Page 49 of Journey to You

The headline.

No, it couldn’t be…

With her lungs screaming for oxygen, she turned back and reached for the nearest newspaper with trembling hands.

“Haven’t seen you around here for a while, love?”

She arranged her mouth into a smile for the old guy who’d been working here forever, when all she wanted to do was flap open the paper and see if the horrible sense of impending doom hanging over her was true.

“I’ve been away.” She thrust a ten dollar bill at him. “Here, keep the change.”

“But that’s way too much—”

She waved over her shoulder and half ran, half wobbled to the nearest wrought-iron bench where she collapsed, the newspaper rolled tight in her fist.

It’s not about him…it’s not about him…

No matter how many times she repeated the words, the second she opened the paper and saw Richard’s smug grin next to Sonja’s, adjacent to an adorable baby with her husband’s dimples, the life she’d worked so hard to re-assemble crumbled before her eyes.

Twenty-Four

Tamara had no idea how she made itAmbrosia, no recollection of the walk, as she unlocked and relocked the door before collapsing onto the nearest chair.

She stared blindly around the room, the place that had become a safe haven for her. The pale lemon walls, the honey oak floorboards, the open fire place along one wall, the glittering bar along the other; she’d spent every Monday here for the last six months, drinking hot chocolate, honing her work skills, putting her life back together.

A life now laid bare for the public to scrutinise and judge.

It had been hard enough discovering Sonja’s existence, evidence that not only had Richard been cheating on her, he’d done it in a house bought and paid for by him while he’d imposed ridiculously tight budgets on her.

She’d been humiliated by the discovery of the other woman, had told no one, and now, her degradation would be seen by everyone, her hopes for a new start dashed.

She fisted her hands and pushed them into her eyes in the vain hope to rub away the haunting image of that cherubic baby in the newspaper.

That should’ve been her baby, the baby she’d wanted but Richard had always vetoed, the baby he’d been too busy to have, the baby that would’ve given her the complete family she always wanted.

She’d pushed for a child, had been placated with his lousy excuses, and now she’d come face to face with yet more evidence of how much her husband hadn’t loved her, how little he thought of her.

Damn him for having the power to annihilate the self confidence she’d so carefully rebuilt. She’d handled his infidelity, but this…

Deep sobs racked her body as she bundled the paper into a ball and flung it across the room with an anguished scream.

“What the—”

Ethan dropped his briefcase near the backdoor where he’d entered and ran for the main restaurant where he’d heard the most gut-wrenching cry. He burst through the swinging doors, his heart leaping to his mouth at the sight that greeted him.

Tam, slumped on a chair, her head buried in her arms, sobbing uncontrollably, her shoulders heaving.

“Tam?” He raced across the room, pulled up a chair next to her, and reached out to touch her. “Sweetheart, it’s me.”

Her head snapped up and the raw pain radiating from her red-rimmed eyes slammed into him like a cast iron skillet. He opened his arms to her, wanting to comfort her, desperate to slay whatever demon had driven her to this.

She shook her head, hiccuped. “He had a baby.”

Who had a baby? She wasn’t making sense.

With tears coursing down her cheeks, she jerked her thumb towards the floor, where he spied a balled up newspaper.

He reached it in two strides, picked it up and smoothed it on the bar, the photo painting a shocking scenario before he speed-read the accompanying article.

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