He’s standing on the opposite platform with his brother, chin sunk into the collar of his jacket as it so often was, hands stuffed into his pockets.
He looks thin, I think. Slightly haunted, not himself.
Or, at least, the himself I used to know. It’s been nearly seven years now. But already the intervening time has melted away, and I can only see him as I last did, facing me across the table in the restaurant. Forget about me. Do all the things you want to do, and more.
My heart on a string, I can only pray he’ll look up and see me.
I’ve taken a few days’ annual leave for Ben’s wedding, but Finn’s been working in Ipswich this week, so I’m traveling from Mum and Dad’s to London alone with the twins. Finn’s meeting us off the train at Blackfriars, and already I can’t wait—to be reunited after three nights apart, and for the second pair of hands. It’s the first time I’ve traveled with the twins by myself, so I have Euan on my hip, Robyn in a single buggy by my feet.
I don’t want to alarm my children—and the rest of the platform—by calling out. Joel’s deep in conversation, and just as I start to think he might never look up, he does, and I am once again stilled by his satellite gaze.
I never forgot about you, Joel.
The world falls away. Sounds become echoes, my surroundings fog. I can see just Joel, feel only the spin of my stomach as we take each other in.
But within moments comes the hydraulic rush of my approaching train, the flash of lights.
No, no, no. On time—for once—today?
I mouth, Joel, but then the train divides us and the crowd around me starts to move. And I need to move too—trains to London are only every thirty minutes, time’s already tight, and delay will mean keeping Finn waiting, rushing to find a cab, panicking about missing the wedding, the potential humiliation of being turned away by a band of doormen masquerading as Tom Ford models.
I have no choice. We have to board the train.
The temperature in the carriage feels stifling, like the AC’s on the blink. Mercifully our seats are at a table for four, where the only other occupant is a friendly-looking pensioner, who seems as though she might not tut too firmly if my two-year-olds decide to kick off. After checking with her, I stand up and open the top window before settling Euan on the seat next to me, pulling Robyn onto my lap.
But the whole time I’m straining, desperate to see if I can spot Joel outside. At first my eyes land only on strangers, until eventually they locate Doug, who I see with a jolt is now standing alone.
And then there’s a tap on the window behind me.
I turn, and it’s him. Lovely, luminous him. He must have sprinted across the overpass.
My eyes spring with tears as I mouth a hello.
You okay? he mouths back.
I nod fiercely. You?
He nods too, then hesitates. You happy?
I swallow the tears away, hold my breath for just a second. And then I nod again.
Because how can I paint for him the whole picture, the winding roots of the truth, through a window as the whistle sounds for my train to depart? What can I say in the space of five seconds to express all that I feel, in front of my children and a curious stranger?
On the other side of the window, Joel puts a palm flat against the glass. I reach out and do the same, and suddenly we’re together but divided, just as we always seemed to be.
Then comes the distress flare of a whistle before slowly, agonizingly, our hands begin to peel apart. Joel breaks into a jog, trying to keep up, but of course he can’t. My heart is tethered to him, a thread seconds from snapping. Then at the last moment he reaches up and drops something through the open window above our heads. It helicopters into my lap like a falling sycamore seed.
I grasp it, then look urgently up, but the station has already become the grimy façade of the railway depot. He’s vanished, perhaps for the last time.
I stare down at Robyn on my lap. Her face is raised to mine, like she’s trying to decide if she should burst into tears, and it occurs to me that it must have been a bit frightening for her, the unfamiliar figure at the window with the urgent eyes and muffled voice. So I draw her closer into me, cover her tiny hand with mine, give it a reassuring squeeze.
“I love you,” I whisper into her shining spirals of dark hair.
“Are you okay?” the old lady asks me quietly, her eyes wrinkled in sympathy.
I nod but can’t speak. I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll lose it.
“The one that got away?” is all she says, her voice gossamer-soft.
I glance down at Euan by my side. He’s staring up at the opposite window, absorbed in the sight of life rushing by.
Oh, how it rushes.
I blink just once, release a couple of hot tears. And she nods gently, because we both know there is nothing more to say.
Moments before we pull into Blackfriars, I unfold the paper napkin.
On it, scrawled in pen, are just five words.
I’LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, CALLIE x