They were both a bit weepy now.
She could see the funeral party breaking up.
‘You have to go, Adam,’ she said. ‘But if you ever need me, you know where I am.’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.
‘When you’re ready,’ said Emily. Who knew how easy that would be?
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I know this is a big ask, but please – can you wait for me?’
With that he was gone, and Emily got in her car and drove home, wondering if she’d ever see him again, but hoping more than she’d ever hoped before that she would.
Livvy
I spend a long time in a foggy blur, not entirely sure where the days, nights and months go to, but unable to reach out to anyone I love, to at least see if they’re doing OK. I get the odd vague impulse – round the time of my funeral, I can feel Joe’s distress, and occasionally I sense that Adam is trying to talk to me from somewhere, but it’s like a broken radio wave, it comes to me from such a distance, I am not even sure it is him. In the midst of the fog I feel a terrible pain and sense of loss. There’s something I should be doing, but I don’t know what it is.
And then …
On a winter’s night when a storm is raging in my car park, suddenly I can hear Joe in my head. I can feel his confusion clamouring in my brain.
‘So is Emily my new mum, Dad?’ he asks.
Who the hell is Emily? And why is Adam looking for a new mum for Joe?
‘Over my dead body,’ I snarl, and suddenly it’s as if a whirlwind has torn me from the car park.
What the—? I’m standing in my front room, with no clue how I got there. I am stunned but delighted. Finally I’m out of that damned car park. Then I look around me and see Adam, Joe, and a pretty dark-haired woman I don’t know, but vaguely recognize, decorating the Christmas tree.
A strange woman in my house. With Adam. And Joe. What on earth is going on?
Livid doesn’t cover it. I hurl myself at the dark-haired woman in MY front room in a fury.
‘Who the hell are you?’ I yell. ‘What are you doing here? In my house, in my life?’
I want her to be terrified. I want her to react. But all that happens is the woman shivers, and says, ‘That’s odd. I just felt someone walking over my grave.’
Crap, I can’t even haunt people properly. All I want is for Adam and Joe to see me, to know I’m there, to want me back, the way I want them back.
‘Oh quit feeling sorry for yourself.’ Malachi hasn’t gone away. Oh good. ‘If you’d not turned your back on me a year ago all this would be sorted by now. They do need you and you need them, but possibly not in the way you think.’
‘What do you mean?’ Why does Malachi have to talk in riddles?
‘You have things to sort out, things to put right.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I’d blush with fury if I could.
‘You really don’t know?’ says Malachi. ‘Here, let me show you …’
With a jolt, I’m awake. With a living breathing human body. I’d forgotten how good it is, to feel and see and taste and smell. Wait. I remember this. I look around me. I’m sitting in a hospital bed, watching my newborn baby asleep in his cot. A sudden rush of love – hormones? – flows through me. Here is my baby at last, after all the false starts. My miracle baby.
But where is Adam? We’ve waited so long for this baby, been through so much, and he’s not here.
Then I remember. I’ve gone into early labour and Adam’s abroad. He thought we had time. We both did, but I’ve ended up giving birth alone, among strangers, in this unforgiving place. The midwives have been kind, but overworked, and Mum is away visiting friends, and can’t get here till tomorrow. I have never felt so lonely. And now I’m lying on a hospital bed, and my baby is waking up and I can’t reach him. Because of my epidural I can’t get out of bed. I’m tired and hungry and sad and overwhelmed. This is not how it was meant to be. How can I be sad on the happiest day of my life?
When the baby starts to cry, I don’t know what to do. I ring the buzzer but no one comes. I’m here on my own with a crying baby, and I feel like crying too. And I know it’s unfair of me, but I’m very angry with Adam. But then, miraculously, Adam is here. He’s dropped everything and flown home as soon as he could, just to be by my side. He’s so happy about the baby, and so pleased to see me, I forget my anger, and bury it deep. Nothing matters now but us and our new son.
And then I’m back in the future, where I’m dead, and talking to a mangy black cat. I can still feel the anger burning in the back of my throat. I’ve been angry with Adam so long, I’d forgotten when and where it began. Was it really then? The day that Joe was born?
I stare disconsolately at Adam and Joe and their new friend.
‘So what do I do now?’ I say.
‘First,’ says Malachi, ‘you need to get their attention.’
Two Weeks before Christmas
Adam
A year ago? How can it be a year since my world imploded so spectacularly? As if it wasn’t fucked up enough.
Before Livvy died, everything was going to be so different. I wasn’t proud of myself for doing it, but I had met and fallen in love with Emily. I’d been planning to tell her, but then Livvy found out anyway: You bastard. How could you? The very last words my wife said to me. In the circumstances, they were no more than I deserved, though Emily tells me I’m too hard on myself. But if … if I’d supported her more in the beginning, if I’d understood the toll of looking after Joe had exacted on her … My world is full of ifs.
I can remember the day I first met Livvy as clearly as if it was yesterday. It was our first term at uni in Manchester, and there was this bright, vivid, red-headed girl standing in the student bar, downing shots in a competition and drinking all the boys under the table. I was too shy to talk to her that first night, but gradually I found myself more and more drawn to her, and to my surprise my interest was reciprocated. It was Livvy who took the initiative from the first, kissing me suddenly and fiercely one night when we’d sat out all evening staring at the stars together. She was so unlike anyone I’d met: a free spirit, spontaneous in a way I wasn’t. She breathed life
