Читать книгу After You Fell - J.S. Lark - Страница 11

‘Come on, then. Hurry up. There are people waiting to greet you,’ Simon shouts over his shoulder as he walks ahead with the small suitcase I have brought back from the hospital.

I am walking much quicker than I had on the way out to his car after we had the call saying a heart was available. But there is a sharp pulling in my chest that means I do not rush. It is from the surgery, though, not weakness. I still have that celebrating hard pump of blood, like the vibration of a chiming bell ringing in every artery and vein, yelling out that one day soon I am going to be entirely better. Hear ye. Hear ye. Helen Matthews is well.

My brain is diagnosing the level of my health like a Fitbit measuring every sensation – each out breath and every moment a muscle or tendon moves. I do not want to reject this heart.

The front door opens.

‘Hello.’ Miriam, Mim, waves as she steps out. ‘It is good to see you with colour in your cheeks.’ The colours around her are muddy browns and greens. It is a spiteful aura.

‘Auntie Helen!’ Kevin and Liam squeeze past their mother’s legs and run to me.

‘Remember what I said,’ Simon calls. ‘Be careful with your aunt, she’s recovering.’

I lift my hands, encouraging the twins to grasp one each. ‘As long as you don’t pull I’ll be fine.’ They are used to Auntie Helen’s frailty.

A picture runs through my mind, a memory that doesn’t belong to me. I am running along a beach, holding the hand of a small girl and jumping the shallow waves that roll onto the sand. I know the girl is my daughter, but I do not know how I know.

I want a daughter first. If I can pick.

‘Welcome home.’ Mim’s arms wrap around my neck and she kisses my cheek. I do not mirror the embrace; the boys have possession of my hands. ‘We have a celebration tea planned—’

‘With fizzy orange!’

‘And ice cream!’ the boys add as their hands slip out of mine in unison. They run into the house bursting with the constant excitement of four-year-olds.

‘And pizza. Sorry, it’s more their party than yours,’ Mim whispers.

I don’t mind. If the boys are happy, I’m happy.

I have been guilty of spoiling Simon’s boys as if they are mine since they were born. They are a relief for the craving in my womb.

Dan hated me talking about children. He always said he wanted children, but then changed his mind two years ago.

‘Don’t go on about children, you can’t have them, you are too ill, stop talking about babies, even if we adopt how are you going to look after a child?’

Every time he said words like that there was another sharp pin stabbing into the voodoo effigy of me, the effigy it felt as if he held in his hand.

Then he told me, ‘I don’t love you any more. You have to go,’ driving a kitchen knife into my sick heart and making it shatter.

He moved his pregnant mistress in a week after Simon had loaded up the car with the boxes, bags and cases packed full of my half of our life together.

Every day, since the day I moved out of the flat, was a day to endure – surviving long enough to get this heart.

That was the end.

Now I have the heart.

This is the beginning.

It whispers to me all the time. The heart.

A coverall smile gathers up my expression as I walk into the house behind Mim; the smile I have given everyone who has asked how I feel over the years.

Simon’s hand touches my waist as he leans to put the case on the floor near the stairs in the hall. ‘Welcome home. I’ll take your case up after we’ve eaten.’

‘Thank you.’ The children and Mim are in the kitchen already. I turn, stretching up to wrap my arms around his neck. It pulls my chest. I hold on tight and pull him down a little.

He is six years older and six inches taller. I have stretched up to hold him for as long as I can remember.

His arms slide around my middle to return the hug. I kiss his cheek. He kisses mine. The world is perfect for a moment.

‘You’ll be all right.’

I nod as I let go, my cheek pricked by the hairs of his short beard. ‘I know I will. I’m excited.’

Excited because I know that one day soon I am going to start my own family.

Colour creeps up from his neck into his cheeks. The pink tint in Simon’s skin when he or I mention anything that might refer to Dan keeps telling me Simon feels guilty. Dan was, is, his friend.

Simon introduced Dan to me in my first year at college. Dan asked me out that day. But how we ended is not Simon’s fault and Simon took me in, looking after me for the last few months. Just as he did when we were children.

This man, my brother, is the perfect man. Mim is lucky.

‘Daddy. Auntie Helen. Hurry up. We’re hungry!’ The children shout from the kitchen as the mouth-watering smell of melted cheese and pepperoni wafts into the hall.

Simon smiles. There is a look in his eyes that I have seen for as long as I can remember. I see this look in my mind’s eye every night before I go to sleep. The expression says ‘I love you’ with no need for words.

I see that look from a young boy, and I am standing in another hall, in another house, and the boy … I don’t know him.

Will he be my child?

Am I connecting with spirits from the future now as well as the past?

‘You first.’ Simon’s hand lifts. ‘It’s your coming-home party. But go on up to bed if you start feeling too ill.’

‘Yes, Dad.’

A low laugh follows my movement.

A muffled ringtone vibrates through the fabric of my suitcase behind us. I turn back, pointing. ‘My phone.’

‘I’ll get it.’ Simon turns, bends to release the zip on the suitcase, takes out the phone and looks at the caller ID. ‘It’s Chloe.’ He puts the phone in my outstretched palm just as the ringing stops. ‘I’ll call her back after we’ve eaten.’ I slip the phone into the back pocket of my jeans.

‘She can come over if you want her to.’

‘Tomorrow. I’m too tired tonight.’

‘Whenever suits the two of you.’