Chapter 29
EMMA
Oliver and I did date, in the end. In fact we dated for more than a year, and he was funny and kind and handsome, and he made me feel special every single day without being cheesy or overpowering with it.
He made me tea and toast every morning on the nights we stayed together, one slice with just butter, the other with peanut butter.
He booked a surprise weekend away to Rome for my birthday because he knew I’d always wanted to go.
He loved Flynn and often took him for days out, just him, Flynn and Annabelle so I could have a day to myself.
He was almost the perfect partner.
And then, Oliver dropped a bombshell.
‘I think we should move in together,’ he said.
I was painting my nails at the dressing table at the time and I froze, my hands stilling mid-air, my thumb still only half painted.
‘Emma? Did you hear what I just said?’
I turned slowly to face him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and he looked so handsome and excited and I knew I needed to say something, but my throat felt blocked. ‘I…’ I started, then cleared my throat. ‘I don’t know.’
His face fell and I felt like I’d just kicked a puppy. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking down at the floor. I moved to sit beside him and he tipped towards me as I sat, our shoulders touching. I pressed my fingers to his chin and gently turned his head until he was facing me.
‘You make me happy, Oliver,’ I said, softly. ‘I love being with you. I just don’t… I don’t know why we need to change anything.’
His eyes widened slightly as he opened his mouth to speak again. ‘I just… it’s been a year. The kids seem happy. We’re happy. I thought…’ He trailed off.
I didn’t know what to say. Of course he was right. We were happy, and moving in together would be the next logical step. And in any other circumstances – in any other life – I would have jumped at the chance.
But this wasn’t any other life.
The fact was, it was already almost February and I’d spent the last year with one eye on the calendar, counting down to 2026. Counting down to the date, twenty years previously, that Nick had died.
And no matter how I felt about Oliver, or anyone else, I couldn’t fully commit to anyone or anything until I found out whether I’d succeeded in making a difference. Whether I’d saved Nick. It simply wouldn’t be fair.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, before I could change my mind. ‘I think we should take a break.’
I waited while my words sank in, and then he pulled away as though he’d been slapped.
‘Sorry, what?’ he said. He looked as though he was expecting me to tell him I was only messing around, of course I didn’t mean it, of course we should move in together.
And in that moment it would have been so easy to have backtracked and saved everything.
Except it wouldn’t be fair to lead him on, when a piece of my heart was still elsewhere. A clean break felt like the kindest thing to do.
Oliver, of course, didn’t agree. Why would he when I couldn’t tell him any of this? When he’d been thinking about us moving in together, and now here I was, telling him I wanted to end it instead.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, dropping my hands into my lap. ‘I just… I know it will be hard – for the kids as well as us. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I honestly think it’s for the best.’
He moved even further away from me, the look on his face one of pure confusion. I wanted to reach out and touch him, comfort him. I threaded my fingers together to stop me doing it.
‘I don’t get it,’ he said. ‘Everything’s been great.’
I looked down at the floor. ‘I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you that this was as difficult for me as it was for you, would you?’
He gave a laugh so bitter it didn’t sound like him at all. ‘And yet you’re doing it anyway.’ He stared at the rug in front of him, not looking me in the eye. I couldn’t blame him.
‘Have I done something wrong?’ he said. ‘We can slow things down, if that’s the problem.’
‘No, you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s not that. It’s… you’re…’ I searched for the right word to describe him. ‘Amazing. It just doesn’t feel like the right time for me to be with someone. I think… I think me and Flynn will be better off just the two of us for a while.’
His eyes widened incredulously, and he turned to look at me.
‘Now I know you’re lying. Flynn loves having me around and you know he does.
’ He stood, the air shifting around him.
His face was in shadow. ‘I truly have no idea what’s going on here or why, but I’m going to leave now.
If you change your mind, you know where I am. ’
Then he’d walked out of the house and I’d been left feeling bereft, cracked open.
I didn’t feel much better now, more than a month later.
I’d spotted Oliver a few times at the school gates, but he hadn’t even looked at me and had left before I’d had a chance to speak to him.
I felt like a part of me had been rubbed away, leaving a raw, open wound.
I wished I could tell him I was doing it for him; wished I could tell him the truth. But I couldn’t.
Finally, 12 of March arrived – the date, twenty years before, that Nick had died in the Euston train crash.
Since leaving the letter for Nick and realising nothing had changed, I’d checked the old news reports from time to time over the years, just in case. But of course, Nick was still dead, according to them.
But all that time, in the back of my mind, Rachel’s words from seven years before hovered: Either the future is changed from right now and he will still be alive and you could go and tell him about the baby. Or nothing will change until the date of the accident in 2006. Which will be 2026 for us.
It made no sense, but it was the only sliver of hope I had to cling on to. And now that day was here, and this was my last chance. If nothing changed today, I’d failed, and I’d lost the chance to tell Nick about his son forever.
Everything rested on this.
I felt like a pressure cooker about to explode.
I’d taken the day off and sent Flynn to early morning breakfast club. Rachel had also insisted on taking the day off to be with me. Although I’d objected, claiming I was fine on my own, I was glad of her presence as the time crept nearer.
‘Here, take a glug of this,’ she said now, plonking a huge mug of steaming hot milky coffee in front of me. I took a sip.
‘I’m not sure plying me with caffeine is the best way to calm me down,’ I said, wiping the froth from my lip.
‘Maybe not. But we need to focus.’
I took another gulp and looked up at her.
‘Do you really think something is going to happen today?’ I said, my voice so quiet that Rachel had to lean closer to hear me. She pressed her hand against my arm, her palm warm.
‘Having never done anything like this before there’s literally no way of knowing,’ she said. ‘All we can do is wait, and hope.’
Over the last seven years we’d tried not to discuss this day too much, both of us agreeing it was better to just get on with things.
And with Flynn to look after and a busy job, it hadn’t been as hard as I’d imagined for me to put it out of my mind most of the time.
But it was during the dark hours of the night when I was feeding Flynn, or when I just couldn’t sleep, that I’d tried to imagine this moment: tried to imagine that, somehow, Nick had found the note, not got on the train – and that, from today, the newspapers would tell a different story.
That Nick would still be alive.
I checked the time on my phone – 9 a.m.
There was still over an hour until Nick got on that train twenty years ago and the minutes were groaning by like hours, days, weeks.
I stood, unable to sit still.
Rachel looked up at me. ‘Where are you going?’
I rubbed my hand over my hair. ‘I can’t just sit here. Can we go for a walk?’
Rachel stood and walked round to my side of the table, took my hands in hers.
‘Take a couple of deep breaths,’ she said, and I did as I was told, filling my lungs and breathing slowly out. I felt the tension drop from me like a rock as I looked at my best friend. ‘Whatever happens today, I’m here, okay?’
I nodded.
‘I know there’s a lot at stake here. But if Nick still dies, you’ve got Flynn. And me. You’ve been perfectly fine for the last seven years, and you still will be.’
Her eyes searched my face and eventually I looked away.
‘I know,’ I said, my voice crackly.
I sat back down. My coffee was cooler now and I took a long gulp. ‘Thank you,’ I said.
‘Don’t be daft.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Now I know you won’t be hungry, but I’m going to make you something to eat anyway. At least it’ll keep you distracted.’
I didn’t argue, and as I watched her make scrambled egg and toast some bread I tried to calm my heart.
Rachel was right. Flynn and I were just fine.
He was already six years old and as much as I would love him to know his daddy, I had no idea whether Nick would want to meet him even if he did survive the crash.
I just knew that, whatever happened, I would give Flynn the best life I could. That was all that mattered.
Somehow the next hour passed. We ate eggs, which felt like chewing fuzzy felts, and forced down more coffee.
10 a.m. arrived. Almost time.
I stared at the laptop, paralysed, my throat thick with fear.
10.05 a.m.
A bit longer.
10.08 a.m.
The time the trains collided.
I looked at Rachel. She was studying me and gave me a small nod. I pulled the laptop closer and opened it with shaking hands.
Clicking on the news sites I’d left open, I skimmed over the now-familiar details on the BBC, the Guardian, The Times: ‘two trains collided just outside Euston at 10.08 a.m.… emergency services were on the scene within minutes… rescue operation took days…’
All archived stories, all so familiar to me I could have recited them off by heart.
Then I took a deep breath and pressed ‘refresh’.
As the words in front of me swam into focus, my breath caught in my chest.
I leaned closer, my whole body shaking, and read the words again.
Then I looked up at Rachel.
‘The headline’s changed,’ I whispered.
‘What? What does it say?’ She scooted round and leaned towards the screen.
Then together, we read the story, now changed from the familiar one we’d read so many times over the last seven years.
No longer did it say ‘popular teacher dies in Euston train crash’.
Now, it read: ‘Popular family man dies in Euston train crash’.
And below it, was a picture of someone else.
Someone familiar.
The air was knocked from me as realisation hit me.
It was Andrew Flynn.
Nick’s brother had died instead.