I was on my side, facing the window.
The sound of a bicycle bell.
I opened my eyes and winced. A slight crack in the curtains, a shaft of sunlight crossing my face.
I turned over.
“Hey,” he said.
A split-second of confusion as I struggled into a sitting position before the thoughts came crashing in. The sobs came thick and fast, my hand stuffed into my mouth—habit from the times I used to cry when the kids were small and I didn’t want them to hear.
I heard Dan’s intake of breath before his weight shifted and he folded me into his arms, drawing my head to him. Tears dripped onto his T-shirt as he waited, his whole body coiled to prepare for what was coming.
“Hey,” he soothed. “What is it? You’re OK. You’re OK,” he repeated into my hair. “What is it?”
I couldn’t speak, the exhaustion of the night before, and the night before that, and the fear, like a hard stone inside me, that this was real, this was happening.
“Wait,” I said, stopping abruptly. Needing to know but already knowing. “What day is it?”
Dan leaned back and frowned and then his face broke into a warm smile. “You know what day it is! It’s Monday the third of December. Happy Anniversary,” he added, his voice tentatively testing the waters.
I couldn’t do anything but nod mutely. It was Monday. Again.
The sobs subsided and I stayed put, Dan still holding me, sneaking glances but remaining silent. My head was crammed with questions. Thank God he was still here. I hadn’t known if he would be. I thought I’d lost him, failed to keep him safe. But how was he here? How was it still Monday? My eyes felt bruised with tiredness, the stress of two sleepless nights. I couldn’t make sense of anything. “We can stay here awhile, we’ve got time,” he said finally as my mobile pinged from its spot on the chest of drawers.
I rubbed at my eyes, sniffed.
“Do you want to talk to me about it?” Dan offered in a low voice. “Maybe I could help.”
It was the way he said it, his troubled expression filled with concern, his reassuring encouragement, which forced tears to leak from my eyes once more. I thought back to last night.
How had I still let him go? I’d known, I’d known it was real. I should have told him everything then, explained how it had happened that first night, what leaving the house might mean.
“Emma,” Dan said gently, “what is it? Talk to me.”
“It’s . . .” I looked up at him, bit my lip. How could I do that to him? How could I tell him he’d died, that his death wasn’t a one-off, a strange premonition, a dream?
How could I tell him that when I’d heard that bang I’d known I’d lost him all over again? That I’d had to usher Miles and Poppy back to bed, eerily calm, desperate to shield them from it all. Do that at least.
How could I tell him what I’d seen when I’d finally snuck out. A few more vehicles this time. More people around. I’d stood shivering, staring at Dan still there in the middle of the road, a couple weeping on the pavement nearby. I needed Gus, needed him away from there, tried not to look again at Dan’s frozen expression, as I picked up Gus and clutched him to my chest. A woman was crying in a police car as I staggered home and I felt a searing hatred for her.
How could I tell him that hopelessness had swallowed me whole as I held Gus on our sofa, fiercely rocking him, willing time to turn back, to do it again? Not feeling Gus’s comforting licks as I realized this time he had died because I hadn’t stopped him leaving. That this time it was my fault, the pain a hundred times worse. I’d driven myself half-crazy waiting for morning, terrified of what it would bring. Gus stared at me with doleful eyes until the gray morning light appeared, and I closed my eyes for a second on our sofa.
I blinked, forcing the images out of my mind. “I think I just had a terrible dream,” I said slowly and carefully.
Dan frowned, studied me. “A dream?”
Swallowing, I twisted to look at him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Dan pulled me closer, his familiar scent making me well up again. Something inside told me to stay quiet, to give myself space to think. Hope a grain of sand inside me. I gripped him firmly, my nose buried into his body, his scent. Thank God he was here at least, he was here, I had more time to think, to sort out whatever was happening.
Dan pulled back, a last check. “I’m going to have a shower, I won’t be long.”
I nodded dumbly.
He kissed me on the top of my head and got out of bed. I listened to the shower, trying to order my thoughts. He returned, throwing on clothes, the same navy-blue cashmere sweater. I remember how it had looked only a few hours before, almost black against the tarmac of a residential road. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the image away.
He lingered, seeing perhaps that I was wobbling once more.
“Go,” I said, ushering him out with a hand and a half-smile.
The moment he left I pressed the balls of my hands into my eyes and breathed out slowly. Head groggy from tiredness, I inched out of our bed, bumping our wooden bedpost as I passed it on the way to our bathroom. “Ow.”
Rubbing my hip I gave a strangled laugh. “Of course,” I said aloud, as I moved into our bathroom.
I looked dreadful, pasty and drained, my brow puckering as I leaned forward and stared at my face in the mirror.
“What’s happening?” I asked it, breath fogging the surface.
The tiny orange dots still peppered the sink as I turned on the tap, splashed my face with cold water, rubbed at my teeth.
The shower was too hot but I stood under it until my skin was pink and I was lost in steam. I felt detached from reality, a thin veil separating me from everything around me, reacting seconds later to things staring me in the face.
There was Miles at the table, oblivious of course to the drama of yesterday. His eyes sallow still, as lackluster as poor Gus lying despondently in his basket.
“Dad left for milk.”
I moved across to him and leaned down, enclosing him in my arms.
“Mum,” he squirmed.
“Sorry,” I breathed, my voice choked as I stood, remembering his face last night, his worry when I’d been shouting. Dan arrived back, meeting my eye with a sympathetic smile. He slid the milk bottle over to Miles and handed me a paper bag.
I stared at it for an age, the bag warm from the cinnamon swirl inside.
Dan knelt down next to Gus’s basket. “You all right, boy? Off your food?”
Then he looked up at me, standing inertly, paper bag in hand, dumb expression on my face. “I’ll sort the kids, you can get going, I’m starting later this morning. My meeting with that new client isn’t till eleven.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll . . . go,” I said, “I’ll go to work too.” I needed to get out of the house, away so I could think, plan.
Dan stood, head tipped to the side, “I’ll see you tonight,” he said, a smile warming his face.
I nodded at him, seeing him as if from afar. A flash of sound in my head, a siren, unbidden, forced me to take a step backward. “I love you,” I whispered. “I love you both.”
Frightened I would cry again, I backed away, barely remembering to pick up my bag and put my mobile inside.
Stepping into the corridor I looked down at the bike, reached over it to get my coat. Wordlessly I left the house, leaning back against the front door and squeezing my eyes closed, the paper bag still gripped firmly in my hand.