Yesterday's Sun (6 page)

Holly could only imagine that the knock on the head had affected her senses and perhaps her memory was playing tricks on her. She took a deep breath and gave herself a moment to take a more thorough look around her. It didn’t help.

Something was wrong with this picture: correction, so many things were wrong with this picture, but she didn’t seem able to process her thoughts properly. As she neared the house, her mind could no longer deny the one thing that her sanity had refused to acknowledge. There was a conservatory slap-bang in front of the house, running the full width of the living room up to the back door. The conservatory was in darkness, but soft light glowed from the living room beyond.

With faltering steps and a sense of lost reality, Holly crept toward the door that led through to the kitchen. Rather than walk straight back into what was supposed to be her home, she peeked through the window like a thief. To her relief, it was empty, but as she took in the detail, her growing confusion was ramped up to spine-chilling terror, skipping right past the niceties of growing anxiety. The kitchen was still her kitchen—same cupboards, same cooker, same fridge, even the same table—but it was most definitely not the kitchen she had just left. Holly started to wonder how bad the bump on her head must have been to explain away the vast assortment of baby equipment stacked on every available surface.

Holly could only make herself move by convincing herself that what she was experiencing was some form of hallucination. She just wanted to get into the house and take refuge in her bed, blocking out the alternative universe her mind seemed to have created for her own private terror. She stepped toward the back door and tried to open it, but the handle wouldn’t budge. Although the handle felt cold and solid, her hand didn’t seem to be applying pressure on it at all and Holly wondered if it was an aftereffect of the shock she had received from the moondial. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the handle and, with the kind of effort it would take to open castle gates, Holly finally opened the door and stepped deeper inside her nightmare.

The room smelled different, a mixture of home-cooking and warm milk as opposed to the smell of instant noodles and stale wine that she would have expected.

Holly didn’t feel strong enough or confident enough to go too far into the kitchen, so she rested against a nearby cupboard. She waited and listened, hoping at least one of her senses was still working rationally. She wanted to hear nothing but the familiar silence of an empty house, but it wasn’t long before her hearing joined in the game that was pushing her sanity to the limits. She heard distant voices coming from one of the other rooms but moving closer. Whoever was in the house had just entered the hall. Holly’s eyes shot between the back door, which was her only means of escape, and the door that led into the hall, which could open at any moment.

Holly stood her ground. This was her house and she had every right to be here. So why did she feel like a stranger in her own home? There were two voices she could make out—one male, one female. They were soft and muffled and Holly couldn’t quite hear what they were saying above the thumping of her own heart. She did hear the now-familiar squeak as the front door opened.

With a brief moment to relax from the threat of imminent confrontation, Holly tried to do a reality check. What was happening to her? Could this really be a hallucination? Had the bump on her head made her delusional? Had she been knocked out longer than she thought? Had she spent days unconscious in the garden while squatters had taken up roost in her house? As implausible as it sounded, Holly almost preferred to believe that option rather than consider the state of her mental health.

She walked across the kitchen and was about to take a chance and peek into the hallway when the door opened wide. Holly gasped and took stumbling steps backward as a figure loomed in the doorway.

“Tom!” Holly cried. “Thank God you’re here.”

She reached both arms toward him but then she froze. The man in front of her looked like her Tom, but there was so much about him that wasn’t familiar it startled her. His hair was cropped short, much shorter than at any other time Holly had known him, but it wasn’t this that startled her most. He didn’t just look disheveled, which would have been normal for him; he looked gaunt. But even this wasn’t what froze Holly’s heart to the core. It was his eyes. His beautiful green eyes looked toward Holly and then right through her. His eyes looked vacant, dead even.

Tom turned away from Holly without even registering her presence. He picked up a pair of ladies’ leather gloves that were lying on the kitchen table on top of a notebook. “Got them,” he called out before turning and leaving the kitchen.

As the door closed and Holly was left on her own once more, she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her. Finally she remembered to breathe. With every ounce of composure she had left, Holly staggered toward the door Tom had disappeared through and with more effort than she knew it deserved, she managed to open it by just a fraction. Tom was standing at the front door with his back to her. Diane was there, too, standing on the threshold with her hand on Tom’s arm, talking to him. Partially reflected in the hall mirror, there was a third figure and, although she couldn’t be sure, Holly guessed it was her father-in-law, Jack.

Holly felt a burning desire to rush into Tom’s arms and demand that he make everything right. Then she remembered the way he had looked right through her and fear kept her rooted to the spot.

“You know where we are if you need anything,” Diane was telling Tom.

“I know, Mum. We’ll be fine.”

“I know we’ve all agreed that now is the right time to let you fend for yourself, but if you need me …”

“I know,” insisted Tom. “I know where you are.”

“Will you leave the boy alone, Di,” Jack said. An arm appeared around Diane’s waist as he tried to pull his wife away.

“She’s such a fragile little baby. Now if you’re ever unsure about what to do, I’ve written everything down in the notepad on the table. And I’m always at the end of the phone. If you need anything, ring me.”

“I will, but you know everything’s organized. It’s not like Holly didn’t have everything planned right down to the last nappy for Libby’s arrival. You’d think she knew she was never coming home from hospital.” Tom’s voice cracked with emotion and there was a pause as he gulped back a sob. “I know I can’t replace her, Mum, but I promise you, I’ll look after our baby. She came at such a high price.”

“Poor Holly. It’s just so wrong. She would have made such a good mum. Why did she have to …” Diane couldn’t finish her sentence, she simply let the tears roll down her cheeks.

“You can say the word, Mum. It’s not like I could forget,” Tom told her. “She died. Holly died.”

Holly gripped the door handle. Whether it was fear or determination, her sense of touch seemed to be recovering slightly and the handle felt firm in her grasp, unlike her sanity. Holly could barely gasp in shock because the wind had been knocked out of her body and she felt utterly weak. She wanted to run but couldn’t draw her eyes away from the horror that was being played out in front of her like a car crash in slow motion.

“No more of this,” Jack was insisting. “We said we would go home today. We agreed it was for the best.”

“But it’s been less than a month. Tom’s world’s been turned upside-down,” argued Diane.

“Dad’s right,” Tom said, straightening his back in firm resolve. “If we don’t do this now, then it’s just going to get harder and harder.”

“And if you keep on blubbing, you’re not going to be able to see your way down the path to the car,” warned Jack.

“At least let me help you with your case,” insisted Tom, taking a step over the threshold.

“What about Libby?” Diane sobbed.

“She’s safe enough in the living room and I’ll put the snip on the door.”

No sooner had the figures retreated from view than a sound came from the living room. It was a sound so alien to the house that Holly released the door handle as if, like the moondial, it too had been charged with electricity.

She wanted to turn and run but something about the sound of a baby crying caught her around the chest. Never before had Holly felt a reaction like that to a baby’s cries. Instead of moving away, she stepped into the hallway and entered the living room.

The baby was in a bassinet in the corner of the room. Her eyes were open wide and alert. They were bright green, a mirror image of Tom’s. When the baby saw Holly, she didn’t just stop crying; her whole body relaxed and she stilled herself. She was the most beautiful thing Holly had ever seen. She had wisps of blond hair and a handful of tiny curls licked her forehead. Her cheeks were perfectly round and her pink lips the cutest Cupid’s bow. Holly couldn’t resist and she gently stroked the side of her angelic face. The baby responded by moving toward her hand, her little mouth searching for nourishment.

“So what’s a tiny wonder like you doing in a nightmare like this?” whispered Holly.

The baby wriggled and gurgled and Holly instinctively reached for her. She paused only briefly as the urge to hold the baby consumed her. She had never in her life had any desire to hold a baby and she couldn’t recall a time when she actually had held one. She slipped her hands beneath the baby’s body, her fingers sweeping over the soft, warm folds of the blanket she was wrapped in. Her fumbling fingers met no resistance and Holly could feel no weight against her hands as she tried to lift the baby out of the bassinet. Holly frowned in frustration as the need to hold the baby overwhelmed her. But no matter how hard she tried, the baby remained firmly in the bassinet, and sensing Holly’s frustration she began to cry, much louder than before.

“I’m coming,” called Tom’s voice and Holly heard him rush down the hallway and into the kitchen.

Holly stepped away from the bassinet and looked around the room with rising panic. The stack of sympathy cards lined up across the mantelpiece didn’t escape her notice but she was more intent on finding a hiding place. She scurried over to the large patio windows that led into the conservatory and slipped into the shadows just as Tom appeared with a baby bottle in his hand.

He picked the baby up and sat down on the nearest of the two sofas to feed her. He was practically facing Holly and although she knew she wasn’t completely hidden, there was still no sign that Tom sensed she was there.

“Alone at last,” Tom sighed as the baby guzzled her milk urgently.

The room fell silent other than the sound of the baby’s gulps and Holly’s ragged breathing. She thought her breathing must be so loud that Tom would surely hear her, but still he didn’t acknowledge her. She could feel herself withdrawing into the relative comfort of a shock-induced numbness. Her brain had all but stopped trying to make sense of what was happening to her. She chose instead to concentrate on the regular gulps of satisfaction she could hear coming from Libby, and it soothed her.

“I know you’re there, Holly,” Tom said.

Goosebumps coursed up Holly’s arms and down her spine. As if in a trance, Holly stepped out of the shadows and into the living room.

“I’m here, Tom,” she said.

Tom was looking toward the patio window, just to the left of Holly, but he had that distant look in his eyes again. Wherever he was looking, it was someplace far from the confines of the room. “I hope you can see me, sweetheart. I hope you can hear me, because I don’t think I could go on if I thought you’d completely left me.” Tom’s voice was a crackled whisper and he closed his eyes tightly, suppressing the tears that had sprung to his eyes.

Holly rushed forward and knelt in front of him, grabbing his arms and willing him to open his eyes and see her. “I’m here, Tom! Please, please look at me!” she sobbed.

Tom opened his eyes and Holly shuddered as once again his gaze passed right through her, cutting her like a knife. Holly recoiled from Tom for the very first time in their life together.

“It hurts, Holly; it hurts so much. Every time I wake up, I remember I’m never going to see you again and my stomach lurches. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it. You were fine. You were fit and you were healthy—pregnant, yes, but healthy. You were there one minute and then you just weren’t. Every bone in my body aches for you and it hurts so much.”

Tom paused, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. “Mum keeps saying I should let go, let myself cry, but I can’t. I’m so scared, Holly, because I swear if I did cry, I don’t think I’d be able to stop.” Tom kept gulping for air, drowning himself in unshed tears.

Libby started to wriggle in his arms so Tom pulled the half-finished bottle from her mouth. His face softened slightly as he looked at his daughter and he smiled at her before lifting her onto his shoulder and patting her back. The painted smile disappeared and a look of pain returned to his eyes. “I’m not ready for you to leave me, Hol. I’m not ready to accept that you’re never going to walk back into the room. All your things are exactly as you left them; everything is there, ready for you to come home. Come home, Holly, please just come home.”

A sob escaped and Tom bit his lip to hold himself together. “I don’t want to feel like this anymore; it hurts too much. If it wasn’t for Libby, I don’t think I could go on without you,” he said. Libby gave a huge burp in reply, and Tom forced a smile. He cradled her again in his arms and started feeding her once more.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Libby,” he whispered, and the love for his daughter warmed Holly’s heart and thawed the numbness that had engulfed her. “I love you so much and your mummy loves you and she’s watching over you.”

Holly couldn’t resist stroking the top of Libby’s head and as she leaned forward she could feel Tom’s warm breath on her face. Her whole body tingled and she knew that this was more real than any dream she had ever had.

“Promise me you’ll never leave me,” Tom whispered.

“I promise,” Holly answered, willing Tom to hear her, but he made no response.

Holly rested her head on Tom’s lap in submission and closed her eyes. “This isn’t real, Tom; this isn’t happening. It’s going to be all right.”