Page 60 of Then She Vanished

As he walks through, I hug him. He grips me back, still not knowing why I’m so upset. Pulling away, he removes his boots and his damp coat. ‘Has something happened?’

I nod and I know I’m about to pull a grotesque crying face, but I can’t help it. I feel as though hope has died as all my tears spill. ‘I lost our baby.’

Again, he hugs me, and then he leads me to the bed after which he makes me a cup of tea in the microwave. He can be the sweetest man sometimes, when he isn’t stressed. When we first met, I didn’t think things would ever be like this, but time has been good for us and now I feel this deep yearning within whenever he leaves me.

He pulls the blankets up to my waist and lies beside me, stroking my hair. Do I see a tear in his eye? I think I do. He wanted this baby as much as me.

I wish Mum was with me. She’d know what to do now. I’d love to hug her. He tells me she’s dead and Dad is too, so he is all I have now. She’d want me to be safe and she’s always with me here, in my heart.

‘Do you need anything?’ He breaks my thoughts.

‘I don’t know. This has never happened to me before. I think my friend’s mum miscarried and she needed a procedure at the hospital.’ The word miscarriage sticks in my throat.

He pulls back slightly and looks into my eyes. ‘You look well. You’re going to be okay – we can’t risk taking you up there for an operation because I’ll lose you. I could never risk losing you. People out there won’t understand our love, and it’s not nice or safe out there, you know that. Whatever you need, I will get it for you.’

I nod, knowing he’s right. Sitting up, I begin to make a list and stop at sanitary towels. Thick ones. The Babygro he brought back one night catches my eye. I lean over him and snatch it from the pull-out table that we used to play chess on. ‘Take this away, please.’ It’s too painful to keep seeing it.

‘Are you sure? We are going to try for another baby, aren’t we?’

I snatch my cupcake scarf and wrap it around me, dabbing my eyes with the end. ‘Yes, but that belonged to our first and I will never forget him or her. Please just take it for now and keep it somewhere safe.’ I place a hand on my empty belly. ‘It was a boy, I know it was.’

I do all I can to keep the waterworks from starting again. I pause, wondering if I should speak my mind, then I think, what the hell, I have lost my baby. Nothing else can hurt as much as this.

‘Can I go outside, only for a minute? I just want to see the grass and the trees.’

‘Sweetheart, there is no grass up there and there are no trees here. It’s barren up there.’

I sob my heart out at the mention of that word, and I hope with all I have that I’ll get another chance to carry a baby.

‘I don’t mind. Just one minute.’ I still don’t know where we are and I can’t ask. He says it doesn’t matter as long as we’re together.

He shakes his head. ‘I can’t let you. I love you too much.’

‘If you loved me, you’d do this for me.’ I begin to beat his chest with my flimsy fists.

He grabs them. ‘What have I told you about arguing with me?’

I can’t breathe. My vision prickles. ‘I want to go out. Let me out.’ I keep hitting and hitting. He gets away from me, grabs his coat and slips his feet into his boots. ‘Wait, don’t go. I’m sorry, I love you. Stay with me.’

Without another word, he leaves me alone. All the lights go off as I cry over our little boy.

His dreams are my dreams.

A glimmer of our past flashes back and I know what I have to do. It’s helped me so far. What I need to do is love him even more, show him he can trust me and then he might let me out. Maybe I haven’t loved him enough.

We need a baby. That is the ultimate proof of love. We need a child we can both love. He is all I have. And regardless of how I feel right now, about him turning the lights off on me, I want to live and I am lucky to be here, safe in the capsule from a world that would judge us. I can ride through this punishment, just like I have all the others.

He’ll come back to me soon. Maybe he’s hurting right now, too. I have been so selfish. The baby wasn’t just mine, it was his too.

I can’t lose him.

THIRTY-NINE

Gina ran across the road, alongside Jacob, and started banging at Gary’s door. Jacob peered in through the window. ‘The lights are off, guv.’

‘Damn.’ Gina called PC Ahmed over. ‘Shaf, have you seen Mr Pritchard leave his house? You and the other officers have been on this road since we left his house.’

‘No. His car is still here.’

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