Page 2 of The Fall-Out

Damn it. It was no good. I raised my wrist to my eyes and the clock on my fitness tracker told me it was five to six. When I connected to its app, it would tell me what I already knew: that I’d had about three and a half hours of restless sleep.

There was no point trying for more – I knew from experience that now, if I managed to fall asleep again, I’d only be jerked awake from a dream that I’d struggle to shake, and spend the day feeling groggy, anxious and even more tearful than I was bound to feel anyway.

I turned back to Patch’s warm body and wrapped my arm round him, pulling him close. He grunted sleepily and I kissed the back of his neck, inhaling the smell of him, trying to recapture the way that smell used to make me feel.

But I didn’t feel anything – just a deep weight of sadness that I feared would never go away. Having sex with my husband on his birthday and at Christmas was one thing, but I wasn’t going to be able to get myself in the mood on the morning of a funeral, pecs or no pecs.

At any rate, the closeness of my body had roused him into a lighter sleep, and the snoring had stopped for now. Looking at his back in the blueish early-morning light, his shoulders relaxed in sleep, his hair mussed where it had pressed against the pillow, I felt overwhelmed with tenderness. It was like when we’d been on a date, years ago, to see an afternoon showing of E.T. at the cinema, and at the moment when the boys soared into the sky on their BMX bikes, I’d glanced sideways at him and seen that he was crying.

I was already in love with him then, but that moment – seeing him so moved, so vulnerable, like a little boy himself – had made me think, I’m going to spend my life loving this man.

And here we were. Still together, married, the parents of two children. Still in love – mostly. I hoped.

I turned over on to my back, reaching for my phone and releasing it from the charging cable one-handed. As soon as the book-end of my body left Patch’s back, he turned over too and the snoring began again, even louder than before.

Soft thoughts of love forgotten, I dug my elbow into his ribs – more than a shove but not quite a blow.

‘Whatcha doing?’ he mumbled.

‘You’re snoring. Stop it.’

‘You hit me.’

‘No, I didn’t. Turn over.’

‘I’m sleeping.’

‘No, you’re not.’

But as if to prove me wrong, he let out another thunderous snore.

I rolled my eyes – pointless, given his were closed – and shuffled my pillows higher to sit up, flicking my phone to life. My notifications screen told me nothing I didn’t already know – I had no new emails, one event that day, and the weather was awful. Oh, apart from the FTSE 100 being up and the Nasdaq down, which I hadn’t known but didn’t need to.

I tapped the WhatsApp icon, as I did almost first thing every morning. There had been no new messages on the Girlfriends’ Club chat since we’d all wished each other good night, like we were girls whispering in the dark in a boarding school dormitory.

Now, it was time for the process to happen in reverse.

Naomi:

Good morning

Then my thumbs paused over the keypad. There was so much to say, yet also nothing at all. How are we all feeling? Scared, sad, still disbelieving. How did everyone sleep? Not much. Is it really happening? Yes.

Then, as I watched, three new messages flashed up on my screen, just the same.

Kate:

Good morning

Rowan:

Good morning

Abbie:

Good morning

I imagined them all thinking, just as I had, that there was nothing else to say – not yet, anyway.

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