Page 72 of The Book Swap

“I thought you’d do that,” he says, closing his eyes.

“Do what?”

“Take my advice and make it about me.”

I look over at him. He somehow looks older than he did when I last visited. His hair’s in the standard ponytail, and I can see dark brown age spots on his skin, which I’m not sure were there before.

“In what way?”

He turns to look at me. “My heart’s calling wasn’t being a pop star. It was being a husband. A father. All that showbiz stuff...that was my straightforward route. I could have done it without even trying. That’s why I didn’t take it.” He smiles across at me, reaching out to pat my hand. “Every challenge this life has thrown at me has taught me more about myself and the world than singing ever could.”

“But—”

“I don’t expect you to understand my choice,” he says. “But I do wish you’d respect it.”

“Can someone give me a hand in here?” Mum shouts from some distant room, and Dad jumps up the moment he hears her voice, squeezing my shoulder before walking inside.

Standing up, I walk down toward the apple tree and reach a hand onto the trunk, pulling myself up onto the lowest branch, which wavers under the weight of a grown man. I look up, holding my hand out to grab hold of the next branch up, pulling myself onto it, my right foot slipping against the tree. It felt a lot easier when we were kids.

“Hellooo...can someone help me, please?” Mum shouts from inside. Frowning, I lower myself back down the tree. I thought that was where Dad had gone, but it can’t have been. Slipping down from the last branch, my hand rakes its way down the bark, my left shin making contact with the trunk as I try to land.

“Fuck!” I stare down at my hands, cut up from a climb I did a thousand times a day as a child.

“Coming,” I shout to Mum, running up toward the back door. She isn’t in the sitting room, so I tread my way across the fucking rolls of carpet, which couldn’t be more in the way.

Just as I reach the end and jump off, I catch sight of Dad’s feet, sticking out of the kitchen door.

“Dad?” I run toward him and he’s lying on the ground, his right arm clutching the left side of his chest. His face is almost gray. He’s squeezing his eyes shut.

“Call an ambulance, son, please,” he whispers through labored breaths, and I can’t help but think, This can’t be it.

Memories of Dad fill my mind as I reach for my phone. Dad standing at the bottom of the apple tree, telling me and Elliot where to put our feet. Dad turning up at uni with a Tupperware of food, and me trying to force him back out of the door before he’d even had a cup of tea. Dad reading us The Very Hungry Caterpillar, an arm around each of his boys, his voice raised to drown out the sound of Mum hammering away in the back garden as she tried to build a fence that was never finished. Dad turning up at the school gate to surprise me with the new car he’d just bought, and me walking straight past him like I didn’t know him. Dad, just now, desperately trying to make me understand him—when all I’ve ever done is see him through my own eyes, and not his.

I clutch hold of all of those memories, and his hand, and dial 999 for an ambulance.

27

ERIN

Pushing my foot down on the accelerator, I drive as fast as is safely possible toward Bath Royal United Hospital.

Georgia stares out of the window and everything in me wants to do the same thing I tried with Bonnie. To distract her. To chat. To try to make her feel better, but I know that isn’t the right thing to do. Sometimes people are going through something you can’t relate to, and you just have to show up. I didn’t do it for Bonnie, but I can do it now. I can do it for Georgia.

As we drive along the A36, an ambulance overtakes us, sirens blaring. Should I have called an ambulance? I don’t know how serious this is or what it means.

Georgia pulls out her phone and starts typing something. She’ll be googling. Don’t google, I scream inside my own head, but I say nothing. This isn’t my experience.

I’m trying not to spiral. The world can’t be this cruel. She can’t lose this baby.

It’s like it’s rush hour by the time we reach the hospital and cars are driving around, trying to find somewhere to park.

“You go to A&E. They’ll tell you where to go. I’ll come find you as soon as I’ve found a space.”

Georgia steps out of the car, holding her bump. She walks away from me, glancing back, her face ashen, and I nod. She can do this.

I drive to the other end of the car park, farther away from the entrance, whispering a thank you as I spot a bay and move toward it at the same time as a car flies in from the other angle, taking it before I can reverse in.

I beep my horn.

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