Chapter 17 Melissa
Melissa
It’s a bright March morning and Melissa finds Damon sitting alone at a table at the rear of Caffè Nero when she arrives. There’s already a caramel latte waiting for her in a large white mug and a wrapped biscotti on the saucer.
‘Hey,’ they say in unison and she takes a seat, removing her sunglasses to take him in.
Ten days have passed since she was last with him at the fertility clinic.
Lately, her job at the ambulance service has had her working nightshifts.
Yet several times, she has offered to sacrifice daytime sleep and swing by the home they once shared, for a catch-up.
But he’s been fobbing her off with excuses.
A headache, a stomach bug, late shifts of his own.
Something isn’t right.
She’s spoken to their mutual friends, and they haven’t seen hide nor hair of him either. So she was delighted when Damon texted her, suggesting a coffee.
The lighting at this end of the room is purposefully moody, but Melissa still notices dark rings developing under his weary eyes.
He’s also lost weight and hasn’t shaved in days.
He reminds her of the heroin addicts she and her crew sometimes find overdosed and blue-light to Accident and Emergency.
Some people react to negativity and stress by comfort-eating.
Damon is the opposite. He starves himself.
The last time she saw him like this was soon after admitting she wanted them to separate. It was the hardest thing she has ever done, and the guilt still gnaws at her. She corrects herself: second-hardest thing. Only Adrienne knows what trumps it.
‘You don’t look so great,’ she begins. ‘Do you still have that bug?’
‘It’s on its way out.’
‘Did you go to the clinic appointment yesterday to finish the counselling?’
‘Sorry,’ he mutters. ‘I wasn’t feeling up to it. I’ll remake it.’
Melissa bites her tongue as a niggle makes its presence felt. He keeps looking over her shoulder towards the doors.
‘Are we expecting company?’ she asks.
‘Sorry, no,’ he says, but offers no explanation.
He’s hiding something from her, she is sure of it.
But she knows the fastest way to send him running is confrontation.
For a fraction of a second, she allows her brain to consider whether asking him to be their baby’s father was a good idea.
When she and Adrienne first discussed starting a family, it was Melissa who put his name forward.
‘Damon, as in your ex-husband?’ Adrienne had asked, clearly surprised. ‘You want me to carry your ex-husband’s baby?’
Melissa nodded. Though she was aware of how crazy it sounded once she heard it coming from someone else.
‘I don’t know, Mel,’ Adrienne replied, shaking her head. ‘I mean, you know I don’t have a problem with you two being close, but this relationship belongs to you and me, not you, me and Damon.’
‘He’s kind, he’s caring, he’s loyal and he’s empathetic,’ she argued.
‘So is a spaniel.’
Melissa ignored this. ‘And you know he’d make a good dad.’
‘He’s also still in love with you.’
‘He’s not,’ Melissa replied, though she knew that wasn’t strictly true.
He hadn’t moved from the flat they’d shared and, on her insistence, had only recently replaced a framed honeymoon photograph that had been sitting on the mantelpiece.
Sometimes she’d catch him staring at her before quickly looking away, a blush in his cheeks.
He’d been on dates in the four years they’d been apart, but eventually deleted the dating apps when Tommy had pointed out that every girl he chose was a carbon copy of Melissa.
Later, when Melissa asked Damon what was wrong with the girls he’d met, he’d told her simply: ‘They’re not you. ’
She’d been equal parts frustrated and flattered. And she’d also made the mistake of sharing the exchange with Adrienne, which accounted for the raised eyebrow earned by Melissa’s attempted dismissal of the notion that Damon still held a torch for her. Melissa could only look away.
Adrienne had pressed on with her examination of Damon’s candidacy to father their child. ‘There are other factors to consider too.’
‘Like?’
‘Like – and this is going to make me sound like such a bitch – he’s a twenty-eight-year-old supermarket shelf-stacker. A little ambition wouldn’t go amiss. I want our child to look up to its parents, to see how hard they’ve worked, to want to be like them.’
‘Would you rather he was an absolute arsehole, but pulling in a six-figure salary?’
‘What I’m saying is there might be better options for us. And isn’t the notion of having two mums and a dad on the scene a little . . . outdated? A bit Generation X?’
‘You’d prefer an anonymous sperm donor?’
‘Perhaps it’s something we should consider.’
‘Just because Damon hasn’t found his path yet doesn’t mean he won’t. Maybe having the responsibility of a child is what he needs to reassess where his life is going.’
‘It shouldn’t take a baby for him to want to do that,’ said Adrienne. ‘And are you sure the real reason you want him to be our baby’s dad isn’t because you want to give him the family he doesn’t have?’
Tellingly, Melissa had hesitated before she said no.
As, yes, it had been a factor in her decision.
She shared a close bond with her parents, three brothers and sister, but Damon was alone.
No siblings, no cousins, no granny or granddad.
Only two dead parents. She hurt for him.
She wanted him to have a biological link with another person in this world.
Not that he ever admitted it, but she was convinced that never having had a regular father figure in his life was an open wound for Damon.
Becoming a dad himself might help him to heal.
But there was more to it than that. A reason she didn’t like to dwell upon, because she hated herself for it. A reason she intended to keep from Damon until her dying day.
She and Adrienne continued talking long into that night and over the following days, until they finally reached the same page and presented the idea to him.
But that was long before Damon drowned.
Because the version of him who sits before her today in this dim little café is different.
He is on edge, struggling to maintain eye contact.
He taps at the semicolon tattoo on his wrist, a sure sign he is anxious.
She glances at three empty espresso cups on the table and she wonders how long he has been sitting here alone.
‘What’s going on?’ she persists. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’