Chapter 16
Sixteen
T he smell of cooked bacon wafted into the bedroom and woke Steph. Slowly getting up she winced as her face throbbed. A glance in the bathroom mirror explained just why she was in pain.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered as she gently skimmed a thumb across the bruise on her cheek that wasn’t as big or as dark as it had threatened to be the night before but was still painful.
With a growl from her belly, Steph realised that she hadn’t eaten properly for over a week and hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast the previous day. She was grateful that Lindsay had got food on the go, food her friend must have been out for.
“Morning. I’m starving,” Steph said as she exited her bedroom and made her way towards the kitchen.
“Good.”
Steph froze to the spot as she took in the scene before her, one of Jon in her kitchen cooking bacon and making tea, for two.
“What are you doing here?”
“Making breakfast,” Jon replied and turned fully to face her. He looked as shitty as she did, tired and sad, scared almost.
“I can see that, but why, how?”
“Lindsay let me in, last night after you went to bed. I can’t believe he’s done this to you again.” Jon sighed with a guilty shake of his head as if this was somehow his fault.
“No, me neither, but it seems I just don’t learn, do I?”
“I should have been there.” Jon sighed, ignoring her inference that her inability to learn from her mistakes referred to him.
“Why should you have been there? Why would you?” Suddenly, the penny dropped for Steph, causing her to shake her head, something she regretted as it caused her face to hurt a little bit more. “Lindsay and Charlie. I contact Linds and she tells Charlie . . .”
“And he told me but talked me out of being there. He kind of made sense that you wanted to talk to Lindsay, not me and maybe needed some time. If I hadn’t listened to him I would have been there to put Simon on his arse.”
Steph now understood the guilty tone but in no way expected Jon to rescue her or put her ex on his arse so ignored that part of their conversation and reverted back to Jon’s presence courtesy of her friend.
“Lindsay had no right,” Steph snapped, annoyed again. “You’re still manipulating me even after everything that’s happened. I’d like my key back.”
“Let’s have breakfast first.”
Jon moved to the table and placed their plates at neighbouring place settings while Steph stared at him, disbelief etched across her face. She was unsure what he hoped to gain from cooking breakfast or whether he simply assumed they could just pick up where they’d left off or did he truly believe she would simply roll over. After the previous night with Simon she had taken stock and decided that she had played the victim to other people’s wishes and desires for a little too long.
With her hand held out, Steph stared across the table hoping to convey strength and control even if she was falling apart inside. She assumed she’d achieved strength, control and maybe even cold when Jon responded, ignoring her accusation and request for her key.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asked angrily as he took his seat.
Without replying, Steph moved her breakfast to the place opposite Jon somehow reassuring her that the furniture between them might protect her, not from him. She knew he would never pose a physical threat but more protection from her own desire to throw herself into his arms, against his firm body, to feel safe, to kiss him and touch him and beg him to love her again and make everything okay. With a small sigh she realised her resolve might need some work.
“Everybody has been worried sick,” he told her as he roughly pushed a hand through his hair, more nervous than angry now. “Although everyone else did get the courtesy, I’m okay just need some time message or whatever the fuck it was you sent them but not me. Where’s your phone?”
Steph made no reply but lifted her phone from her bag that sat on the chair next to her. Jon reached across and took it, startling her with the tingling burn the brief touch of his finger against hers caused as he accepted her phone.
“You didn’t even read my messages, Steph. Not one, nor my voicemails. Fucking hell! Am I that unimportant to you that you can just cut me off after one fuck up? I know it was a major fuck up but you were part of it too! I didn’t set out to deceive you, darling. I tried to be honest from the start but I fell hard for you . . . I fucking love you and I tried to talk . . .” He covered his face with his hands, roughly pulling them down until he stared across at her darkly before almost throwing her phone back to her and screaming, making her physically jump. “Talk to me! Say something, anything! I thought you had left me and as each day passed and nobody knew where you were or hadn’t heard off you since that initial message, and my own were all undelivered, Steph, I was beginning to think you were dead. That somebody, the police were going to turn up and tell me you were gone, forever and that I would never get the chance to make things right,” he cried, tears threatening to fall.
Swallowing hard, she tried to absorb what he’d said and just felt guilt that she hadn’t even considered the impact her hiding away would have on everyone else.
“Your dad is almost as fucking crazy as I am with worry. Lindsay is busting my balls on a daily basis and your brothers, well let’s just say that Jason is more deranged than I originally suspected.” He sighed.
“Sorry,” she managed to utter hoarsely.
“Stephanie, please talk to me,” he pleaded.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted tearfully. “I couldn’t be near you after what transpired at the gala and I knew if I was, you would never let me go and I needed space, space you would never have allowed. I thought the text would reassure the others but I didn’t want to reassure you, I wanted to hurt you and leave you helpless.”
“Objective achieved on both counts then.” He brushed away the tears that now escaped his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, wondering why suddenly she was the one in the wrong and apologising.
“Stop saying that,” he implored. “I hurt you and let you down in the worst possible way so it should be me apologising and I am very, very sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me immediately but you have to know that this is not over, us, we’re not over, never will be, but we should talk, properly.”
“How can you say that? You are married and not to me. I was wrong to think I could do this. This is wrong full stop. You have a wife and she might not be Lucy but surely she deserves better than being cheated on and if she doesn’t, I think I might deserve better than being your bit on the side, Jon. I’m sorry. I know it’s what we agreed to, what I agreed to, but I was wrong when I decided I could do this. I hate her, I hate me and the only one I don’t hate but maybe should is you, but I can’t bring myself to do it because I love you.” Steph continued watching his tortured face before her. For no reason she could fathom beside the fact that she did love him, she smiled a half-smile. “I really do love you. Like I didn’t know was possible and this time away hasn’t changed that.”
“I thought I loved you and then you left me,” he replied, throwing her a curve ball she had never imagined was in his arsenal. He’d said loved in the past tense. He brushed more tears away, his first and then stretching over, he stroked across her cheek, wiping hers away too. “And now I know that I love you more than I could ever have imagined, darling. Without you I am nothing, I’m empty,” he told her with a break in his voice that broke her heart a little more.
“Then what do we do because we can’t go back to how it was, and you have a wife.”
“No we can’t, we won’t. Do you feel up to going out this morning, with me?”
“Yes, but work . . .”
“Work will be there later or tomorrow. But we, I need to be completely honest with you before I can truly ask you to move forward with me. I need to move a couple of things, but you get dressed and then we’ll go, if you’ll let me explain?”
Steph nodded and was already on her feet, unsure what she’d agreed to, but knew if there was a way of moving forward with Jon she’d take it, just not as his mistress.
“You’ve brought me to the park, to be completely honest? Is this in case I try and do a runner again? I have no clue where we are,” Steph said as she walked along the gravelled, tree lined path that led towards some kind of children’s playground they’d driven about forty minutes to reach.
“No, not really.” Jon sighed. He’d done a lot of that during the journey.
“I want to stop you looking so worried,” Steph told him as she stopped and faced him. “I want to tell you that everything will be okay and it can’t be that bad, but I can’t.”
“I know.”
Steph reached across and took Jon’s hand. “Swing or slide?” she suddenly asked.
“What?”
“Favourite item on the playground?”
“Oh, erm, I’m not sure. I always liked the roundabout, but swings I suppose.” He frowned, but it softened as Steph smiled at him.
“Me too, swings.”
Racing off down the path and into the playground that was empty with Jon following, Steph took up her position on a swing and was relieved when Jon took the one next to her. They sat, gently swaying in silence for a few minutes before Jon finally spoke.
“Did Charlie ever tell you about our time at uni?”
“Not much. He spoke about uni, anecdotes and stories, but nothing specific. We were only together a short time really. I think he mentioned you in terms of his best friend who lived abroad.”
“There was a girl at uni, Penny. She was Charlie’s friend first. He introduced us and we became friends. There was a small group of us. She was pretty, bright and funny, everyone liked her.”
“Your wife?” Steph almost choked on the last word.
Jon nodded. “During our final year at uni she got involved with a guy . . . a bad news kind of guy. Charlie and I tried to warn her off, we all did but she wouldn’t listen.”
Steph remained silent.
“When I left uni I got a job in the city but also had a broker and bought shares, bought low and sold high. I invested wisely and within a year I had a company to run. Charlie and I both lost touch with Penny until out of the blue she called Charlie. She was in a mess. She’d become involved in drugs and was stone broke.”
“Okay,” Steph said now, thinking that she ought to make some contribution. Looking across at Jon she could see that he was struggling to tell her the story of him and Penny and she had to admit that she couldn’t see how this was ever going to unfold into one where she was his wife.
“Sorry. It’s a mess really and I am trying to tell you everything.”
“Okay,” Steph repeated.
“I paid for rehab and she did well; got clean and stayed that way for several months. We got close, closer than we’d ever been. I was expanding my business and was going to America for a while. We slept together before I left and I think we both thought it was a one off.”
“Jon, I really don’t understand . . .”
“I know, sorry. I went to America, made some business deals. I came home once things were set up and was confronted with Penny, a pregnant Penny.”
“Shit! Yours?” Steph thought it was obviously his baby. Suddenly, she felt nausea rising at the realisation that they had a child.
“She said so and I had no reason to disbelieve her. Penny told me that she didn’t expect me to be more than our child’s father, but that’s not me. I asked her to marry me and she agreed.”
She offered no response because all she had in that moment were questions.
Reaching across to take her hand in his and gently stroking across her knuckles, he continued, “We’d been married a couple of months when I noticed changes in Penny . . . bad changes. I accused her of using again and rather than denying it she got defensive and we ended up having a huge row. She basically told me to fuck off, which was fine, par for the course in an argument, but she then told me that the baby wasn’t mine anyway.”
“Oh, Jon,” Steph said sadly, squeezing his hand now.
“I liked Penny, but I would never have married her without her being pregnant.”
Steph nodded again.
“I was poleaxed and when she stormed out, I made no attempt to follow her.” Silence filled the space between them until Jon suddenly got to his feet. “Come on,” he told Steph but was already leading her back through the park towards a country house on the outskirts of the grounds.
Jon continued speaking as they walked. “It was about two hours later that there was a knock on the door, the police. Penny had been involved in an accident. She used to ride a bike, she was always very eco-aware and had a real passion for the environment. When we first met, that was her mission, long term, to work the legal system to aid those who wanted to make changes for the world and I never doubted she could or would.”
Steph smiled, in spite of her rising confused feelings at the sound of this man who she loved talking about his wife with such pride.
“She was riding her bike along a busy road when a car hit her,” he explained with a wobble to his voice. “The car driver said she was wobbling all over the place and he’d only clipped her really, but she lost balance and had no chance of avoiding the bus that was right behind her.”
“Shit,” muttered Steph, unsure what else to say or do so stuck to that one word and another squeeze of Jon’s hand.
“The impact of the bus was significant, catastrophic was the word the doctors used.”
“Jon, I am so sorry,” Steph told him, thinking that her words were inadequate.
He seemed to ignore her condolences and continued to speak. “She was in a bad way. She was stabilised and eventually transferred to a specialist unit that dealt with coma and persistent vegetative state patients. The baby died, he didn’t stand a chance . . .” Jon added and that was when a single tear rolled down his face.
Ironically, a woman on a bike with a child attached in a trailer rode past them as Steph wrapped herself around Jon’s middle to hold him, desperate to offer him some comfort.
“He was mine, the baby. I believed he was mine and felt in my heart that he was. Penny might have been using again and capable of lying about most things, but not that, she never would,” he claimed with real conviction that simply made Steph nod as they continued to walk. “Penny remained in that state for a couple of months and surprised everyone by beginning to come round. I’d been warned that it was unlikely that she would but I was also advised that if she did she would be severely disabled and her quality of life was likely to be highly compromised.”
“What happened, to Penny?” Steph asked, unsure now if she wanted the answer.
“She’s here,” he replied pointing up at the country house they stood at the stone steps of.
“Here?”
“Yeah, this is a nursing home, which is why you have never seen Penny’s stuff around.”
Steph froze as she realised that he intended to take her inside to meet his wife.
“Hey, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, darling, but I want to be honest with you and for you to see exactly who and what Penny was and still is to me. I cared for her, but I didn’t love her, not like you should love your wife, not like I love you. I married her because she was having my baby, no other reason, we both knew that. I think the drugs relapse would probably have signified the end of our marriage and most likely a messy custody battle if I am honest.”
Steph made no reply and while her heart raced at his words about the way he loved her, it sank as she thought of coming face to face with her lover’s wife. With her hand still in Jon’s she began the ascent of the steps before them, indicating that she was going to meet Mrs Brooker.
“Ready?” Jon asked as they came to a stop at what could have been a door in a very classy hotel.
Steph noticed from the second they’d entered that the staff were all very friendly and warm. They’d greeted Jon by name meaning he visited regularly. He’d been told that Penny was having a good day and was in her room with the physio and her nurse.
“I pop in a couple of times a week,” he told her as if he knew what she was thinking. “If I have an hour or two free I come in the day and I used to come a couple of evenings a week too, but I prefer to spend my evenings with you,” he admitted with a little guilt.
Unable to think of anything else to say Steph said, “Ready.”
Jon tapped at the door and with a call of ‘come in’ from the other side they entered the room together.
“Hey Pen, I’ve brought someone to meet you,” Jon called as the room and its occupants came into view.
The nurse smiled and immediately greeted Jon by name. The physio offered a wave before telling Penny they were done for today. Steph turned her full attention to Penny as the medical staff left.
Penny was beautiful. She had shoulder length, curly blonde hair that was freshly washed and styled and bright blue eyes that sparkled. Jon sat in a chair next to the wheelchair Penny was in and began to chat, starting with Lucy being pregnant. Steph was unsure what to do so focused on the room and the woman before her. The damage her body and brain had endured were evident by the fact that Penny’s body seemed to move erratically in a combination of convulsive and constrictive movements; her arms seemed almost fixed in tightly upright positions near her chest, while her legs flailed independently. She was clearly breathing without assistance and as Jon chatted to her she made sounds, noises, but there was no speech that she could decipher and if she was honest, Steph was unsure if there was any real understanding. Penny’s head swayed from side to side, almost as if she was moving to music that only she could hear while Jon continued to speak.
Steph refocused on the room. It was fully accessible with track hoisting and an en-suite wet room. The walls were decorated tastefully but it was the addition of personal belongings that made Steph smile. There were flags of eco-warrior organisations, framed newspaper cuttings of marches and demonstrations that she assumed Penny must have been involved in and photos, lots of photos. Some of Penny, as she had been and that really showed the extent of how she’d been changed by her accident. There were photos with Penny, Jon and Charlie together, possibly from uni and then one of Jon and Penny together and clearly expecting a baby. Steph could feel she was becoming a little overwhelmed by her own feelings and thoughts about the position she found herself in with Jon but more so for Jon and Penny, what they’d had and what they’d lost and that is when she saw the framed photo of a baby scan.
“This is Steph,” Jon said, drawing her back in. “She’s my girlfriend,” he added, causing Steph’s jaw to drop. “Can you see she’s glaring at me now, Pen? I think I might be in trouble,” he laughed and the sound of that seemed to stimulate a response from Penny who appeared to nod her head. “Steph, come and say hi to Penny,” he encouraged with an outstretched hand towards a very nervous looking and feeling Steph.