Page 91 of The Day Shelley Woodhouse Woke Up
I smile, because he knows this is exactly the kind of thing I would do. ‘Not tomorrow, but I’m nearly ready to go back.’
‘Well, that’s great. There are so many people who’ve missed you.’
I think about the low times in the hospital, when I thought I didn’t have anyone other than Dee. There is Matt, and Mum, and Annabelle. I have a whole life, with purpose and love. I have been so lucky.
He walks me back to Dee’s. We hold hands, and the air is cold and I haven’t brought a thick enough coat so the warmth of his skin is welcome. I feel the smooth metal of his wedding ring.
‘You weren’t wearing your ring,’ I say. ‘When you were visiting me. When you were being Hospital Matt.’
‘Yeah, I thought it might confuse things.’
I look down at our hands. ‘And where’s mine?’
‘It’s at home. They asked us to remove any jewellery while you were in Intensive Care. Do you want me to drop it round for you?’
‘I’ll pick it up,’ I say. I picture walking up to the front door of the house that was my home, that will be again. I don’t know where my key is, but I know how that place smells when youopen the front door, where I’ll see a small pile of recent post and Matt’s discarded shoes.
And then I go back to what he said about taking his ring off because it might confuse things. I think of him and Dee in the aftermath of the accident, frantic and having to make all these decisions about what was best for me. How, for Dee, it wasn’t the first time she’d almost lost me. We reach Dee’s front door, and I ask if Matt wants to come inside, and I’m torn over how I want him to reply. It isn’t my home, isn’t really my place to be inviting people in, though I know Dee wouldn’t mind. But at the same time, I don’t want this evening to end.
‘I’d better get home. I’ve got an early start in the morning. Is that okay?’
I look him in the eye and nod. And then I reach up and put one hand on the back of his neck, and I lean in and kiss him. I mean for it to be a chaste kiss, a commitment to finding my way back to him. But I’m back. I’m all in. And it turns into something else, into something passionate and full of all the longing we’ve both been feeling. It turns into a promise of what’s to come.
‘I’ll be home soon,’ I whisper into his ear.
He grins, and it’s so reassuring to know that he’s there, ready and waiting for me to step back into the life I was living. The life I forgot.
‘Goodnight, Shelley Woodhouse,’ he says, walking backwards down Dee’s front path.
‘Goodnight, Matt Thornton.’
I let myself in, and the house is quiet. Callum and Liam must be in bed, and Dee will still be working. I make myself a cup of tea and sit in the kitchen, going back over things Matt said tonight. I feel like a teenager with a crush.
I’ve been doing what Angela suggested, all this time. Letting in a bit of my past at a time, until I was totally up to date. There isn’t much left. Just the accident itself. And I’m ready for it. I’mnot scared. I’ve spent too long being scared. So I look back over it with something like compassion. For my mum. And for me.
46
THEN
I take a deep breath and try not to think about how many people are beyond the curtain. I step through, and just like I’ve been told, the lights mean I can’t see the audience. I know they are there, but it’s just an abstract idea. I clutch the notes I’ve written on little cards. I have my talk memorised but I need them as something to hold, to keep my hands from going to my pockets. Into the silence, I speak.
‘Whether you’re aware of it or not, you all know women whose lives have been affected by domestic violence.’
At the end, when they burst into applause, it’s a shock. I’ve tricked myself into believing it’s just a rehearsal. But it empowers me, too, makes me feel like I can conquer the world. Shelley from seven years ago couldn’t have done this. But this Shelley can. I take a few questions from the audience and leave a stack of cards with the details of my shelter. I know there will be women here who are living through this, and I want them to come to me, when they’re ready.
As I’m heading for the door, a woman approaches me. She is tall and strong-looking, with an expression that is half worry and half anger.
‘My sister,’ she says. ‘I think her husband is abusing her. But every time I try to bring it up, she won’t talk.’
I hear this a lot. It’s a hard one, because the right answer means waiting it out, knowing someone you love is in pain. ‘She might not be ready,’ I say. ‘The best thing you can do is make it clear that you’ll be there when she is.’
The woman looks frustrated.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘It’s really hard. But the women who come to our shelter have nowhere else to go. Your sister is lucky that she has someone looking out for her.’
‘I love her,’ the woman says simply.
We say goodbye and I make my exit. I do this a couple of times a month now. Go to talk to a group of people about what I’ve been through, and what I’ve learned. Women’s Institute meetings, youth groups, workplaces. I will go anywhere that will have me. But now, I’m ready to go home, after a long day at the shelter and my evening spent here. I know Matt will have cooked for us, and after dinner we’ll curl up on the sofa and watch an episode of something light and cheerful. No crime. I see enough of that.
