Chapter 17 #2
‘He died a few weeks after I signed the contract. He never left the hospital. Never came here, never got to hunt for knights and dragons, or look for fairies in the pub’s garden like I did when I was young.’
There are tears running down my face too and squeezing his hand isn’t enough.
I slide off the tree trunk and my feet land in the river with a splash, soaking me to mid-calf, but nothing is more important than getting my arms around him.
I paddle across the riverbed until I’m standing in front of him and lean up to pull him down and hug him tighter than I’ve ever hugged anyone before.
He lets out an ‘oof’ as I squeeze him and curls around me, almost like he deflates and lets the emotions spill out while I hold him together, stroking up and down his sides and over his shoulders, undeterred by the rucksack still on his back.
‘You’re soaking. You’re going to be squelching all the way home.’
‘Don’t care.’
He lets out a wet laugh and huddles closer, and despite the fact the water is freezing and I really didn’t think through jumping into a river in the darkness, I could quite happily stand here all night, trying to share some small part of the burden he’s been carrying around.
‘Thank you.’ Long minutes pass before he moves with a groan like he’s aching from the position and starts untangling our arms. ‘It’s been a long time since I talked about it. I didn’t realise it was going to be so hard to relive.’
‘Of course it is.’ I step back and have to grab onto his knees to steady myself in the water. ‘I’m sorry I pushed you so hard. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I should have told you weeks ago. You deserved to know the truth, but it’s not an easy thing to talk about, and I hate this. This feeling of being emotionally wrung out. The “oh God, I’m so sorry” reaction. That look of sympathy in your eyes.’
‘It’s too dark for you to see anything in my eyes,’ I mutter as I paddle back across the stones and hoist myself up onto the tree trunk again, holding Reece’s hand to stay upright while his other hand goes to my lower back to steady me.
‘How can you be so happy after that?’ I settle myself beside him, close enough that our thighs are pressed against each other’s, and river water drips forlornly from my trainers.
‘You’re so bright, and smiley, and optimistic.
You sing showtunes at inhumane hours of the morning.
If I’d experienced anything close to that, I don’t know how I’d ever drag myself out of bed again. ’
‘What I said before is true – I don’t like to be sad.
He wouldn’t want me to be sad. He’d want his mother and me both to move on and to be happy.
I’ll be grieving for the rest of my life, but I don’t want that to be all I do.
I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.
I don’t want them to treat me differently, and honestly, in a small village like this, I don’t want it to be passed around like the juiciest gossip.
The best thing I can do for Zach is live.
Live the life that he never got to live.
Pick out the good bits in every day. Look on the bright side.
Find the joy in small things. Keep him alive in every way I can.
The pyjama trousers are something he would’ve loved.
I did stuff like that to make him laugh when he was ill.
Wore the brightest, most outlandish things I could find, and nowadays, I think of him…
well, all the time, but especially when I see a pair of ridiculous pyjamas or multicoloured socks.
I get them because I know they’d make him smile. ’
My eyes are welling up again at understanding how so many little things are connected to his love for his son.
I shift until I can kiss his shoulder but the jacket he’s wearing makes it unsatisfactory, but he leans closer and lets out a long, shuddery breath, and we lean against each other and do nothing but breathe into the darkness, surrounded by the sound of rushing water and the last of the evening birdsong.
It still feels like he’s open to talking, so I push further. ‘What happened with your wife?’
He sighs like it’s another painful memory he doesn’t want to relive.
‘After Zach died, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
The grief was soul-crushing. Something like that happening is either going to bring you closer together or tear you apart, and it destroyed us.
We’d both left our jobs and she was angry about the money I’d wasted on the pub.
We picked at each other over every little thing.
We blamed each other. We barely spoke. We grieved in silence.
She slept in his room and I slept on the sofa.
We floated around the house like ghosts, haunting each other.
She wanted to try for another baby, but I couldn’t bear the thought.
I was a father once. I could never do it again.
Eventually she went back to work and met someone else, and when I found out, we ended things.
She asked me to meet her not long before I came up here, and she and her new husband had just had a baby.
His middle name was Zach, so that broke me.
But I’m glad she found what she wanted, because it wasn’t me, but she seemed happy, and she deserves that. ’
‘And you?’
He pulls back until he can meet my eyes. ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be fully, truly, completely happy again, but I can find the happy moments in each day and that’s enough for me.’
I like that. He’s someone who has seen the absolute worst life has to offer, but he’s come through it without letting it make him bitter or angry. I can’t imagine coming out the other side of that and still being able to look on the bright side.
‘After the divorce was finalised and the house was sold, I couldn’t face the thought of my old job.
I had nowhere to live and no reason to stay in London, so I came here.
I thought I could fix the place up, turn it into the family home I’d promised Zach it would be, but it was in so much worse of a state than I’d imagined, and I’m not a builder, so… ’
‘So now you’re the proud owner of a pub you don’t know what to do with?’ I finish his sentence when he trails off, and he nods in response.
‘Are you disappointed I’m not Jake Gyllenhaal?’
I can’t help the unexpected laugh that bursts out. ‘To be honest, I’d be disappointed if you were Jake Gyllenhaal at this point.’
He nudges his shoulder against mine. ‘I think that’s a compliment.’
‘It is a compliment.’ I nudge my shoulder back against his. ‘And while I might get over the lack of Hollywood celebrities coming to our village, Madge won’t. You might have to let her sculpt you naked to make up for it.’
He laughs too, a proper belly laugh. There’s a lot to be said for finding the good moments in each day.
After a little while of simply sitting together, he stretches and looks around, seeming to realise it’s got dark for the first time.
‘Good thing I came prepared.’ He shrugs the rucksack off, digs out two torches, and hands one to me, and then we scooch across the tree trunk and back to the riverbank.
‘It’s so dark. Take my hand.’ Reece shines his torch on the ground in front of us and insists on keeping my fingers wrapped protectively in his.
‘After all that, do you think I’m ever going to let go of your hand? You’re going to have to sleep in the campervan tonight because I’m not letting go of your hand long enough for you to get away.’
He laughs like he thinks I’m joking, and even though I am, really, I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to say goodnight to him when we get back, and I’m already plotting something I could bake as an excuse to get him to stay for a while.
There are men who hide things like cheating from you, and there are others who are gentle and lovely, and have been through absolute hell, and still come out the other side with a warm smile and kindness to everyone who crosses their paths, even if they cross their paths by running them over with a stolen campervan, and stealing Jared’s campervan has become the best thing I’ve ever done, because if I hadn’t, I would never have got here, and I would never have met Reece.
It feels like everything has changed in the space of this conversation.
Not just what I know about him, but how I feel about him.
This raw honesty and trust is starting to feel like the most important thing I’ve ever known.