Wish Upon a Christmas Cake (18 page)

***

We dressed and went back into the lounge. Sam looked so serious that it didn’t seem right to stay half-naked in the bedroom. He made us coffees, then sat opposite me on the sofa. I blew on my drink, desperate to do something other than look at how serious his expression had become.

‘My life changed last year in more ways than one. Maria and I…we were happy enough at first but as with some relationships, especially after children arrive, things deteriorated.’

‘Oh, Sam, I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘We tried to keep going, to make it work for the children but it was clear to both of us that what we’d had, well it hadn’t been made to last. In the early days, it was a distraction. I’m ashamed to admit this, but being with Maria kept me from thinking about you and what might have been… But then she got pregnant and that brought a whole heap of memories back, Katie. Painful memories that woke me in the night and left me tossing and turning until dawn. I couldn’t let Maria down by not taking care of her, so I proposed and we married when she was six months’ pregnant with Jack. I thought I could make it work and for the best part of eight years I did. But if it’s not right then nothing will save it.’

‘But you went on to have Holly,’ I said, my heart thundering loudly in my ears.

‘Yes. I never wanted to have just one child and Maria wanted to have children close together so that they’d be close like her and her sister.’

‘That makes sense.’ I thought of my own musings on the topic all those years ago and a wave of sadness washed over me. My pregnancy hadn’t been planned, but once I’d accepted it and embraced it, I’d decided to try to have another child a few years later so that they could be close, just like Karl and me.

‘But after a rather disastrous summer holiday last year, Maria and I began to talk in earnest about our issues and she told me that it didn’t feel right between us. I couldn’t deny it either but I asked her to give it one last shot; for the children.’

‘Did she agree?’

He nodded. ‘And we managed to bury our heads in the sand until the November.’ He drained his coffee mug then set it on the table. ‘Then she told me that she would stay over Christmas for the children but she wanted to separate soon after.’

‘Oh, Sam, I’m sorry. Didn’t anyone else know?’

‘No. We were going to tell our families in the new year. After the festive season had passed, so that we didn’t ruin it for anyone. We wanted to manage it carefully for the children’s sakes.’

I sensed that there was more so I waited silently, watching his face for clues.

‘I never want anyone else to know this, Katie – because with Maria being gone, it would serve no purpose – but after she’d had a few drinks last Christmas Eve, she told me that she had fallen in love with a doctor at the hospital where she worked and that she would be moving in with him after we’d officially separated.’

My stomach churned as I knew how awful that could be; knowing that not only did your partner not love you any more, but that they had already found someone else. I reached out and covered Sam’s hand with mine.

‘I wasn’t jealous, Katie. Not really. My pride was hurt, as any man’s would be, but it was more the fact that she had fallen for someone else even though we were still together. She had been living in our home, kissing our children goodnight, then going off to work her shifts alongside a man she wanted – instead of me. Last year, on Boxing Day morning, we had a horrendous row about it because she said she wanted Jack and Holly to meet him sooner rather than later, and I said that they wouldn’t be ready, that she should give them time to adjust to the split before she took up with another man. But she wouldn’t listen. She was, I suppose, madly in love. She stormed off and got into her car and I was left at home with Jack and Holly. An hour later, when the doorbell rang, I just knew that something was wrong. When I answered it to find two police officers there…well…’ He took his glasses off and twirled them between his fingers. I was still holding his other hand and I squeezed it tightly.

‘I’m sorry, Sam.’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t be. It’s certainly not your fault.’

‘But in a way it is.’

‘How could it be?’ Sam asked me, his eyes dark and fathomless as pools.

‘Well, if we hadn’t split up then you wouldn’t have gone off and become involved with Maria then—’

‘No, Katie! You can’t think like that. You can’t waste your life on
what ifs
. It is what it is. I married the wrong woman but I can’t regret that because I have two amazing children. I wouldn’t be without Jack and Holly now. Everything I do is directly linked to them so I have to ensure that I make the right decisions. I’ve never told anyone else about Maria but I wanted you to know.’

‘So your parents and her parents just think that it was all fine between you two?’

‘I think my mother had an inkling that it wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but I didn’t confide in her exactly how bad things had become. It was my life that I’d made, and it seemed wrong to go complaining about it. Especially as I was so happy being a dad.’

His last statement cut through me like a knife. He could have been a father before, with me, if I hadn’t lost our child. It was all so unfair. Life had seemed mapped out for us and so right, until the day I’d started bleeding that was.

‘I won’t tell anyone, Sam.’

‘I know, Katie. That’s why I told you. It’s good to actually get it off my chest. I do miss Maria in some ways, I was used to her being around and I miss seeing the children with her because they adored her; she was a good mother. But we wouldn’t have been together now even if she’d survived. We weren’t in love in the way that you and I were.’

What a mess. I’d thought that he was a grieving widower and in many ways he was, but for slightly different reasons than I’d suspected. Sam had cared about his wife but they’d already decided to divorce when she lost her life. It was an immense secret to carry around for a year but Sam had done it to spare their families the painful truth. Better to think fondly of Maria as a loving wife and mother than as a mistress about to leave her husband. Better to let his children remember her as a loving mum who loved their father.

It was certainly complicated and I wondered how Sam would keep the secret over the years. Would it eat away at him so that one day he’d feel compelled to tell the children or would he live his life unfazed, happy in the knowledge that he had protected Jack and Holly from the truth? He was a strong man to make the decision to protect his children’s memory of Maria and I was filled with renewed admiration for him.

Some decisions are so hard to make and few are straightforward. Could I, if there was a chance that Sam and I became involved again, actually live with him, knowing that he carried this secret with him every day? Was it that big a deal, really?

‘Katie? What are you thinking?’

I blinked hard then smiled. ‘How brave you are. How kind you are. How sweet you are.’

‘Am I damaged goods? I often think that I am now. I come with emotional baggage; two children and two dogs.’

‘Oh, Sam! We’ve all had to make difficult decisions and been through tough times. You more than most. It doesn’t mean you’re damaged, just…’ I searched for an appropriate word but I couldn’t seem to think of one.

‘When we lost our baby, my heart broke seeing how much you went through. Katie, I know you worried that we’d never have children, that it wouldn’t be possible.’

‘Did you worry that we wouldn’t?’

He stiffened and I knew that I’d hit a nerve. Of course he had worried about it. Although only four years older than me, he’d always spoken about the family we would have and how happy we would all be, living in a four bed in Sevenoaks. It had seemed like a perfect future for a while but, after I’d miscarried, I just couldn’t reconcile my life as it would be with the dreams we’d both shared. It had been easier to walk away and to tell myself that it was best for Sam too.

‘I did worry, Katie. I always wanted to have a family with you.’

‘You said you didn’t care about whether we could have another baby or not at the time.’

‘I know. I didn’t want to hurt you, to make your pain worse. What good would it have done?’

I shook my head. I’d known anyway, but if he’d given voice to my fears it would have been like rubbing salt into an open wound. After the miscarriage, I’d worried that I’d never carry a child full term, that I’d be cursed and lose my babies to a genetic defect before they were ever born. Instead of facing that fear, I’d carved out a different life for myself, one that centred around my work and excluded all thoughts of family and futures other than the next day’s flour delivery or oven cleaning. It had sustained me.

‘Thank you for that, Sam.’

‘I loved you, Katie. You have no idea how much.’ He pulled me into his arms and held me against his chest. I thought about resisting, about pulling away and leaving. But I just couldn’t do it. He’d shared so much; opened up to me about Maria and about our past. If I walked away now, he might regret confiding in me. But I was also afraid. I didn’t know any more what I did want, other than to make Crumbtious bigger and better than ever. That was the only area of my life that was clear and uncomplicated and I couldn’t risk that for anything. Falling in love would be a distraction and I didn’t know if I wanted to entertain the thought of being distracted.

Yet being close to Sam, enveloped in his warmth, was so good. He smelt fresh as a summer day after a rainstorm. He was warm and hard and strong. For the first time in a long time, I felt really safe.

And that thought terrified me more than anything.

***

I came to as Sam shook me gently.

‘Oh, I must have dozed off.’

‘You did. You’ve been out for an hour,’ Sam said, hugging me tightly.

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise, Katie. It’s been wonderful holding you and listening to your breathing. It’s comforting being with another human being again. Especially because that human is you.’

I flushed with pleasure.

‘Katie, can I ask you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you tell me what happened with your granny?’

I winced. I hadn’t been expecting that. Sam and my granny had gotten on so well when we were together and she’d been saddened by our split. It must have been hard for him to hear about her death; the death of an old friend who’d also been kind of a surrogate grandmother. I took a fortifying breath.

‘It was back in October. Karl rang my mobile and told me to get dressed, then he came to pick me up. He didn’t want me driving. He broke the news on the way to the hospital. Granny had been taken ill. It was awful, Sam.’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘When we got there, we had to find our way through the warren of hospital corridors. Dad had gone in the ambulance with Granny, Mum was making her own way there and Aunty Gina was driving there with Tanberk and Rebecca. Everything was surreal in that late-night movie way. The strip lights were too bright, the windows were like mirrors and the darkness outside was just impenetrable. It was like a nightmare, Sam… I can still see us hurrying along like spectres through the wards. It was like I was outside looking in at us all with our pasty faces and wild eyes.

‘We rushed to casualty first but were redirected to the waiting room then to the Cardiac Intensive Care unit. The duty nurse directed us to a small room just off the nurses’ station where Dad was waiting and told us that Granny was in assessment. It was frightening when we went in; Dad was just sat there with his head in his hands. When Mum said his name, he looked up and his eyes were red, his cheeks gaunt and his white hair ruffled. His shirt was creased and I realised that he was wearing his slippers. It was so unlike Dad to be less than meticulously attired. It was strange, Sam. I stared at my parents, taking in their hair, their faces and their bodies and reality dawned. They were ageing too. They’d always been so strong and fit but, seeing them there, in that place where the battle for life was fought on a daily basis made me suddenly aware of their mortality. I mean, Granny was first in line, right? I read somewhere once, that your grandparents held the frontline against death. When they were gone, it was up to your parents. When they were gone…I shuddered. The thought of losing Granny, or losing Mum or Dad, was just too awful to accept. Granddad had died when I was so young, too young to understand but now, at thirty-two, I knew too much.’

‘Sounds like you went into shock, Katie.’ I moved slightly so that I could look into his eyes.

‘Sitting there, I felt suddenly, intensely and overwhelmingly alone. Dad had Mum. Karl had Angelo. Aunty Gina had Tanberk. Rebecca was still young and she, at least, had social networking. But me? Coming from me this sounds sad but I wondered in that instant, who would support me and keep me afloat during tough times? I went and sat by Dad and he smiled at me but it didn’t reach his eyes. It was an attempt at bravery and I longed to be comforted by him. But try as I might, I couldn’t feel that old sense of unfaltering faith in his ability to make everything all right again. Dad is strong, he has connections, he could always make things better. But as I glanced at his lined face and his messy hair, I knew that it wasn’t true. Like all of us, he was mortal. Not even Dad could make this one all better. And realising that was tough, you know?’

Sam just nodded. ‘It’s hard when you see your parents as people, mortals like the rest of us. It takes time to come to terms with it all.’

‘I know. I think I’m still working at it.’

‘What happened next?’ he prompted me. I took a deep breath before continuing. I hadn’t spoken about that night to anyone other than Ann but now that I’d started, I found that I didn’t want to stop. It needed to come out; I needed to unburden myself and I’d always found it so easy to talk to Sam. He’d understood me so well when we were younger.

‘I went to the loo but when I got back to the waiting room, my legs nearly gave way. There was a doctor in the doorway and I could hear moaning coming from within. It was a raw animal sound and it filled me with dread. The doctor just stared at me with that blank professional look they have, then Dad said, ‘She’s gone, Katie.’ The pain in my chest in that moment was dreadful.’ I wiped at my eyes as the memories came rushing back. ‘The doctor said that we could go to see her. So we did.’ Sam pulled me against him again and as he stroked my hair, I let the tears fall.