Ellie Darkins – Newborn on Her Doorstep (страница 8)

‘By the time the baby was due we’d moved in together, even started to talk about getting married. So there I was: nineteen, as good as engaged, and with a baby on the way.’

His eyes widened and his jaw slackened, as if he couldn’t understand how he had got from there to here—how the life that still lit up his face when he described it had disintegrated.

‘The day Max was born was the best of my life. As soon as I held him in my arms I knew that I loved him. Everyone tells you that happens, but you never believe them until you experience it. He was so perfect, this tiny human being. For three weeks we were the perfect little family. I washed him, changed his nappies, fed him, just sat there and breathed in his smell and watched him sleep. I’ve never been so intoxicated by another person. Never held anything so precious in my arms.’

His face should have glowed at that. He should have radiated happiness, talking about the very happiest time of his life. But already the demons were incoming, cracking his voice and lining his face, and Lily held her breath, bracing herself.

‘When he was three weeks old we woke one day to sunlight streaming into the bedroom and instantly knew that something was wrong. He’d not woken for his early feed. And when I went to his crib...’

He didn’t have to say it. All of a sudden Lily wished that he wouldn’t, that he would spare her this. But he hadn’t been spared; he hadn’t been shown mercy. He’d had his heart broken, his life torn apart in the most painful way imaginable. She couldn’t make herself want to share that pain with him, but she wanted to help ease it if she could. She’d do just about anything to lift that blanket of despair from his face.

‘He was gone. Already cold. I picked him up and shouted for Clare, held him in my arms until the ambulance arrived, but it was no good. Nothing I could have done would have helped him. They all told me that. They told me that for days and weeks afterwards. Until they started to forget. Or maybe they thought that I was forgetting. But I haven’t, Lily.’

For the first time since he’d started speaking he looked up and met her gaze head-on. There was solid determination there.

‘I can never forget. And when I see Rosie...’

It all became clear: the way he turned away from the baby, the way he flinched if he had to interact with her, the stricken look on his face the one time he’d had to hold her. Seeing Rosie—seeing any baby—brought him unimaginable pain. There could be no children in his future, no family. And so she completely understood why it was he was fighting this attraction. Why he pushed away from their chemistry, trying to protect himself. Knowing that there could never be anything between them didn’t make it easier, though. The finality of it hurt.

But there was one part of the story he hadn’t finished.

‘And... Clare?’

He dropped his head back into his hands and she knew that he was hiding tears. It was a couple of minutes before he could speak again.

‘We were broken,’ he said simply. ‘We tried for a while. But whatever it was that had brought us together—it died with our baby. She needed... I couldn’t... I saw her a couple of years ago, actually, in the supermarket, of all places, by the baked beans. We exchanged polite hellos, because what else could we say: Remember when we lost our son and our world fell apart and could never be put back together? Remember when you needed me to be there for you, to help you through your grief, and I couldn’t do it?

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