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He felt honoured to have loved Annabelle, too, even though he was unsure whether she’d felt the same way about him. How she felt about him didn’t matter – the children came first, and that’s how it should be. He trusted her to do what was best for them, what was best for the family, and therefore his feelings were irrelevant.
As Ron plodded along the path, his heart and his feet heavy, the dog getting heavier with every step he took, it occurred to him that it was quite fitting that he was being forced to go back and face everyone. Running away in the middle of the night had been the coward’s way, and he didn’t like himself for having sneaked out without saying goodbye.
He seemed to have a track record of running away. He’d run away from Louise and his marriage, and—
It suddenly occurred to him that was exactly what he had been doing ever since. For all those years on the streets, he’d been running away.
Ron saw a bench and sank down into it, the revelation stealing his breath.
How could he not have seen this before?How did he not realise that all this time he’d been trying to run away – from his mum’s death, from Dolly’s, and from his tragedy of a marriage. But most of all, and most significantly, Ron had been running away fromhimself.
Or at least, he beentryingto – but no one could ever run away from themselves, could they? No matter how far they went, they still took themselves with them, and no matter how many layers they hid under, they still carried everything deep inside.
He was doing it again, but this time he was running away notbecauseof love, butfromlove. Not only was he running away because of how he felt about Annabelle, he was also running away because of how he felt about Beverley. He knew she thought the world of him, andhethought the world ofher, so why the hell had he left?
Did he really want to go back to living on the streets? Did he miss sleeping rough? Wondering where the next meal was coming from? Wondering if he’d still be alive in the morning?
No, he bloody well didn’t.
Ron snorted to himself, having finally worked out that he’d felt the need to leave because being in one place made it less easy to run away from himself. Being in one place, safe, warm, and fed, meant that he’d had more time to beat himself up over past losses and past mistakes. Without the worry of wondering where he was going to sleep or when he was next going to eat, he’d filled his mind with something else – the very things he had been trying to avoid.
But when he looked at it logically, what was so bad about what he’d done? Marriages failed all the time. And while he’d not treated Louise brilliantly, neither had he treated her so badly. He had cared for her deeply – just not enough, and not in the way she needed to be cared for. He’d loved her, but he hadn’t loved her unconditionally. He’d loved her, but he’d not beenin lovewith her. Was that something he could have controlled?
He shrugged and let out a small sigh. Pepe whined in response and licked his hand.
‘It’s all right, boy, it’s just me being silly,’ he muttered to the dog, and Pepe whined again and wagged his tail uncertainly.
Ron returned to his introspection, the insights shocking him as he realised that for all this time he had been beating himself up over something he’d had absolutely no control over – how he’d felt about Louise.
He was astute enough to understand that if that had been the sole issue, it wouldn’t have been a problem. He and Louise would most likely have gone ahead with the divorce, and that would have been that. Or he might even have settled down and decided that this was it, that he’d walked into the marriage willingly and it was up to him to make the best of it. They might even have made more of an attempt to have children.
But he hadn’t been able to get the death of his mother or the loss of his dog out of his mind.
He’d tried, God knows how he’d tried, but nothing had worked. His grief had been like a galloping black horse bearing down on him, its hooves thundering in his heart and in his head, giving him no peace and no respite, and so he’d tried to outrun it, and he’d been running ever since.
Ron chuckled wryly. How ridiculous to expect to be able to run away from grief. He should have allowed it to flow through him and over him, and eventually the worst of it would have subsided. But instead, he’d been like King Canute, trying to hold it back, and tearing himself apart in the process.
Was he still broken?
He didn’t think so, although his decision to leave Beverley in the middle of the night with just a note and run away from his feelings for Annabelle, wasn’t exactly the most mature decision he’d ever made.
Getting wearily to his feet, he picked Pepe up again and resumed his steady plod. And as he walked, he thought to himself that the gods moved in mysterious ways. If Kate hadn’t run away last Christmas, he never would have met Brett, he never would have met Beverley and Pepe, and he never would have gone to live in Brighton. Therefore, he never would have come on this holiday and met Annabelle.
It was also ironic to think that a very naughty little dog might now be his saviour.
Bending his head, he kissed one of Pepe’s floppy ears, the animal’s soft black fur tickling his face.
‘I think I owe you an extra special treat,’ he said to the dog, because without the little poodle coming to find him, Ron would still be lost. This little dog had found him in more ways than one, which was incredible since Ron hadn’t even realised that he was lost.
