Chapter Twenty-Six
T RUE TO HIS word, Harry was waiting for Chloe outside, a scarf around his neck that matched his brown eyes.
Despite her anxiety, warmth flooded Chloe at the sight of him.
How was it that some people made the world around them brighter when they showed up?
There was something calming about his presence even as nerves danced in her chest like erratic fireflies.
‘Hi, Chloe,’ he said. ‘There’s a café down the road that’s still open. Shall we talk there?’
It was dinnertime, but Chloe didn’t know if she’d be able to eat anything, her stomach was so tied up in knots. She ordered a bacon sandwich and a decaf coffee anyway at the little corner café.
‘I’ve never been here before,’ she remarked, taking off her jacket. She almost felt bad for going to a place that was surely competing with Hannah’s café, but she wouldn’t be able to talk privately with Harry with her best friend there.
They chose a corner table by the window for privacy. Chloe glanced outside, half expecting to see the weird guy watching them, loitering on the pavement. But the cobblestone street was quiet, save one woman walking her dog.
Chloe watched them for a moment, wishing she were the dog and her worst problem right now was not being allowed to chase pigeons.
‘Chloe, is everything all right?’
She whipped her head around to face Harry.
He had taken off his scarf and jacket and was wearing a green knitted jumper underneath that reminded her of cosy nights in and Christmas-time.
‘Yes.’ She perched on the seat, wondering how to broach the subject.
Now that they were here, she almost wanted to leave it alone.
They made small talk about work and the weather for a while, but the unsaid topic ballooned between them.
Like avoiding talking about Mum or Dad or Liam when she was with Gwen, except a hundred times louder.
Even when their coffees came, it buzzed around her like a bothersome fly, filling her with frantic energy.
‘Okay. I’ll just ask.’ She set down her cup. It clinked in its saucer.
Harry was good at looking nonchalant, but he straightened slightly at her words, as though he was privately battling the same anticipation and dread.
Chloe told him about the man who had seen them at the fireworks festival and his ominous words in the library that morning.
‘He said . . . to ask you whose fault it was. About Julie.’ She winced, hating to bring it up but also knowing she couldn’t avoid the subject if this thing between them was to go on.
She expected Harry to fervently shake his head, to say he had no idea who that man was, and what a ridiculous thing to say.
She thought he might insist Julie’s death had been a horrible accident and the stranger was trying to cause trouble for no reason.
What she didn’t expect was for Harry to let out a bitter laugh and rub the bridge of his nose.
His eyes were closed when he said, ‘Right. Jason.’
‘So you know him, then.’
‘I do.’ Harry looked at her. ‘You see . . . Jason is my wife’s brother.’
‘Oh.’ She took a sip of coffee, letting the creamy, rich warmth run across her tongue. ‘All right. Go on.’
Something flitted across Harry’s face. Pain. ‘After the funeral, Jason said it was my fault. He’s . . . not entirely wrong, either, if I have to be honest.’
‘What happened to her?’ Chloe’s heart thumped. ‘Please, just tell me.’ Harry had no idea of the number of terrible possibilities that were tumbling through her mind right now.
He leaned back, his large chest rising and slowly falling.
‘We had just bought our house in Wellbridge. The bills were high, and the purchase had left us broke. My business was taking off but I was still paying off my course. I wanted to wait, you know, before having children. I thought in a couple of years, I’d have saved up enough and been in a better place financially.
’ He took another sip of coffee. Part of Chloe wanted to urge him on, to rip off the Band-Aid, but she understood that he was perhaps mulling over the words, choosing and shaping them to say it right.
She shifted in her seat and mirrored him, sipping with caution as she burned with curiosity and dread.
‘When things were better for us and I’d paid off some bills, we started trying for a baby,’ said Harry.
‘But then they found the cancer in her ovaries.’ Harry grimaced in pain.
Or guilt. ‘Maybe if we had seen a doctor sooner, if we had tried to get pregnant just a couple of months earlier, they would have found it before it was too late.’
Chloe was silent. The café around them kept going; people talked, spoons clinked against mugs, a coffee machine hissed in the next room.
Harry breathed deeply, as though trying to contain his emotion, and Chloe wished they had found a more private place to talk.
She rummaged in her bag and brought out a packet of tissues, sliding them along the table towards him.
Harry took one, holding it in his fist. ‘Jason blames me. Says it’s my fault I made her wait. And he isn’t wrong, is he?’ His jaw was set, and Chloe could tell he was trying not to cry.
‘It’s not your fault,’ she said softly as her heart broke for him.
‘It is,’ he said, staring down at the tissue.
‘If I had said, “sod it, we’ll manage,” they would have found the cancer sooner.
She could have had better treatment. She was only twenty-seven.
’ Chloe was horrified to see tears slip free of Harry’s eyes, and he reached up to wipe them away.
The whites of his eyes had gone red and he looked out of the window, perhaps trying to distract himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She wanted to take it back. Poking her nose in. How could she have thought Harry was capable of hurting his wife? ‘It isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen.’
‘Yeah.’ Chloe supposed Harry had gone through all this by himself, battled with the guilt and the truth.
‘But I still have to live with it every day and wonder what if .’ He rubbed his face again.
‘Ugh. Jason probably doesn’t like to see me moving on.
When she . . . died, he wanted to fight me.
He tried to start something right after her funeral. He’s blamed me ever since.’
‘He needs to move on,’ said Chloe firmly. ‘You didn’t cause Julie’s illness. Nobody would have wished it on her, especially you.’ And though it hurt to say it, she added, ‘I can tell. You loved her very much.’
Harry seemed to calm himself. ‘I did, but there comes a time when you have to look to the future.’
Chloe wondered if Harry felt uncomfortable here with her.
She had her own memories of Wellbridge to do with her ex-fiancé Liam, her sister Gwen, and her parents.
The chapel, certain streets, even shops.
How many of the restaurants and cafés around town reminded Harry of Julie?
The streets, the events? Chloe couldn’t bring herself to feel jealous of a woman who had passed away, but she felt like she was intruding.
It had been only two years, but all that time, Harry had been on his own.
She understood the guilt about being ready to start moving on.
‘Sometimes, when I’m feeling happy,’ she said, her voice quiet, ‘I want to stop myself. I don’t think I deserve to feel happiness when Mum and Dad died so recently.
Like I’m insulting their memory by smiling when I should be grieving them every moment of the day. ’
Harry turned his gaze to her.
‘But they wouldn’t want that.’ Chloe swallowed, her own grief creeping up to form as tears.
‘I know it’s different, but in some ways it’s the same.
You feel responsible. And Jason thinks you are, too.
But I think if I were Julie, I would want the man I loved to be able to find happiness.
And deciding when the time is right for that would be his choice, no one else’s. ’
Harry took Chloe’s cold hand and brought it to his lips. He held it there, clasped before his mouth, warming it with his large hands. She kept her hand there, feeling the soft warmth of his breath against her knuckles, and he hung on to it like a life raft.
‘We can go as slow as you want,’ she whispered.
The sandwiches arrived, though the mood between them was now sombre.
Chloe wished Julie’s brother, Jason, had been more forthright instead of giving her an ominous message.
Maybe Gwen was right. She read too many books.
She had read the situation all wrong. Guilt squirmed in her for thinking badly of Harry and letting the situation escalate, but at least now she knew the truth.
They ate in silence, Chloe trying to think of something to say to break the tension. If she mentioned doing something for Christmas in the library, would it just drag up memories of Christmases with Julie? But also, why should she skirt around the subject?
Skirting around subjects was . . . a speciality of Chloe’s, arguably.
‘That was nice,’ said Harry, finishing off his coffee. He lowered his voice. ‘But I think Hannah does it better.’
She giggled. ‘I owe you, remember?’ she said when Harry took out his wallet to pay. ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten.’
He met her eyes, and she saw the ghost of a smile. ‘Aw, I thought you had.’
They ended up agreeing to pay half each, and left the warmth of the café to step into the chilly early winter air.
‘It’s snowing,’ said Chloe in delight. White flakes fell all around them. With the mystery of Jason’s words settled and her stomach full of bacon, Chloe’s mood lifted. She looked up at Harry, who returned her smile and took her hand.