had been snatched away so horrifically. He was always right here after all, a constant reminder of him in the eyes of her child. She should have told him. Yes, she would have been sharing a secret she’d sworn to Cassie she never would, but she couldn’t help thinking that Josh might have understood why she’d agreed to keep quiet. Please forgive me, she begged him silently.
As if he’d heard the thoughts in her head, Liam’s wide blue eyes, scrunched closed a moment ago, swivelled towards her.
Icy fingers trailed the length of her spine as she wondered whether Josh could hear her too. ‘Please stop, baby,’ she pleaded, her voice catching. ‘Please stop crying for Mummy.’
His cries only grew louder. His little cheeks were red raw, his whole body rigid.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’ Sniffling hard, Jemma reached a hand cautiously into the cot, placing the flat of it against his tiny heaving chest. His heart was beating fast, like a frightened pigeon.
Her own heart wrenching with unbearable guilt, she plucked him from the cot and pressed him close to her shoulder. Tears and snot running down her face, she jiggled him, tried desperately to soothe him. Moving him to the crook of her arm, she rocked him, walked him around the room, along the landing to her own room, showing him all the pretty things in her wardrobe, on her dressing table, jewellery and ornaments and brightly coloured scarves. He didn’t seem to hear her. Wasn’t interested.
She went downstairs, clutching him tight to her and treading carefully. Nothing enticed him. He didn’t stop crying. Finally, frustration knotting her stomach and twisting her nerves, she climbed the stairs back to the nursery, where she picked up his toys, waggling them one by one in front of him: his Jellycat Fuddlewuddle, his pompom penguin, his green dragon, which Ryan had coaxed his first chuckle from him with. She activated his Peter Rabbit musical mobile, stroked his back and attempted to shush him as it gently rotated and played its calming lullaby.
It didn’t work. Nothing worked, his howls of anguish only increasing.
Jemma’s heart banged against her ribcage. Cold fear and nausea constricting her stomach, she laid him back in his cot. Still he wailed, his mouth wide, like a gaping wound. She ran her hands over her face, dragged her fingers through her hair, grabbed two handfuls of it and tugged it hard.
Stop, she begged. Please stop. Please stop. Over and over she repeated it. Then, ‘Stop!’ she screamed, snatching him back up. ‘I don’t know what you want! What is it? What do you want me to do?’ Her hands under his arms, Liam held high above her, she was an inch away from shaking him when she caught herself.
Horrified, she lowered him carefully back down and, a hand clasped to her mouth, backed stumbling out of the room.
Her breath ragged, she closed the door, placed the flat of her hand against it, then slid slowly to her haunches. She could have hurt him. Dear God, she might have… Burying her face in her hands, mortification settling like ice inside her, she stayed there, crying along with her baby.
Eventually, when Liam’s cries quietened to an exhausted hiccuping whimper, she pulled herself shakily to her feet and pressed her forehead against the door, feeling the solidity of it between them. ‘I’m sorry, baby. So, so sorry,’ she whispered.
She wanted to go back in to him, kiss his Cupid lips and say goodbye to him. She couldn’t allow herself to do that. Couldn’t trust herself to be anywhere near him.
Turning silently to the bathroom, she stepped in and opened the cabinet. They were still there, the antidepressants she’d been prescribed when she’d fallen apart, her emotions spiralling out of control, after losing her darling little Noah.
Fifty
Adam
Staring in disbelief at the letter, Adam felt his gut twist. He closed his eyes, swallowing back the acrid smell of smoke suffused with alcohol that permeated the house; the guilt, which was lodged in his throat like a stone. His fault, all of it. Up until Cassie had mentioned Josh’s allergy, he’d been refusing to acknowledge what his instinct had been telling him. Yet he’d known. Deep down somewhere, he’d known. When he’d learnt that Kim had been in the very same shop Cassie had been accused of shoplifting from, he’d wondered. Every time she’d mentioned the friend they’d never seen, he’d been wary. They’d never seen her because she didn’t fucking well exist. There was no text