Always You and Me

Chapter One One Year Later

Chapter One

One Year Later

I was awake long before the alarm, watching as the inky February sky finally changed from black to grey. I had thought I was ready for today, but now that it had finally arrived, all I felt was overwhelmed.

The mattress depressed suddenly beside my feet, and I looked down at Fletcher, who seemed to realise that the ‘not allowed on the bed’ rule might possibly be waived today. I patted the empty half of the queen-sized mattress and Adam’s dog – my dog now – wriggled up the divan like a canine commando to settle himself beside me.

It was hard to say what had been worse: waking for months in the middle of the night to find my hand searching for Adam across the cold sheets, or the day when my subconscious finally acknowledged he was never going to be found there.

But he was still all around me, even twelve months after his death, and never more so than today, on the anniversary of the day I’d lost him.

‘The first year will be the worst,’ people had told me at the funeral. I think their words were meant to comfort me, to let me know that life would eventually get better, but at the time it felt like being kicked when you were already down.

Those initial three hundred and sixty-five days had been an assault course of firsts. Some stabbed like knife wounds, others had been paper cuts of grief, unexpectedly sharp and painful. You’d expect the first Christmas, first birthday and first anniversary to hurt – and they did. But even worse are the ones that blindside you. The first time a stranger innocently asks, ‘ Are you married? ’ and you have no idea how to reply, because in your heart you still are, and always will be.

Fletcher must have decided it was a day to push the boundaries, for he’d wriggled even higher up the bed to lay his head on the smooth undented pillow beside mine.

‘Nice try, dog, but you’re not sleeping on the bed.’

A smile flitted across my lips, as I realised that if Adam had been the one left alone, the dog would already have claimed my vacant half of the divan.

It had taken almost six months before I’d summoned up the courage to wash Adam’s pillowcase. Each night I’d drag his pillow towards me, inhaling the lingering smell of him like an addict, until there was nothing left. It was a big milestone when I finally bundled it up and placed it in the washing machine. I still remember how I clawed at the glass, changing my mind too late, as the machine whirred into action and flooded the drum with sudsy water. When the linen came out, I’d buried my face in the wet material but all I could smell was fabric conditioner. The product name was wildly misleading because it had given me no comfort at all.

Swinging my legs out of bed, I headed to the bathroom. The shelves there no longer held Adam’s toiletries, but his toothbrush still sat beside mine in the glass by the sink. My hand hovered towards it, but I jerked it back, unsure if my intention had been to throw it away or use it. I couldn’t decide which option was worse.

Fletcher had abandoned the bed and was waiting patiently beside the worktop when I entered the kitchen. Two bites into a slice of toast and marmalade and I threw the remains into his bowl. It was no wonder my waistline had grown thinner over the last year, while Fletcher’s had expanded. I could almost hear Adam chastising me, so I pulled on a thick padded jacket and prepared to take Fletcher on a longer walk than usual to compensate.

‘Look after my dog,’ Adam had said to me, before solemnly turning to the hound and saying just as earnestly, ‘And you, look after my wife.’

We were trying, Fletcher and me, but some days just putting one foot in front of the other felt like a challenge. I learnt that you can’t outrun grief because it always knows where to find you, but you can keep yourself so busy that it can only squeeze into the gaps of your life, instead of burying you under an avalanche of sadness.

As a result, my cake decorating business had never been busier or more profitable. Raegan, who I’d initially employed to help me out for just two days a week, was now with me full-time. I was working harder and longer than I’d ever done before, and the results were there in black and white on the spreadsheets. Adam would have been so very proud of me. He’d always believed in me and my dreams, had listened to my plans, and supported me when I decided it was time to take a leap of faith and move my operation out of the tiny, cramped kitchen in my old flat and into proper premises. It was a decision I’d never regretted, unlike some I’d made.

The thought stirred a memory that refused to be silenced. As usual, the guilt of my broken promise felt like a hundred needles pricking at my conscience. Thankfully Fletcher provided a timely distraction by bounding up with a stick he’d just found. I threw it for him until my arm ached and even he grew bored of the game.

Back at the flat I started at least half a dozen chores, only to abandon them all. They weren’t the distraction I needed and I couldn’t settle. Normally, the feeling that Adam was still with me in the home we’d made together was a huge comfort. I could find him in the vibrant geometric wallpaper he’d picked for the hallway – the paper he’d told me I’d come to love . . . except I never did. And he was there in the ridiculously impractical cream-coloured sofa he’d chosen, that did show every single mark, as I’d predicted, and would be totally useless when we eventually had children. I jerked back from that thought as though I’d ventured too close to a flame. The mugs in the cupboard, the paintings on our walls, everything we’d owned came with its own unique history of us. It was a hidden provenance that made it seem as though Adam still walked beside me in the empty apartment.

But today I sensed something else. Not for the first time, I felt that Adam might be disappointed in me.

I pummelled the cream sofa cushions into shape as though they’d personally offended me. I didn’t like thinking about Adam’s final hours, because that wasn’t how he’d want me to remember him. But the memory of the promise he’d extracted from me – the one promise I still hadn’t kept – refused to be silenced.

I collapsed on to the cushions and Fletcher immediately jumped up to lay his head on my lap, looking at me with reproachful eyes.

‘Not you too,’ I murmured, scratching his head.

I’d done everything Adam had asked of me. The mechanics at my local garage all knew me by name, and I’d even rescheduled our proposed trip to Australia. But – and it was a big but – I hadn’t reached out to Josh like I said I would.

‘I wouldn’t even know how to,’ I told my disinterested dog. ‘I’ve no idea where he’s living or how to get in touch with him.’

Which was exactly what Josh had wanted.

‘You won’t hear from me again, Lily. I think it’s best for everyone if we agree to cut all contact.’

Had I really believed him when he’d said that? Or did I think in time the hurtful words we’d flung like knives would be forgotten, and we’d find our way back to being friends again? But Josh had been deadly serious. He’d deleted his social media accounts and even changed his phone number. I had no idea where he lived or worked anymore. And if I was being truthful, that’s how I’d like things to stay. Our argument had opened up a sinkhole that had swallowed our friendship whole, as though it had never existed.

Overnight Josh had gone from one of the most important people in my life to someone I used to know . And that’s how it had remained for the past six years. And it would have stayed that way if my husband hadn’t made me promise to find him again.

The walls of the flat felt like they were slowly closing in on me and I jumped impulsively to my feet, almost knocking a startled Fletcher to the ground. I’d had many offers of company for today from both friends and family. I’d even had an invitation from Andie – my best friend from uni – to visit her in New York, but I’d turned them all down. I was beginning to wonder if that had been a mistake.

‘How are you planning on spending this Saturday, Lily?’

The question had come two days ago from the other side of a mountain of choux buns and spun sugar. I’d stepped back to admire the finished croquembouche that Raegan and I had spent most of the day constructing, before replying with surprising honesty.

‘Eating chocolate, listening to sad songs and looking through old photo albums.’

Raegan emerged from the other side of the French wedding cake, shaking her head sadly. ‘Spend it with Polly and me instead,’ she said, tilting her head to one side in a move I could have sworn she’d stolen from my dog. ‘You know my kid loves you more than she does me.’

I smiled sadly and wiped my sticky hands on a cloth. ‘The feeling is one hundred per cent mutual, but even your adorable five-year-old won’t change my mind. I’d be lousy company, anyway.’

On paper Raegan and I were unlikely friends. She was eight years my junior, a single mum who’d barely been making ends meet with a collection of part-time jobs. She’d happily admitted she didn’t know creme pat from Postman Pat, and yet five minutes into the interview I’d already decided to give her the job.

‘You hired her for her sense of humour?’ Adam had asked me incredulously that night.

I’d given a helpless shrug. ‘Kind of,’ I’d said, not regretting my decision at all. Four years later, I still didn’t.

One of the best things about Raegan was that she knew when to push and when to back off.

‘Bugger you, Lily. I knew you’d say no,’ she said, releasing the clip from her hair and running her fingers though the mulberry-coloured strands. The only thing more colourful than Raegan’s language was her hair, which changed hue practically every month. ‘My offer stays open, though,’ she said, pulling me in for quick, hard hug.

As tempting as her invitation had been, as I looked around the home that was so full of Adam and yet so empty without him, there was really only one place I wanted to be.

I hauled down an old carryall from the top of the wardrobe, happy to finally be doing something positive. Finding a forgotten pair of Adam’s black socks tucked away in the corner of the bag derailed me for a moment.

‘Socks!’ I said in disbelief, blowing my nose noisily and then throwing a wodge of damp tissues into the wastebin ten minutes later. I suppose I’d known I wouldn’t be able to get through today without sobbing, but I really hadn’t expected a pair of old socks to be the thing that took me down.

I threw some clothes into the bag, and then filled a carrier with food bowls and dog food. My parents had no pets of their own but had always referred to Fletcher as their ‘granddog’, which had made Adam laugh and roll his eyes. It had been easy to see that my parents adored Adam, and from the first time I’d brought him home my dad had called him ‘son’, which if you knew my dad, you’d realise was a very big deal. They had grieved for me and with me over the past twelve months, and I really didn’t know what I’d been thinking, imagining I’d be able to get through today without them.

I wasn’t concerned when there was no reply when I called the house, because since retiring their lives had been busier than ever. ‘ We’re cramming it all in now, so we’ll be free for childminding when you and Adam have some kiddies,’ my dad had jokingly told me a few years ago. It was a throwaway line that my brain still refused to discard. If only we had . . . I thought sadly, as I slid behind the wheel of my car. It was hard sometimes to know if the last year would have been better or immeasurably worse if Adam and I hadn’t put off our plans for a baby for so long. How stupid we were for thinking we had all the time in the world to make that dream a reality.

The journey was uneventful and the roads busy enough to force me to concentrate only on my driving. The house I’d grown up in was disappointingly in darkness when I pulled into the driveway. Fletcher, who seemed to recognise we’d arrived at the place where he was secretly given biscuits, was already jumping up and down on the rear seat in excitement.

I glanced back at him with a smile. There might not have been children in our lives, but sharing this past year with Fletcher, who had loved Adam just as much as me, had made a totally unbearable twelve months a little less so.

I let myself into the house, and Fletcher shot past me at a hundred miles an hour, doing a totally unnecessary search for my parents. The absence of their car in the driveway had already confirmed they were still out.

I walked into the kitchen, breathing in the familiar smell of home, a fragrance so precious I would have paid a fortune to have it bottled. I filled a water bowl for Fletcher and the kettle for me. As I waited for it to boil, I unlocked the back door so the dog could make use of the garden and followed him out into the fast-fading daylight. As my feet went from the paved patio to the lawn, a vague feeling of unease settled over me. Something was wrong. Something was different. I looked up and gasped so loudly that Fletcher stopped investigating the strange flower beds and bounded back over.

The tree. The tree was gone. The old sycamore in our neighbours’ back garden, which I’d climbed a thousand times or more, should have been standing majestically beside the fence, its boughs overhanging our garden, but all I could see was sky.

I pivoted back to look at the neighbours’ house. It had changed hands several times since my tree-scaling days. I had no idea who the current owners were, but I already hated them for ruthlessly hacking down my childhood memories.

Fletcher danced excitedly around my feet as I pushed through the undergrowth to the section of fence with the loose boards. But my searching fingers found no place where younger me had crawled through the panels held aside by my old partner in crime.

‘It blew down in that terrible storm we had last November,’ my mother said as she busied herself pulling ingredients from the fridge for our evening meal.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Mum paused in her scrutiny of a sell-by date and looked at me sadly for a moment. ‘I figured you had enough things to be thinking about instead of old trees,’ she said kindly.

I nodded slowly. November hadn’t been a good time for me. It was the month of my wedding anniversary. The first I’d had to spend without Adam.

‘Even so,’ I said, aware I was making far too much out of something that really shouldn’t have mattered this much to me. Except that it did.

‘I still think it’s a miracle you never broke your neck falling out of that damn old tree,’ Dad said, ruffling my hair as though I was still that eleven-year-old fearless tomboy. ‘If I’d known what dangerous antics you were getting up to over there, with that young lad the Bakers fostered – what was his name again?’ he asked, turning to my mother, the oracle, for an answer. But I replied first. Why would I not, when his name had been in and out of my thoughts all day.

‘Josh. His name was Josh.’

With culinary wizardry, Mum conjured a dinner for two into a feast for three, which made me wonder if she’d always known I was going to turn up at their door today. It was probably no accident either that the meal was one of my childhood favourites.

The visit did all that I’d hoped it would. I’d been running on empty, and somehow being back in the place where I’d grown up restored and renewed me. Not everyone was lucky enough to have roots like these, which was something I’d learnt at a surprisingly young age. I yanked my thoughts back because I could see where they were heading. And tonight, I wanted only to think about Adam.

The tap was light on my bedroom door. I turned my head but didn’t move from the window seat where so many of my childhood dreams and plans had been launched. It was the same spot beside the same star-strewn sky, but I was too old now to believe that wishing on them achieved anything.

‘Are you alright, sweetheart?’

I turned away from the glass, feeling like I was eleven years old all over again as my mother walked towards me. If it weren’t for the lines on her face and the grey in her hair, I really would feel as though I had travelled back in time. It certainly seemed that way when her arms came around me and I buried my face in the comfort of her hug.

‘Today was always going to be shit, Lily.’

I smothered a sound that was halfway between a sob and a laugh against her waist. Mum never swore, and it said a lot that she did so now.

‘Do you think I’m always going to miss him this much, Mum? I thought it would get easier in time . . . but it’s still so hard without him.’

She didn’t tell me the pain would ease, or dredge up a well-meaning platitude; she just tightened her hold and dropped her head down until it rested on mine.

‘We still talk about him every day, your dad and I,’ she said, her voice cracking slightly. I pulled back and we shared the same watery smile. There were tears in the eyes that used to be the same shade of green as mine.

‘He would have liked that,’ I said, knowing it to be true.

Mum nodded. ‘But what he wouldn’t like is knowing that you’re still so very sad. He’d want you to be happy again. I know he would.’

The promise forced its way back into the forefront of my thoughts, like an arrogant queue jumper that refused to wait their turn. My head felt heavy as I acknowledged her words. Perhaps there was more than one reason why I’d felt the need to return here today. Perhaps it was because I knew that to take the next step forwards I would need to go back to where it had all started.