away from specifics. My nights were haunted by dreams of him as it was.
* * *
? ? ?
As soon as I was home I went into my bedroom, drew the curtains shut, and lay on the bed with the quilt pulled up around me. So many bad emotions swirled around my head; I just needed to hide away.
I don’t think I’d seen Emma as a real person before. I’d shut out every thought of her, and Harry rarely mentioned her. It wasn’t one of those affairs I’d heard about where the wife was criticized nonstop by her own husband and his lover. I think we both preferred to pretend she and Tom didn’t exist. I don’t know which is worse, really.
After a while I grew sick of thinking about them. I got out of bed, determined to go for a walk before dinner, to get some fresh air and hopefully some positive thoughts. Before I set off, I went into the kitchen to get a bottle of water from the fridge to take with me and stopped dead.
There on the kitchen counter was a mug of coffee. It was my mug, my coffee. I stared at it. I was sure I hadn’t had it that morning. Warily I touched the mug. It was room temperature. I held it to my nose. Definitely coffee. The jar was on the counter and a spoon was in the sink. Inside the fridge was a plastic bottle of milk I’d bought the day before. I hadn’t opened that bottle. I knew I hadn’t opened it. I twisted off the green cap and saw the seal had been removed. I checked the bin. I’d taken the bin bag to the outside bins the day before and there in the fresh bin bag was the little foil seal. I frowned. Had I done that? I closed my eyes to concentrate. I could almost swear I hadn’t.
CHAPTER 52
Ruby
I came back from work on Monday feeling a lot better. The end was in sight with that job. I no longer cared that the others sat about eating chocolates and putting work on my desk whenever I went to the restroom. They meant nothing to me, and anyway, I like to be busy. My house was up for sale. Soon I could move on. I was still worried that I was forgetting things and thought I’d make an appointment to see my doctor if it carried on. I must have had coffee on Saturday morning. It was something I did every single morning. I hated to miss it and felt out of sorts and tired before I had it. I wouldn’t have gone out shopping if I’d felt like that. Just that morning I’d found myself halfway through a slice of toast and could hardly remember making it. And there were times when I was living with Tom where I’d be stressed and unable to sleep until the early hours, then the next morning I’d find myself at work without remembering parts of the journey. Sometimes you do things on automatic pilot; that’s what I must have done with the coffee. It was normal when you were tired.
I went straight out for a run after work that evening. I took a different route, through a road parallel to the river. At the top of the hill that led down to the promenade I stopped for a second and steadied myself on an old stone wall. The smell of the river, salty and fresh, filled my lungs. I plugged my headphones in and scrolled through my phone’s playlist. Bob Marley’s “One Love” resounded in my ears as I ran down the hill toward the river. The sun was still bright, the sky a vivid blue.
My heart lifted. As my body warmed up and my breathing became more measured, I felt a spark of happiness. There’s something about running, when there’s enough wind to cool my face and when my arms and legs are in synchrony, that means I can let myself go completely and forget everything, just for a while.
I ran back to my flat feeling as though something had changed in me. I was ready to leave my past behind and move on. And that wasn’t a punishment, it wasn’t a penance; it was something I was looking forward to.