Chapter Eleven #2
He strode off, cross with Richard for discussing it with Freya, but all the while knowing he would have done the same had the situation been the other way around.
He didn’t need them meddling in his love life.
Love life?
What a joke.
He leant against the wall and closed his eyes.
He’d hurt Rachel so badly, and taken away the chance of the one thing she wanted most. They’d been over before they’d even started. They couldn’t even speak about their son...
Or rather, Rachel wouldn’t.
Nor would she speak about the end of their marriage.
And neither would she speak about her mum.
Yet she’d been inconsolable when she’d died—Dave had told him as much. Or rather, Dave had said she’d been terrible.
He thought of his own stunned reaction to the matter-of-fact way she’d spoken about her mother all those years ago, then pressed his knuckles into his mouth when he thought of Dave Walker and his brusque, insensitive ways dealing with a grieving six-year-old child.
Rachel wasn’t cold. Dominic knew that then. The poor thing was frozen.
And he couldn’t blame Dave, because he didn’t know how to talk about it either—especially with Rachel. There was so much other stuff that got in the way...
And then he looked back to the L&D unit and thought about the couple in there, and he hoped that they’d do better than he and Rachel had.
They had to speak about Christopher. But it always got mired in other stuff—their marriage, their break-up, their families...
Dominic took a breath, and summoned those nerves of steel he’d fought to acquire.
At work he could shut out the world and focus only on the task.
And that was exactly what he needed to do now.
* * *
‘See you, Rachel!’ Tara said.
Probably not, Rachel thought, but smiled and gave a little wave as Tara headed off.
And that was that.
She’d said goodbye to May when she’d finished at four—that had been the reason May had called her down—but apart from May, no one knew her time at The Primary was done.
What on earth had she been thinking to wear a flimsy dress when it was only March? she wondered. Because that lovely warm spring day had turned into a blowy cold night when she stepped out into the draughty corridor.
And there waiting for her was Dominic.
* * *
‘Rachel,’ said Dominic, and pushed off from the wall he’d been leaning on.
‘Oh, did we agree to have sex again?’
Rachel was at her sarcastic best.
‘Only, I must have forgotten to pencil you in.’
‘No.’ Dominic couldn’t help but smile as she sniped at him. ‘I came here so we could talk.’
‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you,’ Rachel said.
‘I know you don’t,’ Dominic said. ‘You’ve made that abundantly clear.’ He called out to her departing back. ‘You’re walking off now just as you walked out on us the other night—just as you walked out on our marriage.’
She turned furiously to him. ‘I did not walk out on our marriage.’
‘You withdrew,’ Dominic said, but then he caught himself—because he had not come down here to row about their marriage, nor about the other night.
Focus on the reason you’re here, Dominic reminded himself.
‘I came down to ask if we can speak about Christopher.’
‘You’re at work, Dominic.’
‘I’ve asked a colleague to cover me for as long as it takes, and Richard’s loaned me his office so we won’t be disturbed.’
He didn’t want to do this at work, but neither did he want this conversation to take place in a bar or restaurant. And as for his home—well, there was the distraction of a bed.
And he and Rachel did not need the distraction of a bed.
Here at work he could focus better, and right now he was entirely focused on her. On the jut of her chin, the glare in her eyes that warned him to stay back.
Well, no more.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said.
‘Why?’ Dominic persisted, refusing to back off.
He saw her blinking rapidly.
‘Why can’t we talk about it?’
* * *
Rachel could feel the flutter of her pulse in her throat and her eyes darted to the entrance as she planned a swift exit.
‘He was our son and I think it’s time we spoke about him together, but you have to want to,’ said Dominic.
She’d always wanted to, but she was terrified of breaking down, scared of showing the depth of her pain.
‘I might get upset,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ Dominic agreed, looking at her.
To the rest of the world they might look as if they were discussing the weather, but she knew there was so much more if only she could let him in.
‘You probably will get upset, and no doubt so will I.’
She looked at him, standing so steady and together and strong.
‘I can take your pain, Rachel,’ he said. ‘If you’ll let me.’
‘What if you can’t?’ Her voice was hoarse with strain.
‘Rachel, I can.’
He sounded so certain that it steadied the panic that clawed at her throat.
She knew this was her last chance to speak of Christopher with him, given she was leaving, but more than that, after Dominic’s admission that he too might get upset, she finally felt ready.
‘Come on,’ he said.
They walked together up the long corridor, not touching, but then she shivered, and he must have seen her, and not caring that someone might see, nor what they might think, he put an arm around her and held her hand.
She was grateful for his warmth.
He put on the Do Not Disturb light outside Richard’s door and, barring all hell breaking loose in ED, for now it was just the two of them.
There was a picture on Richard’s desk, of him with Freya and their baby, and her eyes were drawn to that because she wanted that happy family photo so badly.
Instead of the one she had tucked inside that folder.
‘Thanks for the photos,’ Dominic said. ‘Though not...’
He’d been about to say, Not for the way you left them, she thought, but stopped himself.
‘It’s good to finally have them.’
‘I should have sent them to you years ago,’ Rachel admitted. ‘Although I didn’t know where. Still, I should have tried...’
‘Rachel, I wasn’t ready to look at them...’ Dominic paused. ‘Until the other night.’
He took out his wallet and opened it up, and then positioned it so that a picture of the three of them now sat on the desk.
She gazed on the photo for a long moment and then looked at Dominic, at his pale face and lips and the shadows under his eyes, and then she blinked in surprise when he gave her a slow smile.
‘He was beautiful.’
She nodded.
‘He had your hands,’ Dominic said, and he took her hand and examined it, as if confirming that his memory was correct as he held her long fingers. ‘I remember holding him and thinking I’d never seen such perfect hands apart from yours.’
He had been too delicate to be held for very long, but there had been those treasured cuddles, and she shared one of her memories now.
‘He had your mouth.’
Beautiful lips that she had wanted so desperately to see stretch and cry and one day smile if only he’d had the chance...
‘Why couldn’t he have lived?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why?’ She asked the impossible question again. ‘I feel like everything died that day.’ She started to cry—not loudly, but tears were beginning to spill out. ‘Not just Christopher, but us, and everything I ever wanted to be, all just died with him.’
‘I know.’
Rachel really cried then, and for the first time since her mum had died, she wasn’t reprimanded for it. Or told to ‘Hush’, or ‘Enough now’, or be taken to the park.
* * *
Dominic moved his chair close to hers and held her and let her cry.
‘His legs...’ Rachel said, and Dominic crumpled, when he thought of those sturdy little legs that had never kicked, never walked, never run.
He wanted the quiet glory of running with his son.
That feeling when you knew you had just conquered the world.
He should have seen his son shoot out of the starting blocks and on to victory. His legs, even in the bewilderment of death, had been present and strong.
* * *
When Rachel looked up and saw that Dominic was crying too, she didn’t know how to react. There were tears on his cheeks and in his velvet brown eyes. She’d never seen him like this in her life, and somehow it helped to see him cry for their little son.
‘There was nothing I could do for him,’ Dominic rasped. ‘Nothing. I couldn’t even warm him.’
She remembered Dominic tucking a blanket around him and holding him close, and that made her cry all over again, but it felt better to cry with him, to witness his love and to share their grief together.
‘I wanted him back inside me, alive and growing,’ she said. ‘It was like when Mum died.’
She had never told him that, but had always wanted to, and they weren’t going off track now—they were finally on it.
‘What was it like?’ he asked.
‘I just wanted it all to go back to how it was, but everything had changed.’ She felt as if she were choking. ‘Then everything did go back to how it had been—everything just carried on except without her. I don’t even know if they miss her...’
‘Of course they do. Rachel, it’s just the way your dad is, but I know for a fact he misses her. The night we lost Christopher he cried, and said he wished your mum was there.’
‘Dad cried?’
‘Yes—and he cried and said exactly the same thing to me on the night I told him you were pregnant.’
She’d never known what had been said that night—just that Dominic had come to the pub and said they would marry.
‘Your dad loved your mum, just as he would have loved Christopher. And you know that. You do know that. It’s just his way, Rachel.’
‘But everyone said he was a mistake.’
‘Yes,’ Dominic said, ‘and even I thought the same at first. But once I got used to the idea—well, he stopped being a mistake, didn’t he? We both wanted him.’
They had—they really had.
‘I’m not going to hide him any more,’ Dominic said, and she looked up at his words. ‘I don’t have a child but I did have a son—and he changed me and the direction of my life. I’m a doctor because of him.’
And that made her cry all over again, because it was something so tangible in a sea of what-ifs, and something good to come out of so much grief.
‘There’s always going to be a part of me missing, but, Rachel—’
* * *
Dominic cut himself off and dragged in a breath, reminding himself not to cloud this conversation. This was about Christopher and what he had brought to their lives. The rest they could deal with in the fullness of time.
And, while he wanted to ask her when they could speak again, when they could talk about them, he did not want to push too hard too soon.
And so, rather than talk about trying again, and vasectomies and things, and the terror of doing it all over again, he moved back to their little lost son.
‘He was wanted and loved.’
* * *
And now that Rachel had taken off those thorn-rimmed glasses, shaded with resentment and pain, she could recall softer, kinder times—Dominic coming home after a long shift at the bar and crawling into bed exhausted, holding both her and the bump of their baby as she slept in his arms.
She spoke to him about the little pair of socks that she’d kept. Remembering how he’d come home with them one evening because they were cute.
And together they recalled the two of them cuddled up under blankets on the sofa, because they were saving to feed the electricity meter when their baby was born, and the flat would need to be kept warm.
It was nice to remember all this, but also terribly hard to do so. And so, when they were all wrung out, she closed up his wallet and handed it to him and watched him slip it back into his jacket. It was nice to know the photo now lived by his heart.
‘You know,’ she said as she peeled some tissues from the box, ‘despite the tears, I do feel better.’
‘Good,’ Dominic said, and took a couple of tissues for himself.
‘Will you be all right to work?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘I’ll get you a taxi home.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Rachel said, and she looked at him, this man who might not love her but who had always taken care of her. ‘I’ll be fine. Thanks for this,’ she said, and she meant it.
Because talking about her son, being able to share her memories of Christopher Hadley with his father...
It had meant the world.