt, and now he knew my sadness for an innocent child, yet there wasn’t a thing he could do.
Giana finished her milk so I took the bottle from her and sat her up, the maternal instinct to wind her taking over. “She looks so much like James did as a baby. She has his eyes and nose and our trademark blonde hair.” I smiled down at her as she reached out to touch Craig. “She likes you.”
The sound of muffled sobs crept through the slightly ajar living room door. Looking back at Craig I saw he noticed it too, his unsure expression matching my own. Did we leave Marika alone to deal with her grief or should we go and comfort her? When the sobs became wails I knew I couldn’t leave her alone. I held Giana out for Craig to take. At first he looked shocked, then scared and finally unsure. “Amber, I don’t know what to do with a baby,” he said, eyeing the child warily.
“You don’t have to do anything with her, Craig. Just hold her, keep her safe.” He continued to look at her with trepidation but eventually held her steady on his lap. He was a grown man, he could figure it out. Right then I needed to comfort Marika.
Leaving Craig with Giana, I walked into the hallway and followed the sounds of Marika’s grief until I found her slumped over on her knees on the kitchen floor. I rushed over to her and dropped to my knees so I could wrap my arms around her, and hold her tight. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered against her head as my own grief began to once again bubble up and I knew it was only a matter of time before it would boil over.
I continued holding and rocking Marika whilst trying to force back my own tears. Right then she needed a supportive shoulder, someone to comfort her. “Why?” she eventually mumbled, shaking her head against me. “Why would someone do this?”
“Believe me, I have asked the same question.” Time and time again.
“I’m sorry… for your loss,” she stuttered through her sobs.
“Oh, Marika,” I cried, no longer able to hold back my own tears. “We have both lost. You have nothing to be sorry about.”
We remained huddled together on the kitchen floor, crying and sharing in our mutual grief until there were no more tears to shed. Eventually we pulled apart and sniffled in unison, causing us both to giggle, breaking the tension.
“Can I get you anything? I don’t know about you, but I need a stiff drink.” Marika stood and walked over to one of the cupboards. She rummaged around, clinking bottles against each other until she turned to face me with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in her hand, waving it around in the air. “You want?”
I probably shouldn’t, I was such a lightweight when it came to the hard stuff, but I felt I needed to commiserate with Marika in whatever way she felt was right for her. “Sure, why not.”
She reached up into another cupboard and pulled down two tumblers. “You want it on the rocks?”
“No, straight is fine,” although perhaps some melting ice might not have been such a bad idea.
She poured two drinks and joined me to sit at the small round table tucked into the corner. We both silently stared down into our drinks, unsure of what to say, or maybe just not wanting to say anything.
Eventually Marika lifted her glass in the air, “To James, the biggest fucking idiot that ever lived, but I loved him.” Then she tilted the glass back against her lips and drank the entire contents in one gulp.
Marika poured herself another drink and downed that in one go also. I hoped she didn’t continue like that for the sake of the baby. “So, Amber, tell me, judging by your reaction to Giana and me you weren’t just coming over to deliver the wondrous news. You must have been coming for something else.”
In all the confusion and subsequent breakdown, I had totally forgotten the real reason for being there. Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes I tried to summon the strength I was going to need to carry out my task. Although with Marika there it would be a lot easier. “I need to get some of James’s clothes; the Chapel of Rest needs them.”
“Oh.”
“Do you want to do it, or help me do it?” I asked, wanting, no needing for her to help me and be a part of it.
“Um, okay. When do you want to do it?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“No time like the present, I guess.” She didn’t look sure.
“I can do it on my own, if you can’t face it.”
“No it’s fine, I’m fine.” She stood and started walking back into the hallway, then opened a door on the left and disappeared.
I could do this, I could be strong, it was only a few items of clothing. It was no different than sorting Craig’s clothes out, I tried to convince myself.
When I entered the bedroom, Marika was standing stock still, staring at the bed.
“Marika?”
“He really has gone, hasn’t he?” she whispered.
Walking up beside her I put an arm around her shoulder. She was shorter than me so her head flopped easily against my shoulder as she leaned in against me.
“You know, I thought something like this would happen one day,” she sighed, her eyes still glued to the bed. “He had been acting weird recently. I knew something was up.”
“What do you mean?”
“I dunno, just… distant. He was listening to all this depressing music about death and dying, like he knew his time was nearly up. I just thought he was in one of his moods. It all makes sense now.”
“You think this was deliberate?” Of course I believed it had been a planned attacked, but the police had managed to convince me to remain neutral with my opinion until they had evidence to prove otherwise.
“Yes. I don’t know who, or why, but I believe he was in some sort of trouble. He would never tell me about it though. He said he wanted to protect us from his crap. I suspect it had something to do with the money he suddenly had just before Gigi was born. We’d been struggling to buy all the stuff we needed for her arrival and one day he came home with the works. The place was full of prams, cribs, toys, clothes… everything. He wouldn’t say where the money for it all came from though.” She pulled away and walked over to a large pine wardrobe. “What do you need for him?”
I was stunned by her admission that she too believed it had been a premeditated attack. It made me wonder what he had been involved in. I also done the math and worked out that just before Giana was born would have been about the time James was asking me for money. He’d borrowed money to buy things for his baby and had wanted me to help him pay off that debt. The burden of guilt trebled as I wished I’d just helped him out.
“Oh, um, I don’t really know. Did he have something that was his favourite?” I replied, keeping my guilty feelings to myself.
We decided that in the great scheme of things it really didn’t matter what we picked, so we pulled out some jeans and a white shirt. Something James would have been comfortable in.
“How long have you two been together?” I asked as we were folding the items up.
“About eighteen months. We’d not been together that long when I fell pregnant with Gigi. I thought he’d dump me faster than he could say parenthood and leave me to raise our baby on my own. But he surprised me and said he would do the right thing. Well his version of the right thing.
“He wasn’t the greatest partner or father to Gigi, Amber, but he was all we had, and he tried his best. What am I going to do?” She slumped down on the bed, burying her head in her hands trying to hold back the tears again.
I crouched down in front of her “Hey, you’re family now, you have us okay? I can’t believe James never mentioned you or Giana; we would have embraced you with open arms. You’ll be okay, I promise.”
“I’m scared, Amber. I can’t believe that he’s gone. I’ve been so used to his disappearing acts that it doesn’t feel real that he won’t ever be coming back; that I won’t get the chance
to speak to him again,” her voice waivered as she struggled with her emotions.
“I feel the same.” I swallowed and took a deep breath before continuing. “The last time I spoke with James was eight months ago. It wasn’t a friendly chat and we both said some pretty hurtful things. I’m struggling to accept that I’ll never be able to tell him I’m sorry.” Tears pooled in my eyes and Marika looked at me, nodding in understanding.
“Do you think we should get back in the other room? Craig is probably ripping his hair out by now. Gigi can be a real handful for someone so little.” She gave me a sad smile and stood.
I followed Marika back to the living room, where we found Craig slumped back on the sofa. His eyes were closed and he had a sleeping Giana curled up on his chest.
Craig
“Should we wake him?”
“Nah, they look so cute snuggled up together.”
Slowly, I opened my eyes and blinked, trying to gain my bearings. I didn’t have a clue where I was. As I tried to move, I felt a strange weight on my chest and looked down, nearly freaking out when I discovered a sleeping baby curled up on me.
“Don’t move, Craig, you’ll wake her up.” I twisted my head around to find Amber standing in the doorway with Marika. They were both staring at me with smiles on their faces.
I had to move, my back was aching and I felt stiff which wasn’t good when I had a football match the next day. I tried to move as gently as I could so I wouldn’t wake the baby, but it was pointless. As soon as I had managed to pull myself into a semi seated position she let out an almighty wail and proceeded to scream the house down. Quickly I pulled her into my arms and tried to rock her back to sleep. Having never been around someone so tiny before, well apart from Carly all those years ago, I didn’t have a clue if I was doing the right thing or not, especially when the high pitched wailing continued to pierce my eardrums.
Silver Dove (Silver #2) Page 10