Chapter 30
I’ve no idea how long I’ve been lying here watching Hannah sleep. She’s curled up facing me, her hair splayed out on the pillow behind her, lidded eyes fluttering at whatever is going on in her sleepy brain, and her chest rising and falling beneath the covers.
Time has stopped. If all I get to do for the rest of my life is lie here and watch this beautiful sight, it will be totally fine with me.
She must be exhausted. What a night last night was.
First, the overwhelming rush of watching her bloom into exactly who she should have been, who she is, as she stood on stage and visibly grew in self-confidence in front of my eyes was a phenomenal experience.
And then there was the other phenomenal experience when we got home. I’d thought the passionate grapple in the back of the car the other night was crotch-rockingly exciting. But last night? Fucking hell. That was a whole other level, a whole other world, of orgasmic experience.
Being inside her felt like the most right thing I have ever done in my life.
She’s awoken a joy in me, a lightness, a laughter, I only vaguely remember once having.
An image of Hannah on my arm at Walker’s wedding next summer flashes through my head.
I need to get a grip. It makes no sense to think anyone meets their right person when they’re a kid.
But we’ve been off on our own and lived our lives since then. We’ve gotten some things right, and some things wrong.
But maybe this thing, the us thing, we got right the first time.
Fuck.
How can I let her go now?
How am I supposed to be her Bridge Person, when all I want is to be her Forever Person?
And how the hell has this happened when all I did was go to Blythewell to get some post-divorce rest and relaxation? I had zero intention of getting involved with anyone for a very long time. But here I am lying next to Hannah, dreaming of not having to say goodbye.
The thought of her disappearing to California leaves a long, dull ache in my chest.
Perhaps I should try to broach it. Gently. Slowly. Build up to it over the next few weeks. Try to ease her into thinking we could work this out.
There must be a way. Fuck knows what it might be, but there has to be.
And maybe I can start by bringing her coffee in bed.
I tear my eyes off this beautiful sleeping face for a moment to turn carefully so as not to disturb her, and look at my phone. Christ, it’s nine o’clock.
That wouldn’t usually matter on a Saturday, but these are extreme circumstances. I have a meeting with Gareth at eleven, where he’s supposed to sign an agreement to take two months’ vacation, attend weekly anger management therapy, and send a written apology to Sailor Caldwell. That should, once and for all, sort out this ridiculous nightmare.
All being well, we can celebrate at the Arsenal game Hugo got us tickets for tonight. I can’t wait to give Hannah her first experience of an English football match.
Then tomorrow morning we head home.
Home? I mean, back to Maggie and Jim’s. This is my home. Here, in this flat. In London. And Hannah doesn’t exactly have one yet.
I slide carefully over to the edge of the bed and gently maneuver myself up without shaking the mattress and disturbing her.
I eventually locate my boxers in a tangle with my jeans on the floor and head to the kitchen.
I reach for the pack of ground coffee in one of the upper cupboards and pause, holding it in midair, as a loud exclamation emanates from the bedroom and ricochets up the hallway toward me.
It sounded like “Fuck. Holy fucking hell.”
The tone of Hannah’s voice makes my stomach flip—it was filled with deadly serious panic.
I trot back to the bedroom to find her sitting up in bed, staring at her phone. “What’s up?”
“Dylan’s set the school on fire.”
“What?”
“Well, a classroom. Well, half a classroom. Well, kind of a corner where some books and a chair were.”
Her mind is obviously racing and overreacting. Her eyes flash from the phone to me. Then she flings back the covers and scrabbles for her clothes.
“I have to go.”
“Go? Now?” How does she think she’s going to get herself back to Blythewell in a flash?
“Yes, Tom. I have to go. My kid’s burned down the fucking school. Because I wasn’t there. I have to go.”
I’m filled with the need to not only calm her panic but also relieve her stress, make her see we can handle this together. Get this defiantly proud woman to let me help her.
“Hey, look. He’s accidentally set fire to one corner of one room. And you being there couldn’t have stopped it. Let’s just take a second here and call Maggie to find out what’s going on.”
“We can’t call Maggie. It’s four in the morning there. She texted late last night, but I missed it because I was so caught up in…” She gestures from me to the bed. “And she must have spent most of yesterday dealing with this already. I’m not going to wake her up at four in the fucking morning.” She slams her feet into her jeans. “And you don’t know it was an accident.”
“You think he might have done it on purpose?” It’s hard to see smart, funny Dylan as an arsonist. “He’s a good kid, Hannah. He wouldn’t do?—”
“You don’t know what he’d do. I told you he’s been in trouble a few times since we left Nicholas. And I guess it’s escalated.” She rams last night’s top over her head. “I need to go.”
“Okay. Look.” I hold out my hands in what I hope is a calming, but not patronizing, fashion and try to get her to slow the hell down. “Let’s just take a breath here.”
She completely ignores me and searches the room, lifting up clothes, then the duvet.
“What are you looking for?”
“My purse. A credit card, so I can call and change my flight to today.”
I walk toward her with long, slow steps, hoping my body language might help bring down the pace of things. “Just one second.” I take her hands. “Please look at me for just one second.”
She does, but her mind is racing behind her eyes. Her body might have slowed, but her frantic panic hasn’t.
“If you can even get on a flight today, you’ll only end up getting back about twelve hours earlier than if we go tomorrow morning as planned.”
She snatches her hands away and resumes searching, opening drawers and cabinets where her bag has never been. “Twelve hours might not mean anything to you, but when it comes to my son, it means everything to me.”
My heart goes out to her. All these years she’s raised Dylan alone, struggling and doing the best she can with no one to help. But I’m here this time, and I can help.
If her one desire in the world is to get back to him right now, then that’s something I can definitely make happen. “Stop looking for your purse.”
“Maybe it’s in the living room.”
As she pushes by me, I catch her around the waist. “You don’t need to look for it.”
She tries to wriggle free. “I do. I have to go, Tom. Have I not been clear?”
I hold on tight. “Very. That’s why you don’t need your card. I’ll sort it out.”
“No, you won’t.” She tries to pull my arms loose, but on this one I’m certain I know better, and she’s staying right here with me. “If you sort it out, I’ll end up on a flight to Kathmandu or something. Let go. I need to do it myself.”
“I’m not letting go.”
She stops struggling, and her eyes land on mine. They’re glossy and red-rimmed, on the verge of tears.
“You don’t need to do anything. I’m going to order a private jet, and you and I will get on that. Together. And we’ll go back and sort everything out. Together.”
“But you have to see Gareth in a couple hours. No one else but you can make him sign that agreement. You have to nip something like that in the bud. Show him who’s boss.”
“I don’t care.” I tug her against my chest and bury my face in her hair. “The most important thing to me is you. And that means there’s another most important thing—Dylan.”
Her son’s name has barely fallen from my lips before she circles her arms around my waist. Thank God. She’s finally listening to me, letting me help her.
“And if your supermom powers say you need to be back with him right now, then I will move heaven and earth to get you back with him as close to now as is humanly possible.”
Hannah’s hold on me tightens as she presses the side of her face against my bare chest and her body heaves one big sob.
“Thank you,” she whispers.