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‘You got it right,’ she says. ‘He’s yours. Tommy’s yours.’
CHAPTER 11
Naomi’s chin is tilted, her head cocked slightly. She is blinking fast, her eyes glossy with tears. She has told him he was right. It is possibly the first time this has ever happened, yet there is no pleasure in it, none whatsoever.
‘I wasn’t going to tell you. But yeah, you’re a dad.’
He closes his eyes. His head spins. He opens his eyes, afraid he might pass out.
‘I should’ve told you,’ she says quietly. ‘I know that was wrong. I do know that. But you left me.Youleftme, Sam, and things were just… they’ve been totally shit.’ She laughs, though without mirth. ‘Funny, you said I was mean, you know, at the end, but turns out I was hormonal.’ Another laugh, brief and bitter. She looks miserable. Miserable and a bit lost.
‘Did you know?’ he asks softly. ‘When I left, did you know?’
She shrugs, wiping her eyes again with the napkin. ‘I’d missed a period. But things between us were pretty strained, so I thought it was just that. You closed down, you know? I was so stressed. I’d lost weight. Your silence was… It felt cruel. I tried to talk to you, but there was just this wall. I was so lonely. I never thought you could share your life with someone and be that lonely. So yeah, I couldn’t eat. And sometimes my cycle goes a bit haywire if my weight drops too much.’
He nods, remembering her constant dieting, all the things she wasn’t allowed, or didn’t allow herself, how irritable hunger made her, how no matter how many times he told her she was beautiful, she didn’t believe him. She wanted to look like the women in the magazines, she said. She seemed to think he would prefer that, or that he even took any notice.
‘So youdidn’tknow about the baby?’
She shakes her head as if to free a bug from her hair. ‘Not in any concrete way. Even if I had, I wouldn’t have wanted you to stay out ofduty. Or pity. Maybe I’d’ve told you if you’d bothered to get in touch.’ The last word she almost spits, distaste remaining in the set of her mouth for a few seconds after she’s stopped speaking.
A silence falls between them. It is not awkward. It is not painful. It is shock, he thinks, for both of them. He has no idea what to say next, has not thought this far ahead.Have you thought about what you want?Joyce asked him. Yes, he told her.I want to be his dad.
And now he is. He is Tommy’s father. How strange it is, to get what you want.
‘Look,’ he says, straightening in his seat. ‘I’m sorry I upset you, but it wasn’t fair of you to keep him from me. I have a right to see him.’
He is expecting her to shout, to release a torrent of criticism, for her hands to curl into fists and hammer on his chest. But instead she begins gathering her things, as if in desperation.
‘Naomi? Nomes?’
She winds her scarf round her neck, her face blazing. Hooks her bag over her head and stands up.
‘You can’t go,’ he says. ‘We need to decide what to do.’
‘We?’ She sniffs, wipes the back of her hand across her nose. When she speaks, her voice is low and shaking. ‘There’s nowe, Sam!Weended when you walked out on me. You left and I never heard from you again, and now you want to be in my life all of a sudden? Can you even imagine what it’s been like for me? Can you imagine going through something like that on your own? Every morning throwing up with no one to hold your head, no one to bring you a glass of water and ask if you were OK, if you needed a cup of tea. Every check, every scan. The birth. Giving birth on your own, all on your own, Sam. Every sleepless night, every heated bottle, every bout of colic. Alone.
‘If you’d even called once. If you’d even bothered. But you didn’t. You dumped me like an old pair of shoes. So you’ll excuse me if I didn’t tell you. Why should I have? You wanted nothing to do with me. And now you want to play happy families? You want me to hand him over every weekend so I can stare at the wall and cry myself to sleep? No way. No way in hell.’
‘You could go out.’
‘Oh my God,’ she hisses. ‘I don’t care about going out! You don’t get to abandon me then come back now there’s something you want – don’t you get it? He’smine. Tommy ismineand there’s no way I’m going to let you take him away from me because you’ve decided you want a family. Go back to your gran, Sam. She always did need you more than me.’ Hands closing into fists, she closes her eyes, opens them again. ‘Look, I’m gonna go before I say something I regret. I hate what you turn me into with your… your big trampling feet. Just… just don’t contact me again, OK? Leave me alone.’
With a sob, she leaves, one hand cupping her forehead as if trying to stop the contents from spilling out. He stares after her, hot with shame and dismay. She disappears around the corner at a furious clip.
At the other tables, people turn to look at him, the source of a woman’s distress, before turning away. His cheeks burn. The fire spits. He pushes his face into his hands again. What has he done? What the hell has he done? He was so convinced that Naomi’s motives were mean and spiteful, he has not stopped to consider this: that she is horribly, terribly hurt. He has not imagined, not once, that he might have completely broken her heart.
CHAPTER 12
I could see it from both sides, of course, when he told me, much as I would’ve liked to see her as wrong. Being a woman in these situations is always worse. No amount of feminism can alter the fact that it’s us who have to carry the baby, at least until it’s out. And of course we’re the ones with the milk on tap, so to speak, and then the hormones kick in and you’re off your face on them, loved up to the eyeballs in ways you never knew were possible, tripping on sleep deprivation like a hippy at Woodstock. So yes, tempting as it was to judge Naomi, it was lockdown and she was abandoned, hurt, alone, with a baby to look after. And there was Sam in his big house, having his laundry done and his dinner cooked, going out for his hikes, painting his watercolours, spending cosy evenings by the fire without a worry in the world. But just as I could sympathise with Naomi, I could equally picture Sam walking in a daze back to his van, climbing into the cab, sitting with his head in his hands, frozen with shock and shame and regret.
There he sits, as yet unable even to start the engine. Everything has been turned upside down. What Naomi has done is not right, he knows this. No amount of hurt on her part can excuse it, but still… but still. He gets it, he does, and his heart swells with feeling for her. He should have called. Texted at least. He thought it was kinder to make a clean break, but he can see now that it was not. Not after they had lived together, loved one another. The money for the flat was dealt with entirely through Paul Thompson, his gran’s solicitor. That was cruel. Even without the added complication of a pregnancy, it was heartless.
And something else, something else that has come from seeing her again, something he always knew would blindside him.
Because a misguided attempt at kindness was not the only reason he didn’t call her. This was: this beating of his heart, this tingle on his skin, thisconfusion. He didn’t contact her because he had to get her out of his head. But seeing her on the beach and today, even before he knew what he knows now, was exactly as he feared. He never did get her out of his head. It was stupid to think he could have.
With a sigh, he starts the engine and pulls out of the car park. Oh God. Just now in the courtyard, Naomi was shaking, actually shaking, with the effort of containing her hurt. Hurt and rage caused by him. That it came so instantly, he thinks, is because it was already there.
