‘Jess, you spent Beth’s whole life protecting her. You were an amazing Mum, but you can’t stay with someone twenty-four hours a day to stop them getting hurt. You couldn’t do it with your mum, and you couldn’t do it with Beth either. What your mum did to herself wasn’t your fault for not being there to stop her, and what happened to Beth was an accident.’
‘Well then if it wasn’t a message, that woman should have kept her comments to herself!’ I said desperately. ‘If she had, I wouldn’t have doubted myself when I realised Beth had a temperature, and I would have just taken her home.’
‘It was an accident,’ he insisted. ‘I don’t blame the school for moving the frame while they cleared up some sick; I don’t blame them for not watching the frame, but for trying to keep the children away from the pile of puke. I don’t blame them for putting it over a path that was no more than half a foot wide with grass either side of it, and I don’t blame you for not taking Beth home that morning because some random nutter came up to you in the street and told you God loves children. Please look at me!’ he begged, and I did as I was told. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he repeated. ‘You have been the best mother anyone could have asked for, and you can’t punish yourself. We couldn’t have done anything to stop this from happening.’
If I had told you about Simon, you would never have kept Beth at that school and she would be alive now.
The confession burned silently in my mind. I closed my eyes; I was unable to look at him.
‘We’ve lost our daughter—’
She’s almost certainly not your child.
‘And we need to support each other now.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I’ve started reading a book Mum gave me on how to cope when your child dies, and it says this is an “individual journey only you and your partner can understand, and go on together”. We’ll—’
Oh God. I leapt up – and went to stand by the window. ‘Ben, I know you mean well, but it’s a bit early for mapping out objectives as part of a strategy for coping with Beth dying, don’t you think?’
Ben looked shocked, and understandably very hurt. ‘I was just trying to say…’ He petered out. ‘Actually, I don’t know what I was trying to say really.’ He swallowed. ‘I just don’t want you to blame yourself, and I don’t want this to be like when your mum died, but a million times worse because it’s Beth.’
I looked at my childhood sweetheart who knew me so well, had loyally stayed with me, phoning diligently from the phone box up the road from his student house so that we could talk privately without his housemates listening in, regularly coming home with me when Mum was particularly bad. Ben was the one who had taken my hand tightly at Mum’s funeral, and held me together immediately afterwards when I fell apart. He and his kind parents had been amazing. They must have wanted more for their son, but they never once said it. Because of me, Ben didn’t have the student life of most of his friends; he would never have split up with me while Mum was so ill. I overheard two of his female housemates discussing us in the kitchen once, when they didn’t know I could hear: ‘But he’s so insanely fit, and nice, and he fixed the sink like immediately because he’s also so good with his hands…’ they both sniggered, ‘and she’s so… intense, miserable and up herself. I don’t get it.’
If I’d have ended it with him after Mum’s death – which, ironically, had it not been for my dropping out and meeting Simon, I know would have happened – Ben would have got together with one of those much less complicated and more fun girls, and probably been very happy.
But I did meet Simon, and I cheated on Ben. I fell pregnant and, heartbroken over another man, scared and guilty, I blindly reached out for my rock. Being a decent person – and because of course he assumed it was his child – Ben immediately proposed.
And now my lies have cost my daughter her life, while Ben is in all probability mourning someone else’s child.
So yes, Ben, I AM to blame. I am to blame for everything. I had so many opportunities to save Beth. And I didn’t. I didn’t save her!
‘Beth was so lucky to have you, Jess.’
It wasn’t even as if I could tell him the truth by offering him absolute fact either way. There was a very small chance Beth might be his; although, purely on the basis of the last two years of us trying unsuccessfully for another baby, it would appear unlikely.
‘And you’ve been the best father anyone could have asked for.’ I meant that with all my heart. Regardless of biology, he was at least her dad. Beth adored him, and he, her. Knowing the truth wouldn’t free him from the pain of loss – he wouldn’t stop loving her – I would just rip what was left of his world apart.
‘It was such a beautiful service this afternoon, wasn’t it?’ Ben tried to smile at me, his eyes shining. ‘Do you think I did alright when I spoke?’
He wasn’t fishing; he was really asking. I went and sat down next to him again, and took his hand silently. ‘It was perfect,’ I said sincerely.
‘Thanks. There were just so many people there…’ he paused, before saying, ‘it was good of the headmistress to come – and Mr Strallen. I didn’t get to speak to him, did you? I wanted to thank him again for going with Beth.’
‘No, I didn’t speak to him either.’ I thought about glaring at Simon in the cathedral – the first time I’d seen him since we’d spoken at the hospital. Then I thought about Louise gripping Simon’s hand like she was never going to let go, and deliberately not meeting my eye… but then I didn’t want to think any of that. Not tonight.
Ben reached out and gently took the wings from me, twisting them between finger and thumb in the firelight. ‘She should be upstairs, in bed, while we’re down here watching TV, just like normal. She could be – it feels just like she could be. All this shit everyone keeps saying about taking things day by day… I don’t even know how to get from second to second.’
Tears started to stream down his cheeks again, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand in disbelief. I was suddenly reminded of seeing him cry like that, years ago, when I’d told him after going out with him for six months that I’d kissed someone else at a party. He’d done that exact same thing – wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. I’d been horrified and guiltily told him I’d never do it again.
Feeling the weight of my decisions and regrets bearing down on me so heavily I could hardly breathe, I pulled my hand back. I didn’t even know how to tell him I loved him. You’re not supposed to hurt someone you love so badly. Suddenly unable to be in the same room as his grief any longer, I got to my feet. ‘I think I might go up. Do you mind?’
He shook his head. ‘I won’t be long.’
* * *
I quietly climbed the stairs, managing to walk past the door to her bedroom, and went into the bathroom. There was no make-up left to take off. Instead I rinsed my face, brushed my teeth, and went to the loo. I walked back to our room, got changed, and climbed into bed, before turning to the bedside table for the sleeping tablets the doctor had given me. I hadn’t been using them every day, but there was no question I wanted one now. I needed to fall asleep without any nightmares or dreams to follow. They weren’t where I’d left them on the bedside cabinet, however. I got back out of bed, and was about to go down to the sitting room when I realised I could just shout – there was no sleeping Beth to wake up.
‘Ben – have you moved my pills?’ I called down loudly.
Surprised, he appeared at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Yes, I put them in the bathroom cabinet. Sorry.’
‘No problem.’
I turned and walked back to the bathroom. Force of habit for him too. Safely away in the cabinet; out of the reach of children.