‘I can’t believe you’re here.’ Tasha smiled as she cuddled up to Charlie in bed. It felt amazing to wake up next to him again.
Charlie pulled her towards him and kissed her.
‘The children are going to be so happy!’ Tasha pictured their faces when they told them the news.
As she lay in his arms Tasha felt the most extraordinary happiness alongside the bitter sadness of Andrew’s death. She almost felt guilty at her elation about having Charlie back when Becca was faced with such deep and permanent loss. However, she knew that Andrew would have been the happiest of all to hear that they were giving their marriage a second chance, and she clung to that.
Tasha could hear the children stirring. She crept out of bed to investigate, finding them in Flora’s room.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ she said. ‘Come with me!’
They followed her into the bedroom, intrigued. ‘Dad!’ they squealed with delight as they saw Charlie.
‘What are you doing here?’ Flora asked.
‘It’s a surprise!’ Charlie said. Tasha laughed as she saw the happiness spread over their little faces. This was how it should be, the family all together. He looked at Tasha for approval. She smiled in return and nodded. ‘Mummy and I have decided to live together again,’ he said. ‘We just missed each other too much to be apart.’
‘Oh yay!’ squeaked Max.
‘That is the best news I have ever heard!’ Bella cried.
‘Really?’ said Flora. ‘Starting from now?’
‘Yes!’ Tasha said. ‘Starting from now!’
They threw their arms around Charlie and Tasha. ‘This is the best day of my life!’ Bella declared solemnly.
‘Can we tell all our friends?’ Flora asked.
‘Of course you can, darling,’ Tasha said.
‘Hooray!’ the children cried as they hugged their parents again and again. Charlie ruffled their hair and laughed. He leant over to give Tasha a kiss.
Later they went to Wimbledon Common for a walk, wrapped up in their warmest winter clothes. They tramped through the damp woodland, cheeks red from the chill in the air, grins plastered across the children’s faces as they stamped on icy puddles with their wellington boots. Tasha had to keep pinching herself in case she was dreaming, to be sure that Charlie had really come back. She had been so close to losing him, she could hardly believe that he was truly there.
*
The next day Tasha was back at work. She phoned Rosie on her lunchbreak. ‘I knew he would come back!’ Rosie cried. ‘I just knew it. He loves you so much, there is no way he could live without you.’
‘I am so happy!’ Tasha couldn’t keep the smile off her face. ‘I am never going to complain about anything he does, ever again.’
‘Ha,’ Rosie laughed. ‘I’ll hold you to that one, shall I?’
‘Well, we’ll see!’ Tasha had to admit that it was an unlikely promise.
‘So, what now?’ Rosie asked.
‘I think we need to have some chats, once we’re used to being back together, to re-evaluate everything and see if we can make any changes going forward.’
‘Have you talked about Javier?’
‘Not really. Charlie says he doesn’t want to.’
‘Maybe he’d rather just forget about it and move on.’
‘Maybe. The main thing is that I don’t want to take our marriage for granted ever again, and neither does Charlie. Losing Andrew has made us realise that more than anything.’
Afterwards Tasha called Becca; she had wanted to be the one to tell her, rather than Charlie. Becca was even happier than Rosie had been at the news, declaring it the first time she had really smiled in weeks. She reiterated what Tasha had suspected: that Andrew would have been the happiest of them all to hear it. ‘If we can learn anything from his death,’ Becca said, ‘it has to be to just love each other as much as we can while we still have the chance.’
‘You’re right,’ Tasha said. ‘And we will, I promise.’
By the time Tasha had called her family and Flo to tell them the happy news her lunchbreak was well and truly over. She headed back into the office. She texted Charlie.
My family are over the moon, as are Becca and the girls. They all send lots of love xx
She paused to look at her screensaver. It was the photograph of Tasha, Charlie and the children that someone had taken in Richmond Park all those months ago. She smiled at the memory.
That evening they shared a bottle of wine in front of the television, cuddled up next to each other on the sofa. She felt so close to him again, physically and emotionally, remembering all the times she had felt so completely disconnected from him, and she was so grateful that they had somehow managed to bridge the divide. They both knew there was a long road ahead, but for the first time in a long time it felt as though they were in it together, on the same team. Javier’s presence across the road was the remaining elephant in the room, the constant reminder of just what they were trying to forget.
Later that night as they lay in bed, Tasha’s head resting on Charlie’s chest, Tasha asked a question that had come somewhat out of the blue into her mind. ‘How would you feel about moving away from here?’ she said, looking up at him.
‘You mean selling the house?’ Charlie asked.
‘Yes. Selling the house and moving to the country.’
Charlie was quiet for several minutes as he thought about it. They both knew it would be a good idea to move away from Javier, though neither of them said it.
‘That’s always been the dream…’
‘I know. But really, what is stopping us?’
‘It just feels like such an enormous decision.’
‘Well, we could start to think about it,’ Tasha said. ‘We don’t have to make any decisions to begin with.’
‘Agreed.’ Charlie was quiet for a few moments, stroking her hair. After a while he said, ‘Do you remember that house that Andrew told us about?’
‘Hazeldown? Do you think it’s on the market yet?’ Tasha asked.
‘It could be.’
‘It would be the ideal location. Near my parents, near Becca, it’s near a station so we could both commute…’
‘God, wouldn’t it be nice to wake up to the countryside each morning? And the weekends… just peace and quiet, open fields…’
‘It would be amazing!’
‘A fresh start could be good for us, for all of us, the children included.’
‘I think they’d love it. Though they’d be miserable leaving their friends…’
‘They’d make new ones.’
‘And Flora… she might actually be happier at a secondary school in the country…’
‘I’d much rather that, in a way,’ Charlie said. ‘They’ll grow up so fast in a city school.’
‘Do you think we could really make this happen?’ Tasha asked, hardly daring to believe it.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Charlie said. ‘We’ve always talked about doing it one day – maybe now is the right time?’
Tasha smiled and closed her eyes. It felt so good to be back in his arms; as she drifted off to sleep she dreamed of all the happy times they had ahead of them.