I kneeled on the grass and closed my eyes, waiting for the image to come, so that I could tell her my news. My incredible news.
When I woke up this morning, this wasn’t in the plans. Colm had rolled over and hugged me, kissed me good morning and then we’d made love.
That happened sometimes. It was all part of the healing that had started five months ago, on that night with Vince when we… I didn’t finish the thought. Vincent had been right in everything he’d said that night, every reason he’d given that we shouldn’t go there was true. I should have listened to him, but I’d been too damn selfish. Or maybe I just hoped it would be the answer. Perhaps all those years, when Vincent was always there and I thought of his as nothing more than a friend, maybe somewhere deep inside I was wondering what it would be like, how it would feel.
Now I knew.
The morning after I spent the night at his house, I’d woken up, and my answer was there.
He wasn’t Colm.
Vincent was beautiful, and caring, and he’d stayed right by my side when I needed him. He’d shared the most painful thing that had ever happened to me, held me up, refused to let me drown. And perhaps for a moment I’d thought there should be more than we already had. Maybe even hoped…
But even through the tidal wave of guilt, I knew that I didn’t love him the way I’d loved Colm. Colm was my heart, he was everything. No-one else had ever, or could ever come close.
Silently, I’d slipped out of bed, left before Vincent opened his eyes, regret and overwhelming guilt leading the way. Later, he’d come to the house, let himself in and stood, lines of tiredness on his beautiful face, leaning against the door frame, a few feet away from where I sat at the kitchen table.
‘Hey…’ he said.
‘Hey.’
‘You left.’
‘I’m sorry. I had to.’
The flicker of pain across his eyes told me he understood. It took a moment, before he spoke with resigned sadness, only a hint of a question in there. ‘It was only once?’
I sat there surrounded by my life, by Colm’s things, by the world we’d built together. Sleeping with Vince had been a mistake, a desperate mistake, but a foolish one nonetheless. Slowly, I nodded. ‘It has to be.’
‘Okay,’ he said, his jaw set, as if forbidding him to say more.
‘Please don’t hate me, Vincent. I know it was selfish, I know…’
‘Shauna, stop.’ He sighed, not moving, still standing feet away, unwilling to be near me. ‘I don’t hate you. But last night, I meant what I said and I don’t know how to take it back. I just wish… you know.’
I did. And in a different way, I loved him too. My life was so much better when he was in it, but inside, in that place I’d been trying to numb when I was with him, I knew I’d used him. Like a desperate person cuts their flesh to ease the pressure of a deeper pain, I was self-harming my life with Colm, eviscerating it in the hope that the new scab would cover the old wound until it healed. It hadn’t. It was Colm I should have gone to, not Vince.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I wont leave him, Vincent. I love him. I shouldn’t have come to you, and I’m so sorry…’
‘Me too.’ I could see he wasn’t going to plead, or try to change my mind and I was so grateful.
The vacuum between us swallowed our words until many more seconds ticked by. Vincent was the first to find his voice. ‘I can’t even regret it. I guess at least now I know.’
‘Would you ever have told me?’
‘I doubt it. Not while you and Colm were still together. I wouldn’t have forced you to choose in a competition that I knew I’d lose. I guess that’s what’s happened now.’ The corners of his mouth turned up in a sad smile. ‘But I don’t know where to go from here.’
I exhaled, heart aching. I’d thought about this since the moment I’d left his bed. Twenty years of friendship had made him part of me, a part that I didn’t want to live without.
‘I don’t deserve your forgiveness, or your friendship, so it’s up to you. I’d like to keep going, just be who we were, do what we were doing.’
‘Pretend it never happened?’ Another sad smile, but no bitterness in his voice.
‘Yes.’ I knew I was being brutal, asking too much. I had no right to ask anything more of him.
Another vacuum, then a despondent sigh. ‘Okay. I don’t know how that’s going to work, but I think it’s the only thing we can do…’ he shrugged, saying nothing, saying everything.
‘Me too. Vincent… thank you.’ I meant it. With every ounce of me, I meant it.
We’d loved each other – maybe, we knew now, in different ways – for two decades. Somehow, we’d find a way back from this.
And in a way, we had.
Since May, we’d carried on, never spoken of it again and sure, there were moments of awkwardness at the start but we’d got over them. Within a couple of weeks it was back to normal on the surface, both of us refusing to dive underneath the calm seas.
A brief chapter in my life had closed.
This morning, on a bright October day, a brand new one had opened.
After Colm and I made love this morning, I’d watched him leave, then closed my eyes, hoping to snatch another couple of hours of sleep before he returned with the boys.
I’d almost dozed off, when my eyes flew open, an awareness rippling through me. I knew. I spent the next hour checking, but it only confirmed what was already a certainty.
I left a note on the kitchen table for Colm and grabbed the keys to the van, driving slowly, carefully, my need to share the news balanced by the need to adjust to the new reality.
When I reached my destination, I jumped out, slammed the door behind me and I ran until I got there, sunk to my knees, the wet grass causing stains that spread across the denim of my jeans.
‘Gran,’ I said, reaching out to touch the hard granite, my fingers skipping past the details, only tracing the words on the three lines that meant the most to me.
Bethany ‘Annie’ Williams.
1930 – 2005.
Forever loved.
‘It’s me,’ I said, just like I always did, every week when I came, sat here, talked to her.
‘Something’s happened,’ I told her. ‘Although, you probably know already.’
I could picture her now, cowboy boots and a cigarette, tea in hand, waiting for me to continue.
‘Gran, I’m pregnant.’
My hand went over my mouth and was immediately soaked with tears.
Pregnant. After all this time, after the drugs, and tests and the legs up the bloody wall, I’d finally fallen pregnant when I’d given up hope.
‘I think you had something to do with it. I can’t believe that you didn’t. So thank you, Annie. With all my heart. Thank you so much. I promise you, I’ll make this baby’s life amazing.’
In my mind, Annie threw her head back and let rip with that raucous cackle of pure joy.
This was everything. The whole world. But I knew it had to come with a trade.
One love for another.