Out of Control

Chapter 14

The hurried conversation with Father Christmas meant that Fiona had missed her hotel breakfast. She made tea and toast while Adele was upstairs making initial baby shower plans. Then she reached for her handbag — receipts, shopping lists and other detritus were gathering there. The mess did things to her brain. And she couldn’t do with anything else tangling her mind. It had to be tidied.

But first out of the bag was the envelope from Rob. Even if she hadn’t known it was from him, the handwriting was instantly recognisable from all those years ago. She turned it over in her hands. The flap was properly sealed rather than simply tucked. It was slightly thicker than a simple Christmas card, indicating her mother was right when she said there was a letter in there as well.

“You’re not just telling me you’re in town, are you, Rob?” she said in a whisper. “There’s more to it than that.”

She left the envelope on the table with her name facing upwards and made more tea. Her mouth had gone dry and her stomach no longer wanted the last piece of toast left on her plate. She should tear up the envelope without looking inside. Whatever he had written would bring everything back and push her once again into that big black hole. She’d pushed him away once and she had to stick to her guns.

Whenever she thought about her ex-husband the word ‘betrayal’ jumped into her mind. And it wasn’t just the betrayal of gambling away their financial future. It was the way he’d gone against her wishes in the days that followed too. She’d expressly told him not to inform their parents about the miscarriage, but it had been water off a duck’s back.

The hospital had discharged her early on Christmas morning.

“You’re in no fit state to cook Christmas dinner for our families,” he’d said. “Our mums will be happy to do it between them. I’ll tell them why.”

“No! They don’t need to know. I don’t want other people in my kitchen using my stuff. I’ll manage with your help. You can tell them I’ve got a stomach upset but will be doing the best I can.”

“But why?”

“I don’t want people to see me differently to the way they did yesterday.” It had been hard trying to put into words exactly how she felt. “I don’t want everyone to know I failed at pregnancy as well as at being a wife.”

“You haven’t failed at either.”

“Yes, I have. If this was a good marriage, why would you gamble away our future? And for now, we say the suite had a fault and has gone back for repair. Bring down the two armchairs from the bedroom and fetch the padded garden chairs from the garage.”

Christmas Day had been a masterclass in acting. There were several times when Rob had looked on the verge of blurting out the truth but, each time, she managed to either steer him into the kitchen or change the subject. Fiona went to bed as soon as their guests left. Rob stayed up to finish clearing away and then he followed her instructions to sleep in the spare room. But the next morning her parents turned up on the doorstep with food and sympathy, plus a demand from her mother to know why she hadn’t been told about the pregnancy sooner. Rob had phoned both parents with the news after he was sure Fiona had fallen asleep, exhausted after spending the previous night on a noisy ward and then faking festive smiles all day.

“It was a massive thing to have happened.” He’d tried to defend his actions later. “Our parents needed to know why the two of us will never be the same again.”

He was right when he said that neither of them would ever be the same again but he was wrong to have gone against her wishes. Just as he was wrong to have sent this note which could only rake up the past.

For a couple of minutes she took comfort from holding the hot mug in her cupped hands. Then she put it down, took a deep breath and carefully eased open the flap of the envelope.

The card was a generic snow scene but the letter was handwritten. Immediately it felt emotionally invasive. Why hadn’t he hidden behind a typescript? The address at the top of the letter was a new luxury block of flats at the other end of town. Rob had done well for himself.

Dear Fiona,

I hope this letter reaches you via our mothers who have recently become reacquainted. Through their catching up I’ve learned the basic facts about your life and what I’ve learned makes me feel able to contact you without fear of upsetting your apple cart too much.

I don’t know how much of my situation has worked its way through to you. Like you, I’ve never found another life partner and have struggled to come to terms with the loss of our baby. The latter has been made more difficult because I know the miscarriage was my fault and for that I am deeply, deeply sorry. Of course, I acknowledged my guilt at the time but now I realise the immediate trauma of that episode made it difficult for you to process much of what I said or promised. I admit that, at the time, I thought you were being unreasonable but the passage of the years plus counselling has made me better understand how it must have been for you back then.

Counselling. I bet that’s shocked you, hasn’t it? It was recommended to me recently by someone I met at Gamblers’ Anonymous (I haven’t gambled since shortly after the divorce but still attend meetings to keep me on the straight and narrow and to help others) and I wish I’d done it years ago instead of carrying a head full of spaghetti emotions for half a lifetime.

Anyway, the counsellor suggested that reparation could be the final step in putting the loss of our baby to rest. And, God knows, I need to do that if I’m to have any sort of peace as I head into retirement.

Why am I contacting you? Because I want you to be part of my journey to reparation. Please will you join me?

Fingers crossed,

Rob

Fiona screwed up the letter and dropped it in the pedal bin. She didn’t want to be part of his ‘journey to reparation’ — why on earth did he think she would want that? She had no intention of pandering to his conscience or making him feel better about what he did or offering him any sort of forgiveness. When he gambled away their possessions, he also killed their daughter and stole Fiona’s future. Absolutely no way could she assist her ex-husband on his search for redemption. And she needed to instruct her mother that under no circumstances should she pass on any further information about Fiona’s life. Except to emphasise that she was now living with Joe and therefore any further communication from Rob would be unwelcome.

On second thoughts Fiona retrieved the letter from the bin, unscrewed it and tore it into shreds. A paper snowstorm drifted down and coated the existing rubbish. She exhaled the breath unconsciously trapped in her chest. Obliterating his missive increased her sense of control and determination. And that was what she needed in the current upside-down mess of her life. Then she forced Rob to the back of her mind and returned to tidying her handbag and wondering if she could follow through and be completely positive about the baby shower; Fiona had wet blanket and party-pooper tendencies very near the surface of her personality.