Justin took a second, a long second, to hang his coat up, and then finally turned to look at her. ‘Under the circumstances’ – he paused, holding her gaze – ‘yes, as well as I can be, I suppose.’
Alicia scanned his eyes. Usually so bright and intelligent, twinkling amusedly whenever he smiled and always full of compassion, there was nothing there now other than deep-rooted pain.
‘Dad?’ Sophie called apprehensively to him from the landing, breaking the silence now hanging between them. ‘Are you okay? You’ve been gone ages.’
Justin snapped his gaze away from Alicia to look up at her. ‘Yes,’ he said, quickly. ‘Sorry, Pumpkin. There was a patient I needed to check on. I should have rung. I’m okay, honestly.’
Wiping a hand quickly across her cheek, looking small and vulnerable, and about as convinced as Alicia felt, Sophie looked him anxiously over, and then padded quickly down the stairs to throw herself into his arms.
Justin held her, hugging her back hard. ‘We’ll get through this, baby, I promise,’ he said hoarsely, dropping a soft kiss to her hair and then looking back to Alicia.
Alicia saw a question in his eyes. Fear, too. The same fear that was eating away at her. Will we get through this? Alicia had no way to answer.
Justin turned his attention back to Sophie. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked her, easing back to scan her face.
Looking pale and drawn, Sophie hesitated. She hadn’t, but clearly she didn’t want to tell Justin that. She wouldn’t lie to him either, so she simply shrugged instead.
‘How about some soup?’ Justin suggested, talking to her encouragingly, as he might have done when she was a small girl tucked up in bed with some childhood illness.
Sophie nodded then. ‘I’ll have some if you will,’ she said, turning to the kitchen.
‘Deal,’ Justin said. ‘Alicia?’
Alicia felt all her emotions bubbling to the surface as he looked at her, with such uncertainty in his eyes, it tore another piece from her heart. She should eat. She should at least try – for his sake, for Sophie’s – but what she really wanted to do was curl up under her duvet until the unbearable tightness in her chest went away. The duvet on the bed where she slept with the man she’d loved with her very soul since she’d first met him. The bed in which they’d talked, about important and inconsequential things, laughed and made sweet love, he sensitive to her every need, touching her to her very core, creating the child God had called back to heaven too soon. Alicia held on to that thought: that that’s where Lucas was, safe with her mum – his great-nanna – who would be making endless cure-all cups of tea. It was what sustained her when she woke in the darkest hours, feeling so lonely and empty, desperate to turn to the man she knew would offer the comfort she so badly needed. Yet, how could she? She had to tell him. Everything. What alternative was there?
‘Soup?’ he asked her.
Alicia swallowed. ‘I’ll join you in a minute.’ She smiled, though her voice caught painfully in her throat. ‘I’m just going to grab the blouse Sophie needs ironed for tomorrow.’
Halfway up the stairs, Alicia saw him glance down, massaging his temples hard. Staying where she was, she watched as he turned his gaze upwards, as if contemplating… How would he ever survive the day he buried his six-month-old son?
Ten
ALICIA
Alicia didn’t have to shout upstairs to hurry Sophie on the next morning. Joining Justin in the hall, she looked towards her daughter as she descended the stairs. Her face was pale, her eyes awash with unshed tears. She looked frightened, lost and so very lonely.
Wanting to cry for her, wishing she could take her pain away, Alicia moved towards her as she reached the hall. Offering her a small smile, she held her gaze for a moment, trying to reassure her. She shouldn’t have to go through this. No one should. It was too cruel. Crueller still for a fifteen-year-old girl who was struggling to be an adult because she felt her parents needed her to be.
Sophie was going to do the eulogy. It would be one of the most heartbreaking things she would ever do in her life, but Alicia hadn’t tried to dissuade her. Justin had agreed it was something she needed to do, for her baby brother. He’d said he would step in if she couldn’t get through it. Alicia wondered, though, how he would get through it.
He looked dreadful, more exhausted than she’d ever seen him. Even at his lowest ebb, she’d never seen him look so utterly bereft. Dark shadows under his eyes – in his eyes – he looked like a man who might never sleep again.
She didn’t ask him if he was all right, reaching for his hand to squeeze it reassuringly instead. Justin squeezed hers back, briefly, and then pulled in a long breath and went to the front door to check whether the cars had arrived. Alicia didn’t want them to arrive. Didn’t want the moment to come when she would have to say a final goodbye to her child.
Gulping hard, she glanced down and then looked back to Sophie, whose eyes were now full of trepidation. Alicia reached for her hand. ‘Okay?’ she asked her, brushing a stray curl from her face. Cascading over her shoulders, Sophie’s long, sable hair was darker than Justin’s. Her eyes were a deep, rich chestnut brown, where Justin’s were blue. Yet, in so many other ways, she was so like him. Her mannerisms, her deeply caring nature – these were the things they shared. Justin adored his feisty, funny daughter. He would kill to protect her, Alicia knew that to be true. She hoped Sophie knew that she would, too. That she knew in her heart that her mother loved her with all of herself, no matter what else happened.
Sophie nodded, and gave her a small, tremulous smile.
‘You’re a beautiful, special person and I love you very much. Never forget that, Sophie,’ Alicia whispered, squeezing her into a firm hug.
Sophie hugged her hard back, and Alicia felt her heart hitch in her chest. It was enough, that hug, to sustain her. She would get through this. Somehow, her legs would carry her. She would keep standing. Sophie would need her to. And Justin, her husband, a good, honest man, who would never knowingly hurt anyone… Whatever the future held, he needed her now, and she would be there.
‘Ready?’ he said softly, behind her.
Bracing herself to face the worst day of her life, alongside the two people who mattered most in the world, Alicia nodded and turned to him, her gaze dropping from the immeasurable heartbreak in his eyes down to his tie. It was slightly askew, she noticed. She imagined his hands shaking as he’d tied it. Instinctively, Alicia reached to straighten it, another intimate gesture between them that sent an unbearable wave of sadness right through her. He used to smile when she fixed his tie – that languid, slow smile that would make her fingers all thumbs – and then invariably steal a kiss. He’d tugged it loose once, a glint in his eyes that told Alicia they were both going to be late for work.
Alicia dropped her gaze. She couldn’t bear it, the hurt she could now see there.
Justin surprised her, reaching to gently lift her chin, so that she had no option but to look directly at him. ‘We’ll find a way through this, Ali,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘We have to.’
Pressing his forehead to hers, he tugged in a ragged breath.
Feeling his hand softly tracing the length of her back, Alicia moved towards him, threaded her arms around him and held him tight. He needed her to. And she needed it too.
They stayed like that for one long, precious moment, before someone tapped on the front door. She felt Justin stiffen, pulling himself upright as he eased away from her, turning to face the insufferable heartache to come.
Eleven
ALICIA
Alicia watched Justin carry Lucas in his arms, his gaze focussed on the catafalque. She wanted to scream at the injustice of it – right here, right now, in front of all the people gathered to mark the passage of their son’s short life in respectful silence. She wanted to drop to her knees and sob. Or run as far away as she could from the nightmare that was never going to end.
But she couldn’t.
She had to be there.