by Dani Atkins
‘It’s a decent no-frills kind of a place,’ said my father, pulling into the large forecourt of the hotel he’d booked us into. It was one from a well-known budget chain, where he’d frequently stayed when visiting me.
He drove slowly and carefully around the car park, a small frown creasing his forehead as he passed several spaces that all looked plenty big enough to me. Not that I’d be driving myself for a while, at least not until the doctors said I could. It was high on the list of points I wanted to raise at my first check-up.
My dad insisted on carrying my bag once again as we headed for the glass-walled hotel reception. For a man who’d stayed here regularly enough to know many of the staff by name, he appeared to be scoping the area with a curious air of unease. It wasn’t until the automatic doors slid open, ushering us into the blue-carpeted foyer, that I realised why.
I turned to my father. ‘What’s he doing here? Did you know he was coming today?’ My voice sounded tight and high, and probably a little too loud in the echoing foyer. The chances of Ryan having missed my less-than-welcoming comment were practically zero.
‘No, Maddie, I didn’t know he was coming. And I certainly didn’t arrange it. I only realised Ryan was here when I saw his car in the car park.’
That explained the worried frown; and there was good reason for his concern, for I’d made it perfectly clear to Ryan that until a solution was found to the problem his unforgivable lie had created, I didn’t want to see him. Our last conversation, two weeks earlier, had ended in a frustrating stalemate, and I could see from his eyes that Ryan remembered it as vividly as I did, as my father propelled me across the foyer towards him.
‘I want to see my daughter, Ryan.’
He had frowned, and I suspected it was my choice of pronoun that had caused his handsome face to stiffen into a grim and determined expression.
‘Obviously you can see her, Maddie. No one’s saying you can’t,’ he began placatingly, allowing my hopes to rise up like mercury in a barometer, before making them plummet back down again when he added: ‘In time.’
‘There’s been far too much time spent apart already. I don’t want to add to it.’
Ryan had run his hands distractedly through his hair. Dishevelled Ryan had always been far harder to resist than the neatly presented, suited version, and apparently a small thing like a six-year coma hadn’t altered that one little bit.
‘I understand that,’ he had said, making the mistake of reaching out to try to take my hands in his. I’d swatted him away like a wasp; the type you knew was probably going to end up stinging you, whatever you did to avoid it. ‘All I’m asking is that you’re patient and give us time to figure out how to handle this for the best.’
‘I’ve waited six years, Ryan. It’s not fair to ask me to wait any longer.’
His eyes had looked tormented. ‘None of this is fair, Maddie. You and I should have been married in 2012. We should have been raising Hope together. And she shouldn’t have to be grappling with big life issues like comas, and injuries, and death at five years old.’
His cobalt blue eyes had stared beseechingly into mine. He was asking me to step aside, at least temporarily. But I didn’t think that I could do that.
‘But no one actually died, did they, Ryan? You just lied, and told our daughter that I had, and now you don’t want to undo that lie.’
The last thing I’d been expecting was his brutally honest reply. ‘No. I don’t want to. Because I’m afraid of what it will do to her, and to her trust in me and her m— and Chloe.’
I’d bitten my lip to prevent it from trembling. Mother. He’d been about to refer to the woman who had everything that once was mine, as Hope’s mother.
‘At least give us some time to speak to people: to our GP, or a child psychologist? That’s not unreasonable, is it?’
‘Don’t you think it might have been a good idea to have done that before now, so you already had a plan in place?’ I’d asked.
Ryan hadn’t replied, and it took only a moment for me to realise why. Of course he’d never bothered to consult anyone; there was no contingency plan waiting for this moment. Because this was never meant to happen. I was a sleeping corpse who’d upset everything by waking up.
‘Ryan,’ greeted my dad warmly, thrusting out his hand into Ryan’s waiting one. My father clapped Ryan lightly on the shoulder in a gesture of affection. Instantly I felt wrong-footed. Their relationship had grown in depth while I slept, and the closeness between them made me feel like an interloper. This is my dad, I wanted to declare childishly. He’s mine, not yours. Maybe Ryan’s caution wasn’t misplaced after all. I hardly sounded like someone who was mature enough to be anyone’s mother.
‘I didn’t know you were going to be here today, lad.’
The lad, who now had a few threads of silver entwining with the blond at his temples, had kept his eyes fixed firmly on my face throughout their greeting. His expression was guarded and watchful. It was the way you might look if you should suddenly encounter an animal that appeared docile and domesticated, but could turn feral at any moment. We were a very long way from the couple who had once loved each other enough to want to spend the rest of our lives together.
‘I thought Maddie might appreciate having some of her old clothes to wear,’ Ryan replied, annoyingly talking about me as though I wasn’t there, or was that just the way they were used to conversing after my six years of silence?
I glanced down at the floor and felt a lightning bolt of recognition shoot through me. It wasn’t just seeing the familiar piece of red luggage that suddenly made me feel like crying. It was the airline tag that was still fastened around its handles. They were from the last holiday Ryan and I had taken together. From our trip to Spain, where Hope had been conceived.
There was a silence which my father was quick to fill. ‘Well, that was extremely thoughtful of you. I forgot you’d put her belongings into storage.’
My head sprung up at this revelation.
‘Most of your stuff was already at mine before the accident anyway,’ Ryan explained. ‘And you’d given notice on your flat, so it made sense to get the rest of your belongings and put them into storage.’
That was the moment when I’m sure I was supposed to say ‘thank you’, but all I could see were my clothes hanging unworn in his wardrobe. How long had he allowed them to stay there before packing them away into storage with the rest of my possessions? Had they only gone when he’d needed to make space in that same wardrobe for Chloe’s clothes instead?
Another awkward moment of silence descended, and once again my father intervened. ‘Why don’t I go and get us checked in, and take this bag up to your room and leave you two to chat in private?’
I opened my mouth to say that wasn’t necessary, but Ryan got his response in first. ‘Thank you, Bill.’
I watched my father head towards the reception desk, trundling my case behind him, and tried to feel like a grown woman and less like an abandoned child.
‘Could we go and grab a coffee somewhere? We need to talk, Maddie.’
I looked at the dark circles beneath his eyes, which were almost as pronounced as the ones I was currently wearing. Above them his eyes were uncertain, and there was something in his hesitancy that touched me in a way I would rather it did not.
The hotel didn’t have its own restaurant, but guests were able to use the establishment next door. As I stepped out into the chilly morning beside Ryan, his hand went automatically to the small of my back, gently guiding me towards the other building. I walked faster than was comfortable, not to get out of the cold, but to escape all the emotions that his remembered touch kept trying to reignite.
Ryan ordered coffees at the bar, while I found a table beside an open fireplace and used the intervening minutes to compose myself. The restaurant was comparatively empty and was as good a place as any for a private discussion. A few minutes later Ryan joined me, carrying a tray with the steaming coffees and an enormous slice of car
rot cake. It had always been my particular favourite, and the fact that he had remembered touched me far more than it should. Perhaps there were still feelings and memories that affected him almost as much as they did me. However, when he passed me the plate with his left hand, I saw that today he hadn’t bothered to remove his wedding ring. It sat like a bright golden reminder of everything I had lost. My appetite for the cake suddenly disappeared.
‘It must feel really strange to finally be out of hospital.’
I stabbed at the cake with my fork. ‘Yes. It does a bit.’
‘How long are you staying at the hotel? Are you going back with your dad?’ Ryan’s voice sounded hopeful, rather than just politely interested.
The cake was in my mouth; I’m sure it was perfectly delicious, but suddenly it tasted like sawdust. ‘No. I have to stay here in town, to be near the hospital. I’ll be having monthly check-ups with the doctors and physio. Dad’s staying for a couple of nights, then he’s going back to be with Mum. Apparently she doesn’t do well if she doesn’t see him every day.’
‘Yes, I know.’
I bit my lip and stared into the fire, hating that he knew so much more about the situation and my mother’s condition than I did myself.
‘Will you carry on living here?’ Ryan asked, gesturing towards the adjacent hotel.
I shook my head, wondering why this whole conversation felt so forced and unnatural. It was like an awkward hybrid between a job interview and a blind date with someone you knew straight away you were never going to click with.
‘Only until I find a place to rent,’ I said, reaching out and warming my hands in the heat of the flames. After the overheated hospital, everywhere felt cold to me. ‘I understand I have you to thank for sorting out the insurance settlement.’
Ryan waved his hand dismissively, possibly because it was all so long ago he’d most likely forgotten fighting for my very generous settlement, which would allow me the independence of living in a place of my own, and not having to worry about finding a new job for some time. Which was just as well, as I still needed to take at least a couple of naps during the day, and I couldn’t see many prospective employers finding that an asset.
‘Chloe and I have been trying to figure out how best to manage this situation,’ Ryan began, sounding suddenly awkward. Situation. Was that what I now was in his life – a situation, something that needed to be handled? ‘We’ve spoken to people, and read whatever we can find on the internet, but obviously what we have here is a pretty unique problem.’
I wanted to get to my feet, the way they do in courtroom dramas, and shout ‘Objection’, because he was making it sound as though I was the ‘problem’ here.
‘We’d like to tell Hope that you’re a distant cousin. That way we can introduce you as a family member, and give you the chance to get to know each other and grow closer, without any additional pressure.’
Or threat to Chloe, I silently added, still determined to cast her as the villain in this story.
‘And then, eventually, when you and Hope have spent enough time together and she likes and trusts you, well, then we’ll tell her who you really are.’
‘So the best solution you can come up with, after having told our daughter the most colossal lie, is to lie to her again?’ Was it the warmth of the fire that coloured his cheeks, or my cutting observation?
‘It’s a white lie,’ he defended, as though the colour sanitised the untruth. ‘And it will allow both of you to form a real relationship, without any obstacles getting in your way.’
As much as I didn’t want to accept this half-measure of being introduced into my daughter’s life, I wasn’t stupid. I could see this was a sensible solution. But there was one problem Ryan clearly hadn’t considered.
‘And what happens if she doesn’t ever get to like me, or trust me? What if she never learns to love me?’
His eyes widened as they looked at me with astonishment. ‘Are you serious? She’s going to love you. Everyone who meets you always does.’
And just like that I was lost, all over again. Because as much as I tried to tell myself otherwise, I was still every bit as much in love with Chloe’s husband as I had ever been.
The red suitcase was the only splash of colour in the neutral-toned decor of the hotel bedroom. My dad had left it for me, at the foot of the double bed. The case and the bed looked equally inviting. I was exhausted, and while some of that was no doubt due to my morning of unaccustomed activity, even more of it was a result of my conversation with Ryan. He had left some time ago, and yet his curious proposal was still circling in my head, like a plane looking for a landing spot on rocky terrain. If I accepted his suggestion, I could see Hope as soon as tomorrow, if I felt ready. But if I dug my heels in and insisted that we meet for the first time as mother and daughter, I had no idea how long I’d have to wait.
I looked longingly at the double bed, which appeared as wide as a trampoline after the narrow hospital cots I’d been used to. But the Pandora-pull of the suitcase was too strong to ignore. There was a low-grade excitement gently thrumming through me as I undid the zip and chased it back around the edge of the case. In a world where nothing was the same, where everything and everyone had changed, I was far more excited than a grown woman should probably be at the prospect of seeing something as mundane as a case full of my old familiar clothes. Except the first thing I saw when I flipped back the lid wasn’t old or familiar – or even mine, come to that, although I have no doubt it was meant for me. I also had no doubt that Ryan wasn’t the one who’d put it there.
The name of the high street store was at least familiar, and one of its dark-green carrier bags was sitting on top of my neatly folded clothes. A waft of clean-smelling fragrance had risen like a cloud the moment I’d opened the case. Someone had washed and ironed every item of my clothing. The Ryan I remembered had barely known one end of an iron from the other, which made the chances of it having been him highly unlikely.
I reached for the carrier bag and tipped it upside down. The contents fell on to the mattress beside my suitcase. There were two packets of underwear. Nothing fancy, just your regular everyday multi-pack of briefs. There were also two bras in the bag: one white; one beige. Everything appeared to be the right size, which again ruled out Ryan as being responsible. Every clothing gift he’d ever bought me had had to be secretly returned and exchanged for the correct size. The last items to fall out of the carrier bag were a packet of socks and some tights. Everything still had its price tag attached, and the receipt had floated down with the final items, like a leaf from a tree. I looked at the collection of underwear for a long moment. This wasn’t the work of a man. Not even a man as thoughtful and loving as Ryan was. Had been, I mentally corrected. I had to keep reminding myself that New Ryan was still a stranger to me. He was a husband and a father, and the jury was still out as to whether I would like the changes those two new roles had brought about.
Chloe had obviously bought the underwear for me. I tried to give myself a moment not to follow my instinctive knee-jerk reaction and sweep the bought items off the bed in a fit of anger and frustration. She had so much of mine already, was it fair of her to try to take away the tiny shred of autonomy buying my own underwear would have given me? It was a nice thing she had done; a thoughtful gesture, some might say. She certainly didn’t have to do it. But she had. She also didn’t have to take my fiancé and play mother to my baby, but she’d done that too. Good sense didn’t stand much of a chance here. The items flew through the air in a colourful display, each one hitting the adjacent wall before falling in a jumble to the carpet. I too flopped down to the floor, and promptly burst into tears.
A few hours’ sleep helped to restore me to a slightly more rational human being. A long hot soak in a bathtub, without a queue of patients waiting to use it after me, did the rest. By the time my father and I went for a very early dinner (my stomach still being on the NHS dining plan) I felt almost normal again.
We managed
two entire courses without touching on any topic likely to disturb the peaceful calm of our evening.
‘That was absolutely delicious,’ I declared, pushing aside my totally cleared plate. My father’s grey and slightly wayward eyebrows rose questioningly. Food critic was clearly not a career I should be considering anytime soon.
‘I think a few too many hospital dinners might have affected your judgement,’ he said, gently squeezing my hand across the table top.
‘You may be right,’ I agreed with a rueful smile. ‘It’s going to take a while to get used to doing ordinary everyday things again: like sleeping in a bed that doesn’t have a metal frame; making a cup of tea anytime I fancy one; or having my own front door once more.’
My father’s smile faltered on my last comment. ‘I’m going to worry about you, living on your own.’
‘Dad, I’ve lived on my own ever since I went away to university,’ I reasoned.
‘I know, Maddie. But I’m still going to worry. It’s what parents do. One day, when you have a—’ He stopped abruptly, and his cheeks flushed to the colour of an overripe tomato.
‘I’m so sorry, Maddie. I didn’t mean . . . Obviously I know that . . .’
This time it was my hand that reached for his. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dad. I know what you meant anyway. Hope might be my flesh and blood, but what do I know about being a mother? Absolutely nothing. As much as it hurts to admit it, I think Ryan might be right. I need to get to know Hope, and she needs to get to know me before we tell her who I really am.’
My father said nothing, but spent a very long time stirring his cup of coffee, which I was pretty sure he’d already done a few minutes earlier.