Forget Me Not (Escape Contemporary Romance)

by Nina Blake

  A furrow formed in Veronica’s brow. ‘You were really cut up when you found out that she had miscarried.’

  So, that was it. That was the detail he’d been searching for. They’d almost had a baby. Almost.

  It was a huge omission on Claire’s part, and he wondered why she hadn’t mentioned it.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘Because you didn’t talk about it. A couple of people told you they were sorry, but you just brushed them off. You didn’t say a word about what had happened and you didn’t miss a day of work. You acted as if it were nothing. That was a dead giveaway.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Veronica looked him in the eye. ‘Steve, honey, I might be a bitch but I’m not a lying bitch.’

  He believed her on both accounts.

  Still, she’d helped him more than she knew, certainly more than any friend would have. She didn’t seem to have many friends.

  Stefan stood. ‘Thanks for seeing me.’

  Veronica looked up at him through lowered lashes. ‘I’m flattered you came. You were right to choose to see me. I know you very well.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, but you don’t know what I’m going through at the moment. I feel like I’m starting my life from scratch while the rest of the world is racing on ahead.’

  ‘It’ll work itself out one way or another. Life always does for men like you.’

  Stefan wasn’t sure if that was intended to be an insult. ‘Men like me?’

  ‘You were successful before and you’ll be successful again, whatever you choose to do.’

  He looked away. ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.’

  ‘In the meantime, you need to take some time for yourself, and work out what you want to do. If something makes you feel good, maybe you should just go with the flow, take things as they come.’ Smiling, Veronica added, ‘We can still have a bit of fun together.’

  So, that was it. He should have guessed as much. She’d been helpful because there might have been something in it for her. ‘Sorry, Veronica, but I’m not interested.’

  She shrugged. ‘It was worth a try.’

  No, it hadn’t been, but in a way he felt sorry for Veronica. A woman chasing after any man that came her way must be desperate. She was pathetic, really. But his sympathy didn’t last long.

  He had his own problems.

  Stefan walked out, closing that door behind him.

  He was striding out of the elevator and toward the exit when his cell phone rang. Looking at the screen, Stefan it was Claire’s mother returning his call. He walked over to a sofa in the corner of the foyer and sat, deciding that was as private a place as any to take the call.

  ‘June,’ he said. ‘Is there any word on Sophie yet?’

  ‘None, but she and the baby are both stable and the doctors say that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Did they give any indication of what happens next?’

  ‘Not really. Sophie might have to spend the next month in hospital or they might try to induce a birth, but they’re not sure if that’d put the baby under too much stress or not.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you, Stefan.’

  ‘I’m also sorry to bother you at a time like this. I know you’ve got a lot on your mind with Sophie, and with Claire, too, but I couldn’t see a way around it. There’s something I wanted to ask you. It’s personal.’

  Speaking to Veronica had rattled Stefan more than he’d liked, but he was glad he’d talked to her first. He now knew exactly what to ask June. ‘Try me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m still trying to piece together my history and find out more about myself. Claire has been incredibly helpful, but I’m still not clear on a few things. I can’t work out what went wrong with our marriage, for a start. I was wondering if you knew.’

  ‘Have you asked Claire about it?’

  ‘Yes but, to tell you the truth, I haven’t been able to get a clear answer. From what I can gather, things had been going downhill for a while.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘We’d been arguing. We were both spending lots of time at work and not much time together. Claire has said lots of things but there’s nothing that adds up to a good reason for us to separate.’

  ‘Well, you’re the one who left her.’

  He probably deserved that.

  ‘I know,’ Stefan replied quietly. ‘I’d still like to know why, though. Do you have any idea?’

  ‘No. I had no inkling the two of you were even headed for divorce until the day Claire came around here and told me you’d left. I can’t help you, Stefan.’

  Her first priority was her daughters and she had a lot on her mind. Still, Stefan wasn’t giving up just yet.

  ‘So you had no idea anything was wrong before that?’

  ‘Not until Claire told me you didn’t love her anymore. Then I knew it was definitely over.’

  Dear God, surely that couldn’t have been the case. Surely he couldn’t have been so cruel?

  ‘I said that to her?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Claire’s reaction was starting to make sense now. When they’d watched the video together, seen the pain he’d caused shining in her eyes. All those years ago at that university quiz night, Stefan had sung to her, serenaded her in front of a crowd. He’d told her he loved her and hadn’t cared who else in the room had noticed. On the television, Claire had seen the man who’d loved her, while sitting beside her on the sofa was the man who’d told her he didn’t.

  After a while, Stefan said, ‘I just wish I could remember something, anything. It’s so damn frustrating.’

  But at the back of his mind, Stefan thought that if Claire still loved him, maybe he had a chance.

  ‘You’re talking to the wrong person, Stefan. This really has nothing to do with me.’

  He had to act quickly. June was winding down the conversation.

  ‘The reason we broke up,’ he said. ‘Was it something to do with the pregnancy?’

  ‘I don’t think so. When Claire lost the baby she wasn’t just upset, Stefan, she was devastated. The poor thing. She might not have talked about the problems in your marriage but she talked about the pregnancy and her miscarriage. Not to her other friends, but to me and her psychologist. She went to counselling for months.’

  ‘Do you think she got over it?’

  ‘I think Claire learned to live with what happened but it still didn’t change the fact she’d lost the baby.’

  June’s words resonated in his ears. The miscarriage had been more an unnamed bump in Claire’s stomach—it had been their baby. This changed everything.

  ‘I haven’t told you anything that was said in confidence,’ June said. ‘When it came to the subject of the pregnancy, Claire was very open about her feelings to me and to you, as well.’

  Not to him, not this time round. . Veronica had told Stefan that she’d known he was upset about the miscarriage because he hadn’t talked about it.

  Perhaps the same went for Claire. Perhaps that was why she hadn’t told him about it—because she’d been too distraught.

  ‘It’s Claire you should be talking to, not me,’ June added.

  She was right. At least now he had some idea what they should be talking about.

  Hopefulness surged inside him. Finally, he felt like he was getting somewhere, like he had a direction. For weeks, he’d felt like he was a broken cog in a well-oiled machine, with everything around him was whizzing and working while he stayed still.

  Better than most people, Stefan knew the importance of having someone around who cared. His own parents didn’t care nearly enough; his friends and colleagues weren’t exactly bending over backwards to help. He had the car and the apartment, and he’d had the overseas trips, and all the other trappings of success, but that didn’t compare with what Claire gave him—her time, her affection, perhaps her love.

  Memory or no memory, without Claire he was nothing.

>   And he wasn’t going back to that.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Waiting on the bench, Claire’s gaze wandered from the deep green of the large-leafed ivy covering the ground on either side of her, to the washed-out tones of the gum trees overhead; they were pale but pretty nonetheless.

  The park wasn’t much more than a small pocket between residential buildings, a mish-mash of vegetation with several gum trees and a few deciduous trees thrown into the mix.

  Claire inhaled deeply. The air smelt of mulch, and menthol from the eucalyptus trees.

  That morning she’d felt relieved when Stefan had said he was going out for a few hours. She’d made sure she wasn’t home when he returned. She felt like a coward, but it was the best she could manage for the time being. When he’d called her and suggested they meet at the park, it seemed like good timing. They could meet on neutral territory, the perfect location for her to tell him he had to move out. Now. Today.

  Her head lowered, Claire looked at her hands as they lay in her lap, felt her eyes closing as she recalled what they’d had and how good they’d been together. Her stomach twisted at the thought of how much had been lost.

  Sophie was right. It had been a mistake to take him back.

  Her mother was right. She should have asked him to leave sooner.

  The smell of coffee washed over her. Claire opened her eyes to see Stefan standing in front of her with two cardboard take-out cups, a brown paper bag precariously hanging from one hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ Claire took one of the coffees. ‘I hope I’ve got the right one.’

  Stefan nudged the paper bag toward her. ‘You might be interested in these, as well. I wasn’t sure which one to get so I chose one of each.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Her response was instinctive. She didn’t feel like eating but she’d missed lunch, and coffee on an empty stomach didn’t agree with her. No point making herself feel worse. ‘I mean, thank you.’ She reached into the bag and grabbed a macadamia nut cookie.

  They sat in silence while they ate and sipped their coffee. Claire wondered if Stefan felt as lousy as she did. Perhaps he didn’t know what was coming.

  He was the first to speak. ‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.’

  Claire felt a pang inside, thinking that if he had something to tell her, it must be to do with his memory. She should’ve been quicker, should’ve gotten in first.

  ‘Has your memory come back?’

  Stefan shook his head. ‘Nothing like that. It’s about our past life together. Claire, you never told me you’d been pregnant, that we’d been expecting a baby.’

  Her coffee cup at her lips, she paused for a moment, then took a sip, wondering how he’d found out. She hadn’t expected this.

  Not that it mattered. Her pregnancy had been a public thing, hard to hide, and at the time they’d been happy for the world to know. Lots of people had known, and now Stefan knew, too.

  ‘I never got around to it,’ Claire explained.

  Because it had been too hard for her.

  Since Stefan had come back, Claire had thought about it more than she had for a long time. She’d trained herself not to think about it because that was the only way she could cope. The alternative was to go crazy with grief so, instead, she blocked the memories from her every day routine and kept busy.

  ‘There were ten years we had to catch up on,’ she said. ‘So much had happened, and that was one thing out of many.’

  ‘One big thing,’ Stefan corrected.

  ‘Yes, it was a big thing to me.’

  He slid his hand away from hers. ‘But not to me?’

  Claire shook her head.

  ‘What happened?’

  Looking down, she said, ‘We’d talked about it and decided it was time to have a baby, so I went off the pill. A couple of months later, I fell pregnant and everything seemed fine. We were both happy. I was five months pregnant with a sizeable bump.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I miscarried. The doctors didn’t know why. I was healthy and everything seemed to be going fine. What happened next was just one of those things and the doctors couldn’t explain why.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘Two years ago.’

  Nearly two years to the day but knowing that wouldn’t help to tell him. It would just be another date he’d wouldn’t have remembered anyway.

  ‘Were you left with any ongoing physical problems?’

  Stefan was trying so hard to be tactful, but her issue hadn’t been a physical one.

  ‘After all was said and done, the doctor told me we that were both young and healthy and that we should try again to get pregnant.’

  ‘Why didn’t we?’

  ‘It wasn’t that simple.’

  Stefan leaned forward, hands clasped, his expression intense. ‘Then explain it to me. I know talking about this is hard for you but I have to understand what happened.’

  ‘My body had healed but I had a lot of trouble dealing with the loss emotionally.’ Claire thought back to that day, remembered the doctor’s nonchalance in the face of her pain when the hurt inside wouldn’t go away. She tried to find the words. ‘The way the doctor talked to us…he was so clinical. One baby hadn’t worked out, so we should get another one, a replacement because the old one had broken down.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not how he meant it.’

  ‘No, but that was how it felt. And there others who said similar things. They tried to be helpful and told me that perhaps the baby wasn’t going to be healthy and that was why it had happened. That if the child wasn’t ‘right’ then we were better off without him. They were looking for a rational explanation that didn’t exist. As if any explanation, medical or otherwise, was going to make me feel better.’

  Claire sighed. ‘I even had people telling me it simply wasn’t meant to be, that what happened was probably all for the best, and life would everything else out. And, hey, we could always have another baby. Like there was nothing more to it. Everyone has their stories about other couples who try for a baby for years and can’t conceive. A few people had the gall to tell I was lucky compared to those who had never had a chance to get pregnant.’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t understand—’

  ‘No, they didn’t. I couldn’t have that baby again. That baby was gone. Nothing was going to bring him back, and their suggestions were insensitive and hurtful, whether they meant to be or not.’

  Stefan’s eyes widened. ‘It was a boy?’

  Claire nodded.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘At first, Mum was the only one who listened to me, let me take my time. She didn’t judge me or tell me what I should be feeling.’

  Stefan raised his eyebrows. ‘The only one?’

  She couldn’t lie. He’d been caring at first but his support had run out dry. After a couple of weeks, the old Stefan told her it was time to move on and take hold of her life, but she hadn’t been ready. It had taken much longer than that.

  ‘You were good to me for a while,’ Claire said. ‘But there was a time-limit on your sympathy and understanding. You didn’t want to talk about it anymore. You said that it was time to put it behind us. But I needed more than that, and I had to go to therapy to deal. You didn’t tell me I was wasting my time but I could tell that was what you thought. You didn’t need to say it out loud.’

  ‘Did counselling work?’

  She nodded. ‘It took a long time but it helped.’

  ‘After that, didn’t we try for another baby?’

  ‘No. By that stage things had already started go sour between us.’

  Stefan’s brow furrowed. ‘What about me? Didn’t I grieve? Didn’t I want another child?’

  That was an interesting word, one he hadn’t used before, but one her therapist had used many times. Stefan hadn’t thought there had been anything to grieve about: she’d only been five months into her pregnancy, the fetus had been small, the procedure at the hospital so
quick. And, by comparison, her reaction had seemed out of proportion.

  Stefan hadn’t told her she’d been making mountain out of a molehills but the thought had been there. No doubt about it.

  Yet, the man sitting before her now was showing more understanding and compassion than that other who’d known her for over a decade. This man was listening.

  ‘If you had any strong feelings about the miscarriage and losing the baby, you kept them very well hidden,’ Claire said.

  She saw disappointment in his eyes. He’d wanted a different answer, one she couldn’t give.

  ‘How do you feel about it now?’ Stefan asked.

  ‘I’ve learned to live with the loss. My therapist was a big help. There was one thing she suggested which helped me immensely. It was a turning point.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ’I wrote a letter to Matthew, our little baby. I put down all my hopes and dreams; for him and for us. I wrote down all the milestones we’d missed: his first smile, first words, first steps, first day at school, first kiss, the first everything that was never going to happen now.’ Claire felt her voice falter but kept going. ‘I told Matthew how much I’d miss the hugs we’d never have and the words I’d never hear him speak, but that it was okay, that I knew he loved me like I loved him, even if he was too small to know it.’

  Claire felt the tears welling up and stopped. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Stefan, not now. Not after all the tears she’d already shed.

  Putting her cup on the bench beside her, Claire held her hands in her lap. ‘That was when I said goodbye to him, when I started to heal.’

  ‘What did I think of the letter?’

  ‘You didn’t read it.’

  ‘I didn’t?’

  Claire didn’t want to hurt him. Whatever had happened in the past, it wouldn’t have been fair for her to hold Stefan responsible, not in his current state. She’d shut him out, hadn’t communicated her feelings properly, and had let her own emotions build up until eventually she’d accused him of being heartless. If Claire had wanted him to open up to her, Stefan was hardly going to after that.