Chapter 74
Alice’s crying wakes Daniel at about two o’clock.
There is nothing unusual in her waking during the night—she has done it ever since she was a baby.
However, right now it makes him wish he had left the whiskey bottle alone and not poured himself a couple more glasses before he fell asleep.
He is usually careful when Alice is with him, but at the moment he realizes he can’t work out whether he is hungover or still drunk.
His body feels heavy and slow as he goes into the nursery, and he is ashamed of himself.
He won’t make the same mistake again.
Alice grizzles against his chest as he heads for the kitchen to warm up her formula. The clock on the microwave counts down, at long last it pings and she can have her bottle. She holds out her little arms when she sees it, like a drowning person who has just spotted a lifebuoy.
Daniel carries his daughter into the bedroom and settles her beside him. He kept the wide double bed after Ida moved out. It is practical, although it provides a bitter reminder of his failed relationship every time he lies down on what used to be his side.
Alice drinks with her eyes closed, and Daniel listens to the gentle glugging as the bottle slowly empties. He inhales the scent of her warm skin.
She means everything to him, but life often seems inadequate and joyless. It has been hard ever since the separation. Sometimes he wonders if he will ever be able to accept the way things ended between him and Ida.
He spent the whole of last year seeing a therapist in J?rpen in order to work through the emotional chaos surrounding his absent father. He was determined to break the pattern, avoid repeating old errors.
And yet in the end Ida didn’t want to be with him anymore. And Hanna is seeing the billionaire Henry Sylvester, a man Daniel will never be able to compete with.
Not that he can blame her.
He is the one who has let time run away, who has been too indecisive and slow to act. In his naivety he thought Hanna would still be there while he sorted out his own messed-up life.
He took her for granted, and now it’s too late.
He rolls over onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.
Somehow he has to carry on working with Hanna without revealing how he really feels. He must behave like any other good colleague, and carefully conceal his innermost yearning.
And it is entirely his fault.