‘You snug?’ he asks.
I smile, nodding my head. ‘There’s room for two,’ I say, patting the side of the sofa.
Dustin grins. ‘Thought you’d never ask,’ he says, and jumps in next to me, pushing the duvet around his legs. He wraps an arm around me, and I lean into his chest, breathing in the lingering scent of aftershave on his T-shirt. It’s the same one he wore when I first met him.
‘Are you smelling me, you weirdo?’
I look up at Dustin, straight-faced. ‘Yes, yes I am.’
He shakes his head, laughing, and points at the cup of tea he made me when we first sat down. ‘Oi, that’ll be cold now.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I say, leaning forward, grabbing the cup, and taking a huge sip. It takes me a second. At first I think it’s the lukewarm milk that tastes so bad. But no, it’s like a wave of seawater has just entered my mouth. It’s almost suffocating, and then I’m spitting it all out on the floor. I’m gasping, running to the kitchen to get some clean water into my dehydrated mouth. I glug from the tap, and from the living room I can hear Dustin cackling. Wiping my mouth on my pyjama sleeve, I take a glass, fill it with water, and go slowly back into the living room. Dustin’s face is bright red, tears streaming down his cheeks.
‘Sorry,’ he says, in between breathy laughs. ‘But it was a perfect opportunity. I had to. I just had to.’
‘Oh,’ I say, walking forward, a sly smile forming on my lips. ‘We playing these games again, D-bag?’ I stop, standing over him on the sofa as he looks up at me. I hold my glass of water so it’s hovering over his head. ‘Be a shame if I dropped it.’
Dustin’s eyes widen. ‘You wouldn’t.’
I cock my head slightly. ‘Wouldn’t I?’ I say, just as I let it tip, the water flowing from the glass straight onto his head.
He stands up, wiping his now wet hair away from his face and picking up a half-empty glass from the table. ‘Game on, Wills,’ he says before running towards the kitchen and turning the tap on. A year ago I would have screamed, but I’m so conscious of waking Zara now that I don’t say anything, I just pelt to the bathroom. I fill the glass up, then stand in the bath, pull the shower curtain across, and wait like a naughty kid, finding it hard to contain my excitement. Waiting for Dustin to find me.
I stay there for what feels like hours. What’s he doing? He’s taking ages.
Then I hear talking.
I step out the bath, open the door, and see Dustin sat on the sofa, the glass of water in his hand, phone in the other as he chats to the person on the other end of the phone. Laughing.
‘No, Nom, don’t be stupid,’ he says, before his eyes catch mine. He pulls the phone away from his ear. ‘Sorry, work,’ he whispers. ‘Won’t be long.’ I nod my head, as he goes back to the phone. ‘Naomi, you there? Yeah, no, that’s cool. Well done, I’m happy for you. Sorry I’m not there tonight.’
I sit down next to him, and he continues chatting to Naomi. I’ve never met her, but he’s mentioned her a few times. I rest my head on his chest, but this time his arm doesn’t wrap around me. I close my eyes, enjoying the sensation of his voice humming in his chest.
Then Zara starts crying.
Social media is my enemy.
I now know what Naomi looks like. She’s tagged Dustin on Facebook with the wink emoji, in a screenshot of Dwight from The Office talking about bears. It must be some kind of inside joke because it makes no sense to me.
I click on her profile and the first picture that comes up is her in a bikini. I hear myself gasp. My eyes focus on her toned, flat stomach immediately, she has actual visible abs. I instantly put a hand on my own stomach, which is better described as a belly now. It’s just one of the things that have changed since I had Zara. I used to worry about being too skinny, and now it’s another story entirely. I have stretch marks everywhere, but my tummy is the worst. It doesn’t feel like my stomach. It’s spongey, heavy, saggy. Dustin says he loves me for me. And he loves my belly, he tells me to stop covering it with my arms, to stop changing in the bathroom. He says he loves the stretch marks, the tiny little tiger stripes that decorate my skin. He says they are beautiful tattoos that I’m lucky to have. When I complain about the spongey stomach, he says it’s lovely, a reminder every day of the beautiful miracle that we made. But I wonder how he’d feel if it was his body that had changed. He hasn’t changed. He looks the same. I have no doubt that Dustin loves me, I have no doubt that he truly means what he says. What I just can’t understand is why he does. Especially when there is someone looking like that, who he sees every day at work. Someone who seems to like him a lot, judging by how much she tags him on Facebook.
There are quite a few photos of the two of them together. At the work meal last week, then another few from when they went to the pub before Zara was born. Mostly they are in a group with the rest of the work lot, but there’s one of them on their own. It looks like a candid picture that someone has snapped without them knowing. She’s grinning at Dustin and he has one hand clamped to his mouth, his eyes screwed up with laughter. I wonder what she said. When was the last time I made him laugh like that?
He looks so happy.
He has no reason to be that happy when he’s around me. I’m tired when he comes home. I’m groggy. Some days I don’t even shower. I go a week without washing my hair, instead of every other day like I used to, taking special time to comb it through when wet, adding coconut oil to the ends. Instead of shampoo, I smell of sick, and steriliser. Why would that make anyone happy?
The door opens and Gran comes in, Zara in her arms. We leave the pram in the hallway downstairs.
I shut my laptop, and smile at them.
‘How was the walk?’
Gran smiles at Zara, who is calm and nestled into her chest. ‘It was fun, wasn’t it, Zara?’
Zara giggles. Gran looks back at me pointedly. ‘And you should have come.’
‘I told you, Gran, I don’t feel very well.’
‘Because you’ve been cooped up indoors. It’s no wonder, is it?’
I yawn. This again. ‘No, that’s not it. I’m just really tired.’
Gran doesn’t look convinced. ‘I worry about you, you know. You need a hobby, something to get you outdoors.’
I stand up, taking Zara from her. ‘You never need to worry about me, Gran,’ I say, leaning forward and kissing her cheek. ‘I’m doing just fine.’
Once Zara is asleep and Gran leaves, my laptop is open again. Social media time. When I’m this tired, it’s the only thing I feel like doing. It’s like an addiction. Some people are hooked on smoking, drinking, drugs, caffeine. Mine is scrolling.
There are so many news photos, even since I last checked this afternoon. Georgia on another night out, some shots from her girls’ holiday to Ibiza a couple of weeks ago. Various members of the New Haw gang, living their separate lives with new uni friends. Parties, clubs, drinking.
I don’t post stories on Instagram, because I have nothing to post. I can’t remember the last time I dressed up and didn’t wear sweatshirts and leggings. I can’t remember when I last went to the pub, or when I last saw a friend. I get up, I look after Zara, I clean, I cook, and I try to manage things, until I go back to bed. It’s a big achievement if I make it outside for even half an hour, and that’s usually because Gran has dragged me out.
But my baby is amazing, my baby girl is beautiful, so why do I feel so sad?
I’ve talked to Gran about it ever so slightly, just saying I’m finding it hard, I’m finding it exhausting, but I’m careful to keep from her quite how bleak I feel most days. She’d worry, and at her age stress is dangerous. She says I’m just adjusting, and she says all new mums feel like this too. But do they actually? Because I see photos from people from school that have had kids, and they are happy, and fresh-faced. They don’t have the eye bags I do. And they get out, they go places, they post pictures of their kid every single day. And I want to post pictures of Zara, but I go to do it and I notice she has sick on
her top, and then what if they think I’m a bad mum? Or they might notice the dry skin on her forehead, or the fact one of her little socks has a hole in it.
Suddenly my phone comes to life in my hand, and it’s Gran, sending me a link to baby yoga. ‘A class would help,’ she’d said earlier. ‘A chance to meet other mums, get out the house.’
I don’t tell her that I know it won’t work.
The same reason I don’t tell Dustin how I’ve been feeling.
I don’t want Dustin to know I’m like this. I don’t want Dustin to know I feel sad, when he seems to be on cloud nine every single day. I don’t want Dustin to think that he’s had a baby with the wrong girl.
Chapter 53
Dustin
Alicia looks at me, then at the brown envelope on the floor between us, then back at me.
‘Well? Are you going to open it?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Well … do you want me to open it?’
I rub my eyes. ‘I don’t know, Alicia.’ I look at the envelope, groaning. ‘Why is she doing this to me?’
Alicia sighs, picking it up. ‘Dustin, you don’t even know what it is yet.’ I can see her fingers are itching to open it.
It’s the same handwriting. Those bloody block capitals.
‘Fine,’ I say, defeated. ‘Open it then.’
She rips open the envelope and I close my eyes. I can hear Zara gurgling, rustling. Then quiet.
‘Dustin,’ Alicia finally says quietly.
I look at her, to see her holding a white rectangle of card in her hands. ‘What is it?’
She frowns. ‘Photos.’
‘What?’
I snatch the bundle in her outstretched hand.
They’re photographs, printed cheaply from a disposable camera, like the ones that are missing from our bedroom wall.
In fact, two of them are definitely from our bedroom. I recognise them instantly.
The first one is just of Willow. It’s a head and shoulder shot and Willow is looking upwards, the traces of a dorky grin just visible on her upturned face. Her necklace with the angel pendant, now sitting on my bedside table, is captured in intricate detail. She’s in Georgia’s room. I think it was just after Willow moved to New Haw.
The second is of the two of us, and it was the day we went to the Reading open day. We went to the park after lunch and had sat there in the sunlight for a while. Willow had asked Gran to take the photo. You can tell, because the angle is wonky.
But I don’t recognise the next two. I’ve never seen them before and when I look closely, I can see the third is not from a disposable camera at all. It’s much older, possibly from a digital camera and is of three people I don’t know and a baby. Except when I peer closer I realise I do. That’s Willow’s gran, standing to one side. Albeit a younger gran, with cropped red hair. And the woman holding the baby has Willow’s bone structure – the same elfin ears and pointed chin. I guess the baby in her arms must be Willow. I stare at the man in the photograph. I feel like I know him from somewhere, but maybe it’s just a familiar glint of Willow I see in him. Where did this come from?
When I get to the last photograph, I gasp.
‘What?’ I hear Alicia say.
I look up at her. ‘Don’t tell Mum about the photos, she’ll just give more of her opinion.’
‘So you think Willow sent them?’
‘I know she sent them,’ I say, looking back at the photo again. A selfie of her and Jake. Why send that to me, Willow?
What a bitch.
Chapter 54
Willow
Then – August 2019
I have my bag ready. Zara in the pushchair. Yoga mat. I’m showered, hair brushed, and dressed.
But.
I.
Can’t.
I’m just staring at the door, and I can’t go.
I can feel the flutter in my stomach, my chest tightening. What if Zara cries, and I can’t get her to stop? What if I leak milk through my top again, like I did yesterday? What if the age group is different to me? What if they all know each other? What if they get me to speak? I run to the toilet, hovering my head over the bowl. Breathe, Willow. Breathe. Just. Bloody. Breathe.
It took me half an hour to sort myself out, and in that time I came to the realisation that if baby yoga is going to make me feel like that, it’s obvious I shouldn’t be going.
When I come back into the kitchen Zara is screaming blue murder in her pram. My head is pounding.
‘Zara, please,’ I say desperately, ‘just calm down.’ I pop a dummy into her mouth. She spits it out.
I pick it off the floor, rinse it under the tap, pop it in again. She spits it out. I put her in the high chair, somehow get a bib around her neck, and try to spoon baby food into her mouth. She pushes her face away, moaning. ‘Zara, please,’ I say, voice monotone. She thrashes from side to side angrily, her cries drilling into my ears, each one like a knife twisting into my brain. Then one of her flailing arms catches the jar in my hand and knocks it straight onto the floor. It smashes, and the orange puree sprays everywhere – the high-chair legs, the table, the rug in the middle of the kitchen. Everything is spattered with orange and there’s glass everywhere. For a moment Zara is shocked into silence by the commotion.
Stay calm, Willow. Stay c—
She starts screaming.
Breathe.
‘Can you not,’ I hear myself shout, ‘can you just give me a fucking break? Please just give me a fucking break and shut up!’
I stare at her, my chest pumping. Zara stares back, her eyes full of hurt and bewilderment.
I want to comfort her, tell her I’m sorry, but the words won’t come.
I rush out of the kitchen, not really sure of where I’m going, but I pass by the mirror in the corridor and for a second I catch sight of my reflection. Pale, blank eyes stare back at me.
I recognise the person in the mirror.
But it’s not me.
It’s Mum.
Chapter 55
Dustin
Willow, if you’re going to send me things please just talk to me. Please Willow. This isn’t fair on me or Zara. Or come round. We can talk. Please. Just talk to me. I need something.
It doesn’t even deliver. It doesn’t even send. I know she has blocked me, I don’t know why I keep sending them really.
Hey mate, I know I don’t know you. But it seems Willow did. I need answers Jake, I’m struggling right now. I just really need to understand what’s going on.
He hasn’t read it.
He hasn’t read any of my messages.
I put my phone down and sigh. Darren walks in, a smile on his face, placing a coffee on my desk.
‘Everything good, D?’
I plaster a smile. ‘Yes, always. I think we’ll get a sale today,’ I say.
He winks at me. ‘This is why I like you.’
He clinks his mug with mine, and I just pretend, pretend I’m enjoying the coffee, pretend I’m enjoying my life, pretend my mind isn’t occupied, pretend that I’m not going crazy.
Chapter 56
Willow
Then – October 2019
This is repeated every single day. It gets harder. I barely leave the house. Then Dustin went on a work trip for two nights to Manchester. I didn’t want him to go. But he said he had to, and that meant forty-eight hours alone. So when he left, I poured myself a glass of wine.
When I wake I’m groggy. What time is it? My head is pounding, and I am confused as to why for a moment. Then I remember the glass of wine last night. And the one after that. And the one after that.
And the one after that.
I fumble for my phone. Oh God, it’s nine a.m. Shit. Why isn’t Zara screaming the place down? She’s usually awake hours before this.
I throw myself out of bed and dash into the living room.
And there’s Gran, holding Zara in her arms.
She’s washed Zara, changed her, is now feeding her,
and she looks great. Wearing her blue earrings, with that royal blue shirt, trousers. Pink lipstick on, hair pinned back.
‘Dustin called me,’ she said. ‘You weren’t picking up early this morning and so he asked me to stop by.’
I feel shame flood through me. ‘Yeah, I … I had a bit to drink.’
Gran doesn’t say anything for a moment. She just nods. Then she says: ‘Go and shower, you and I are going out. And maybe run a brush through that hair, eh? You look like you’ve been dragged through a bush backwards.’
‘You might find something for Dustin,’ Gran says, pushing Zara through the busy streets of Brighton. I’m plodding behind her.
I had been very unenthusiastic when Gran told me about the fete one of her book-club friends is holding in her back garden. I had started to protest but then Gran said how excited her friend was to see me and the baby, and she’d been so lonely since her husband died, so then I felt bad.
‘Remember that I need to go food shopping though.’
‘Yes, yes, we will only be an hour.’
‘Very precise, Gran.’
She stops walking, smiling at me.
‘Precise for a reason,’ she says, her grin spreading further. She then nods her head to the side of the door. We’re standing outside the gym Dustin joined for a little bit, but stopped going. Is Gran making me go to the gym? Is she telling me I’m putting on too much weight?
‘Baby yoga starts in ten,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Yep, in you go.’
‘But I’m not dressed for it!’
Gran presses a carrier bag into my hands. ‘I packed your leggings and a T-shirt for you. You don’t need anything else.’
‘What the actual … ’
‘There you are,’ she says firmly.
‘Gran,’ I say, ‘this is ridiculous. You can’t make me go.’
But, as it turned out, she can. ‘If you really don’t like it, you don’t have to go again,’ she said, bundling me inside the gym and wheeling Zara in after me.
The Missing Pieces of Me: Discover the novel that will break your heart and mend it again Page 17