Letters to Lincoln

by Tracie Podger

  LETTERS TO LINCOLN

  TRACIE PODGER

  Copyright 2017 © Tracie Podger

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents, either, are products of the author’s imagination or they are used factiously. Any reference to actual locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, to include, by not exclusive to audio or visual recordings of any description without permission from the copyright owner.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by Tracie Podger

  Acknowledgments

  My heartfelt thanks to the best beta readers a girl could want, Alison Parkins & Karen Atkinson-Lingham - your input is invaluable.

  Thank you to Sofie at Hart & Bailey for an amazing cover, I absolutely love it!

  I’d also like to give a huge thank you to my editor, Karen Hrdlicka, and proofreader, Joanne Thompson.

  See how pretty this book looks inside? Leigh Stone over at Irish Ink Formatting is to thank for that.

  A big hug goes to the ladies in my team. These ladies give up their time to support and promote my books. Alison ‘Awesome’ Parkins, Karen Atkinson-Lingham, Marina Marinova, Ann Batty, Fran Brisland, Elaine Turner, Kerry-Ann Bell, Jodie Scott, and Louise White – otherwise known as the Twisted Angels.

  To all the wonderful bloggers that have been involved in promoting my books and joining tours, thank you and I appreciate your support. There are too many to name individually – you know who you are.

  If you wish to keep up to date with information on this series and future releases - and have the chance to enter monthly competitions, feel free to sign up for my newsletter. You can find the details on my web site:

  www.TraciePodger.com

  Would you like a FREE book? If you sign up to receive my newsletters, you’ll receive a link in the welcome email to download my novella, Evelyn. Evelyn is one of my favourite characters and I’m thrilled to share her with you.

  http://eepurl.com/clbNTP

  Chapter One

  I heard noises: beeping, whispered voices. It was the clinical smell assaulting my nose that had me realise I wasn’t at home. I tried to open my eyes, but the light, such a bright light above me, burned my retinas. My body ached, my arm felt heavy as if weighed down.

  I drifted back into sleep.

  “Dani, can you hear me?”

  “Dani, we need you to open your eyes, honey.”

  Honey?

  I felt a hand on my shoulder, it gently squeezed. Why couldn’t they leave me be? Did they not understand? The minute I opened my eyes, the minute I heard their words, I’d have to remember. I didn’t want to remember.

  “Baby girl, it’s time to wake up now.” Not even my dad’s voice could chase the fear of waking up away.

  The hand squeezed and eventually, fingertips pried one eyelid open. I moved my head away; it was an invasion. An assault on my desired numbness. I had no choice. I opened my eyes, squinting against the harsh lights above me and turned my head.

  My dad sat on a chair beside me. He leant forwards, reached out, and smoothed the hair from my forehead. I winced at the sting as his fingers brushed over the stitches.

  “Hey,” he said, gently.

  A nurse stood beside him, busying herself with a clipboard and notes. She looked up and smiled softly at me. I didn’t return the smile.

  I looked down at the arm that felt heavy and saw the white plaster cast, stretching from hand to elbow. Using my other hand, I placed it on my stomach. I knew.

  “They…” I heard my dad say. I closed my eyes and shook my head. I knew. I didn’t need his words.

  It was why I hadn’t wanted to wake up. It was why I’d wanted to keep my eyes closed, my ears shut off from sound. It was why I wanted to pretend I hadn’t been in a car accident, I hadn’t watched my husband tumble inside the car, being smashed from window to door as he tried to protect me and… I didn’t want to remember! I shook my head from side to side; I tried hard not to let the tears fall. I clamped my mouth closed, so hard that my teeth hurt, to stop the scream that wanted to erupt.

  I breathed hard in and out through my nose, anything to quell the nausea, the panic. But I couldn’t stop it. I opened my mouth and I screamed.

  I wailed until I had no air in my lungs. I screeched until my throat was raw. Tears poured down my cheeks, snot ran from my nose. I heard running feet, I felt my hand being lifted, and I felt the warmth as something soothing flowed through my veins until it reached my brain and shut off the pain, closed down the images, and the memories.

  I drifted back into sleep.

  I had no concept of time, what day of the week it was, even. I had no idea how long I’d been in the hospital. I did know my husband was dead. I felt it. I also knew my baby was gone. The daughter Trey and I had tried for three years to conceive; the daughter so precious that had come along just at the point we’d decided to stop trying. The daughter that caused my husband to fall to his knees, to sob tears when I’d told him I was pregnant. I didn’t need anyone to tell me. I was hollow; my heart physically ached in my chest.

  For the first time in my life; I had no purpose. There was no point to me or my existence.

  I lay looking at fluorescent lighting in a stained, dirty, panelled ceiling. I turned my head slightly to look at the blue plastic curtains separating my bed from the next and wondered what poor soul was on the other side.

  “Good morning, Dani,” I heard.

  A nurse circled the bed, looking at things, checking things. I tried to shuffle up the bed; my back was sore. I winced at the pull on the stitches across my stomach.

  “Let me help you,” she said, picking up a remote and raising the back of the bed.

  “Are you comfortable?” she asked, placing her hand on my arm.

  “Where are they?” I whispered.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. “Your dad will be here shortly, he arrives bang on eight o’clock every morning.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, but I’d rather your dad was here first.”

  An orderly pushed a trolley with breakfast into the twin occupancy room. She poured a cup of tea and placed it on the tray connected to the bed. She asked if I wanted sugar, I shook my head. She inquired what I’d like to eat; I shook my head again. No amount of food would fill the emptiness I felt inside.

  “Hey,” a familiar voice came from the doorway.

  Dad pulled the chair up to the side of my bed. “It’s good to see you fully awake.”

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Just over two weeks now,” he said.

  His reply surprised me. It felt like only yesterday that I’d been brought in. Tears pricked at my eyes and I had to will my hand to stay on the bed and not cover my stomach.

  I watched him close his eyes, taking a deep breath in, before opening them and ex
haling.

  “I know, Dad.”

  I wanted to spare him the awfulness of having to tell me. Those tears gently rolled down my cheeks.

  “I don’t know what to say to you,” he said, his voice cracking on every word.

  “I need to see them.”

  He gently nodded. “I’m not sure how…”

  “Honey, you’re awake,” an American voice sounded from the doorway.

  Patricia, my mother-in-law, strode in. I saw her once, twice a year, but seeing her just then, she looked as if she’d aged twenty years.

  She smiled at my dad who, ever the gentleman, vacated his chair for her. She took hold of my hand. I gave it a squeeze when I saw the tears in her eyes.

  “I…” she started to speak. I shook my head.

  “She knows,” Dad said. “She wants to see them.”

  For a little while, we sat in silence. What could any of us say?

  “The truck driver fell asleep, I think,” I whispered. “We were laughing, Trey was singing to…to Hannah; we called her Hannah.”

  Patricia smiled, that had been her mother’s name.

  I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. “He ploughed straight into us. The car rolled down the bank, Trey unclipped his belt. He threw himself over my lap, I screamed at him not to. I screamed…”

  The image of his body being thrown around like a rag doll hit me hard. The sight of his head hitting the windshield, of an arc of red covering the glass as it shattered, was all I could see. I blinked rapidly, trying to rid my mind of the image.

  “He was trying to protect you and the…Hannah. He was trying to protect Hannah.”

  “And he died because of it.”

  My statement pulled us all up short. I frowned, not sure of the feelings coursing through my body. Had Trey stayed buckled in his seat, he might have lived, and I wasn’t sure if it was anger or the unbelievable sadness I felt that coursed through me.

  Or was it guilt?

  Trey hadn’t wanted to take a drive that day. He’d wanted for us to stay indoors. He had a cot to build; he had work to do. I’d been on bed rest because of high blood pressure and was bored. I’d nagged until he gave in. Just an hour, let’s go for a drive, just for an hour, I’d pleaded.

  That hour had devastated, destroyed, ended, not just mine, but his and my baby’s lives.

  That hour had made a mother childless, and a wife, alone. That hour had changed my father’s, my mother-in-law’s and my life, forever.

  “I think the police want to speak to you, when you’re ready for that,” Dad said.

  I nodded my head. I wanted to speak to the police; I wanted that driver prosecuted. He was responsible for two deaths, and my broken heart.

  I placed my feet into slippers laid beside my bed. With my dad on one side and Patricia on the other, I tentatively stood. I wasn’t sure if the ache in my back was from the accident or sleeping on a bed for so long. My casted arm was in a sling. I held my hand over my stomach. That act caused a lump to form in my throat. It was an action I’d done many times to protect my bump. Now it was to protect the wound of a C-section.

  I lowered myself into a wheelchair and a nurse pushed. I was grateful it wasn’t a porter. We rode the lift in silence, down a few floors, and when the doors slid open my heart started to pound. I gripped the arms of the wheelchair, thankful for it, I wasn’t sure my legs would have held me up.

  I’d cried over the past week, so I’d been told. I’d screamed and been sedated. I’d fought, pulled the cannula from my hand, apparently. But those tears, those screams had come from nightmares and drugs.

  Trey lay on the bed; a sheet covered him to his neck. Hannah, in a cot beside him, was dressed in white, angelic and serene. Blonde hair covered her head. I didn’t know who to go to first. I pushed myself from the chair, I placed my hands on the bed beside Trey’s head and I broke. I completely broke.

  “You can pick her up, Dani,” I heard the nurse say.

  I picked up my baby but she felt like a doll, a porcelain doll. I held her to me, hoping to breathe in her scent, she smelled clinical, not like my baby should smell. I laid her on the bed beside Trey. I stroked the side of his face, and then her hair.

  “They need to be buried together,” I whispered.

  The tears that flowed were my soul leaving my body. I watched it. I watched my soul climb on that bed and curl into Trey’s side. I watched its arm reach over and cradle my baby. I died inside that day.

  The sobs that left my mouth were the last sounds my lungs, my voice box, would produce.

  Chapter Two

  “We are gathered here to celebrate the lives of…”

  I looked up at the vicar standing in front of me. Two caskets, one oak, one white, sat to the side of me.

  Celebrate! She hadn’t the fucking chance to live, so what the fuck are we celebrating?

  Those words were screamed in my head. I hadn’t been able to utter a word since that day, three weeks prior, when I’d seen Trey and my baby, cold and lifeless, in a morgue.

  I was angry, I was bitter. The truck driver had been charged, death by dangerous driving, a fine, a ban, was all he’d received. A fucking driving ban! I’d thrown up at the trial when that sentence had been passed.

  The vicar droned on, I tuned out. He hadn’t known Trey or Hannah. He didn’t know me. He spoke about Trey’s life in the U.S. before he came to England. He spoke about the angels that had decided they needed my baby. If I could make sound, it would have been a snort at that one. There was no God, there were no angels—if there was, what a sadistic bastard he was.

  Patricia took hold of my arm. I blinked as I looked at her. She gave me a small smile and a nod. I turned my head to the side. Pallbearers stood beside Trey’s coffin, looking at me, as if waiting for some instruction. My brother had Hannah’s coffin laid across his arms. It looked like a toy. I stood, keeping eye contact with my brother. I reached out, my arms straight in front of me.

  Christian frowned. I opened my mouth; no sound emerged. Then he understood. He laid my baby’s coffin on my arms. I was going to carry her; she was mine. I turned and walked down the aisle to the sound of sobs.

  I was glad I couldn’t speak; I just wished I couldn’t hear. My voice was trapped inside my head making one sound only—screams.

  A pallbearer took Hannah from me and laid her in the back of a hearse. Trey was laid beside her. We drove the short distance to the grave in the cemetery Trey and I would walk around, fascinated by the inscriptions on the gravestones.

  Trey and Hannah were buried together, as I’d wanted. They were laid to rest in the small cemetery near the house my dad owned, on a cliff overlooking the sea.

  When the burial was over, I walked away. I walked to the edge of the cliff, wrapping my jacket tight around me as a bitter wind blew off the English Channel. Dark clouds rolled over the horizon, the sea was angry. It matched my mood, and for that, I thanked Mother Nature. She was as pissed off as I was.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been standing there, looking out as waves crashed against the cliff. I felt a hand on my shoulder, before the arm pulled me into a firm chest. I breathed in the familiar scent of my dad. I swallowed back the tears, but it was just too hard.

  “Cry, baby, cry,” he whispered, his words caught on the wind and were whisked around us.

  I gripped his jacket, my fists curled into the material. I opened my mouth to let out the silent sobs. My body shook with utter despair.

  I’d left London the day I’d been released from hospital. I didn’t go home, I was driven straight to Cornwall. Christian had packed up my house, Helen, his wife, had organised all the baby items to be taken to the local charity shop. I imagined that task had brought her to her knees; bearing in mind she was pregnant herself. I hadn’t been able to see her, I’d shut her out, and she held no malice towards me for that.

  “Let’s get you inside,” Dad said. He turned me gently and we walked towards the house.

  Hushed voices floated around,
mixed with stilted soft laughter. The house was full of people, most I knew, and some I didn’t. Patricia walked towards me, she took me from my dad’s arms and ushered me to the sofa. I obediently sat. I was thankful she took the seat beside me and held my hand. I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want all those people to be there. I kept my head bowed. No one came and spoke to me, everyone knew of my inability to speak. I guessed they just didn’t know how to deal with it.

  How do you have a one-sided conversation with someone so broken their hands shook too much to even write a response?

  I’d given up on the pad and pen I was supposed to carry around. I didn’t invite conversation full stop. Other than to sit on the cliff, I didn’t leave the house, there was no need to communicate with anyone, other than my dad and Patricia.

  As the afternoon wore on, the anti-depressants I’d taken started to work. My eyelids began to droop. I slept more hours each day and night than I’d ever had. I’d been told it was my body’s way of allowing my mind to heal. I was hoping I was dying, that I wouldn’t wake up one morning to pop those little white pills. I was longing to be reunited with Trey and Hannah.

  I felt an arm wrap under mine and I was lifted to my feet. I think I was carried to my bedroom, the room I’d slept in as a child. I didn’t remember my feet touching the wooden stairs.

  My shoes were removed and I curled on my bed. Christian, my twin, the other half of the non-me, pulled a comforter from the chair by the window. He placed it over me before climbing on the bed himself and pulling me into his arms. I was beyond crying at that point. I was beyond fighting to live.

  I closed my eyes, thanking the pills for emptying my mind. I let myself sink into the blackness and I slept.

  I slept on and off for the next week, or maybe it was more. I ate when food was placed in front of me, but I didn’t taste one morsel. I ate to please my dad, Patricia, no other reason. I’d have happily starved myself.