Page 45 of For One Moment With You
I nodded. ‘Kind of.’ It was easier than saying,not really; that we almost broke up over it. Instead, I changed the subject. ‘How about you? What brings you back here?’
‘I had to check up on one or two things.’ He didn’t elaborate. ‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ he said. ‘I’ve often wondered how things worked out for you.’
My heart skipped another beat. There was so much I wanted to say to him. That I went to see him, but he’d moved away. That barely a week passed when I hadn’t thought about him. But then he looked past me as a woman joined him. ‘Tilly, this is Louise. My wife.’
I was stunned for a moment, which was ridiculous when I thought about it after. It wasn’t like I’d imagined Adam would stay single. It was just that face to face with the reality of his real-life actual wife felt very odd to say the least.
She held out a hand. ‘Hi. Nice to meet you.’ Louise was, well, actually, a bit like me. A similar height, similar build, similar clothes even. Hair a similar shade of brown. But what she had that I didn’t have was this sense of peace that seemed to radiate from her. She also had Adam.
‘It’s nice to meet you too.’ Shaking her hand, I held her gaze for a moment; wondered if Adam had ever mentioned me, before deciding it would be better if he hadn’t. ‘Well, I should be getting on. You know, things to do before I pick the boys up, and all that.’ I beamed at both of them.
* * *
It should have been the closure I needed, even after all these years. Should have made me appreciate what I had. My boys, my lovely home, my friends. In many ways, I knew I was lucky.
But seeing Adam had brought back memories. Memories that until now, I’d buried. And the thing was, pulled out into sunlight, they were beautiful.
13
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
LAO TZU
That day I met Adam, I spectacularly misread the signs. Instead of it reminding me of how it was possible to feel, I saw it as proof that Adam and I would never be together; ignored the truth that there wasn’t enough between Gareth and I. Time would tell, leaving me two decades later, alone; about to embark on an adventure that should have felt like the trip of a lifetime, but instead felt like the biggest wrench from everything I’d always known.
The day of my departure arrived and after a night of fragmented sleep, I was awake long before my alarm went off. There were two hours to spare before my taxi arrived – I’d turned down Elena’s offer to drive me to Heathrow. It felt important to me to do this alone.
I got up, trying not to think too much as I dressed, then packed up the last of my things. But I was aware of a change in the house, almost as though overnight it had emptied itself of us. After dragging my case downstairs, I made myself a cup of coffee, my eyes filling with tears as I wondered when I’d be coming back; or whether the house would be snapped up. Unhelpful thoughts that were interrupted – thankfully – when the taxi turned up.
Now that I was actually doing it, there was a significance I hadn’t anticipated to be closing the door for the last time – and doing it without anyone there to shore me up. Mistake number one, as it happened, because in the event, it didn’t quite go like that.
‘Blimey. How long are you going for?’ As the taxi driver heaved my suitcase into the back of the taxi, I was already wishing I’d stuck to the rucksack.
‘I don’t know.’ The words stuck in my throat.
He looked at me anxiously. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘Yes… No… Yes…’ I howled into a handful of already sodden tissues, dragging my eyes away from the pale pink New Dawn rose growing up the front of the house, a present from my parents when we’d first moved here. ‘There’s just so many memories in that house… It’s really difficult…’
‘Here.’ He handed me a dry tissue, as though he’d seen it all before. ‘You can’t go off on a trip in a state like this. Sort yourself out. There’s plenty of time.’
Mistake number two was believing him. By the time I’d redone my minimal-for-travelling make-up and we’d actually set off, the finest layer of mist was settling in the air. Sitting back, I watched it thicken to form fog, the landscape suddenly eerily monochromatic, as a shocking thought struck me. What if the fog was really bad and the airport closed?
‘Jolly good thing aircraft can auto-land these days.’ The taxi driver read my mind. ‘Back in the day, you wouldn’t have been going anywhere.’
‘Lucky for me.’ But as I looked outside, barely able to see the other cars, I was apprehensive. ‘Are we nearly there?’
‘Six miles to go,’ the driver said cheerfully. ‘Told you we had plenty of time.’
I sat back, fantasising briefly about the duty-free shopping I’d built in time for and the bottle of perfume I’d planned to treat myself to; relaxing for all of a few seconds until we left the motorway and on the slip road, the traffic ground to a halt.
‘Probably been an accident,’ the driver said, fiddling with his radio.
But as nothing moved, I was starting to panic. Then suddenly I was wondering if maybe this was a sign – that I shouldn’t have been going; that Rick was right about things happening too quickly. That if I stayed, Gareth would leave Olivia, our lives would go back to how they used to be. ‘Seriously, if we don’t get there soon, I’m going to miss my flight.’
‘You won’t be the only one,’ he said unhelpfully. ‘Why don’t you look on your phone? Heathrow departures? Check if it’s still leaving on time – if you’re worried?’
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t I thought of that. Fumbling, I brought up the British Airways flight status page, my heart jumping for joy as my flight came up. ‘It’s delayed! Yay! Looks like there’s plenty of time! I’m going to make it!’
