their sister. I’m sure of it.
I love you because loving you is the only other thing I’m sure of right now.
Dom xx
THEN – February 1999
‘You need to look after your wife, Dominic.’
Erin listened behind the door to her kitchen. Her mother-in-law speaking up for her still felt a little odd and her hand rested on her chest.
‘We need to look after each other,’ was Dom’s reply.
Erin placed her forehead on the pine architrave. He was, of course, right but where and how to begin? She moved to push the door in front of her but paused at Sophie’s next words.
‘She loves you. You love her. You’re the one who tells me that it doesn’t have to be any more complicated. Look, I’m sorry …’ Erin imagined her looking at her watch. ‘But I’ve got to meet your dad at the club for lunch. I’m assuming you don’t want to join us?’
Dom laughed. ‘Er, no, ta, we’re going for a walk down by the river.’
She loves you. You love her. It doesn’t have to be any more complicated.
Erin’s eyes rested on a black and white image hanging on the wall of the hallway to her left – a picture Hannah had taken of her and Dom on their wedding day – one of those snapped when they weren’t looking. Both of them in profile, she was laughing at something Dom had just said. She could never remember what it was, but the slight tilt of her head backwards said so much more than that she’d just listened to something funny. It said she’d heard something funny from someone she loved. And his eyes, his eyes gazed at her as if he couldn’t believe he’d made this woman whom he loved, laugh like that. Wonder, awe in each other … She closed her own eyes for one brief moment.
Opening them meant she would either push the kitchen door open or opt to look further left. Left a little, where just beyond the wedding frame hung a small collage of photos of the children. A few pictures Dom had taken of their beautiful twins, Rachel and Jude, now almost eight months old, already making each other laugh. In the centre, just one of Maisie on her first birthday, covered in chocolate cake, only a month before they lost her. Erin had no need to actually look. The grinning images of her three children were burned on her brain. She swallowed hard and entered the kitchen. Crossing the porcelain tiles she’d mopped an hour earlier, she hugged her mother-in-law tight.
‘Oh,’ Sophie said, obviously puzzled at the embrace. ‘What was that for?’
Erin shrugged. ‘Just thank you.’ Of all the people who had helped when Maisie died, Sophie was the biggest surprise. Overnight her mother-in-law had seemed to realise that losing a child to sudden infant death syndrome while pregnant with twins was too much for any soul.
Erin pulled her padded coat from the back of the kitchen chair. ‘I’m ready if you are?’ she said to Dom checking the buckles on the twins’ pushchair. Despite the sunshine and clear blue sky outside, both babies were cocooned against the cold. She touched Jude’s face. He, unlike his sister, was fighting sleep.
‘He’ll nod off once we start moving.’ Dom put his jacket on, wrapped a scarf twice round his neck before ushering his mother towards their front door.
‘Bye, Erin!’ Sophie called back. ‘Give them a kiss from me when they’re up!’
‘See you!’ Erin replied as she angled them through the awkward kitchen doorway, pushing the pushchair along the narrow hallway.
Dom stepped outside and took over. ‘Daddy will drive,’ he said as she closed the door behind them.
Erin pulled the collar of her coat high, pressed her gloves tight between each of her fingers. It was her favourite sort of day; a crisp, cloudless sky, cold, but cold you could wrap up against. She leaned into the pram one more time and tugged the children’s blankets right up to their mouths, before sinking her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets.
Together she and Dom walked the length of Hawkins Avenue, silent, not needing to talk. They turned into Percival Way, a long, wide, tree-lined road, that bypassed the mall and the station, towards the river. They walked, crunching through iced leaves from the aging birch trees, crisp and brittle on the ground. Erin could see Jude was finally asleep.
‘You were listening at the door, weren’t you?’ Dom, his breath misting, was first to speak.
Erin said nothing.
She loves you. You love her.
‘We need to look after each other, apparently,’ he continued.
‘Actually,’ Erin smiled. ‘I think what your mother said is that you need to look after me. I think she realises you’re already well looked after.’
‘Hmmm …’
‘Do you love me?’ she blurted.
‘Completely. Mightily.’ His ungloved knuckles whitened as he gripped the bars of the pram and she reached across for his hand as he stopped walking.
‘And I love you.’
‘So, we move on, don’t dwell on things,’ he said, his head making tiny side to side movements. ‘We have each other. We have two more children.’
But no Maisie … She nodded.
‘While you were in the loo, Mum was suggesting we focus on what it was like before.’
It had been such a short time, just nine months, nothing at all – too soon to imagine laughter, to try and recreate the ‘before’.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Is she right? Any idea on how we can inject some fun into our lives?’
Erin began to walk again. He was talking about sex. She did want to talk; she wanted to talk like they used to so very much, but not about sex. ‘You mean sex?’ Despite herself, she heard herself say it aloud.
‘Well, that and any other fun stuff.’
‘I had twins, that’s two babies one after the other. My nether regions are like the Grand Canyon. If you go anywhere near them all you’ll get is a loud echo.’
Dom smiled. ‘I doubt that.’
‘I know we have to, but I just can’t even think about it … can we talk about something else?’
Dom following one pace behind, raised his eyebrows. She saw that he didn’t even try to hide his disappointment. ‘You choose,’ he shrugged.
‘I think right now we need sleep more than sex,’ she said. Neither of them had slept well since Maisie died, and even worse since the twins were born.
‘Maybe.’ Dom took a small water bottle from the changing bag and drank from it.
