My head feels like it will burst as I make my way down the corridor. The artificial heat in the hospital clings to my skin. I need to breathe fresh air for just a few moments before I go back and find Hannah and David.
I walk through the hospital reception area towards the exit. Light is coming, the muted, marine light of dawn, and I damn the sun as it slowly emerges beyond the wide glass automatic doors.
I stand outside for a moment, wishing I was a smoker so that I could do something with my trembling hands. And then I see him, a dark figure, waving his arms as he weaves through parked cars.
‘No,’ I whisper as his face comes into focus.
He can’t be here. It is impossible.
‘Kate.’
I blink my eyes to make sure this isn’t another of my visitations but he is real.
He is here.
‘Chris.’
He comes towards me and holds my hand.
‘Oh, Kate,’ he says. ‘I’m so happy to see you.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I ask as we stand motionless, two damaged souls in front of a hospital full of hundreds more.
I feel his breath on my face, inhale his cedarwood scent, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from grabbing hold of his arms and losing myself completely in him. But instead I allow him to kiss my cheek before breaking away and standing as before. Two people, two separate lives.
‘I saw it on the news,’ he says, putting his hands into the pockets of his smart woollen coat. ‘And I couldn’t believe it. I had to see for myself. I’ve been beside myself . . . and then suddenly there you were. It was like . . . a miracle.’
‘My sister is dead,’ I tell him. ‘I couldn’t save her.’
‘I know,’ he says quietly. ‘It’s all over the news. I’m so sorry, Kate.’
‘Sorry for what?’ I say as I look deep into his eyes. ‘My sister’s death or the fact that you’re an arsehole?’
I can’t help it. Seeing him brings it all back: the restaurant, the lies, the baby. Our poor dead baby.
‘I deserve that,’ he says. ‘What I did, the way I did it, was cowardly. I know that now.’
‘I need to sit down,’ I say, walking back towards the strip-lit entrance. ‘There’s a cafe somewhere in this godforsaken place. We can get a coffee.’
We walk in silence through corridor after corridor. I can sense him behind me, his tall, reassuring frame.
‘Here we are,’ I say as we approach a set of garish orange doors. ‘You get the drinks. I’ll find us a table.’
I walk through the deserted cafe and sit down by the window, looking out as an ambulance pulls into the car park below. I flinch as I remember the paramedics lifting Sally’s lifeless body off the floor.
I’m sorry, I think as I look out into the expanse of concrete. I’m so sorry, Sally.
‘Here we are.’
I look up as he places a plastic cup of coffee on the table in front of me. His face glows in the borrowed rays of the morning sun, making his eyes a sharper blue. Everything I love about him is magnified and for a moment I allow myself to imagine a different life. We could live together in some sleepy Yorkshire village, buy a dog and take it for a walk each morning. I could bake cakes and every night I would go to sleep entwined in his arms. In the morning I would wake first and watch him sleep, the sunlight bathing his face in gold just like it is now, and I would whisper thanks to whatever God we believed in that day for sending this man to me.
But the dream dissolves and scatters across the cafe as he takes off his coat and sits down opposite me.
‘Why have you come, Chris?’
‘I needed to see you,’ he says, wrapping his long fingers round the coffee cup. ‘And after all you’ve been through I reckoned you could do with a friend.’
‘Oh, is that what you are now?’ I snap. ‘Sorry, I can’t keep up.’
‘You know we’re more than that, Kate,’ he says, leaning forward and touching my arm. ‘Much more.’
‘Then I must have dreamt the bit where you took me out to lunch and told me it was over,’ I say bitterly. ‘I’ve seen your wife, Chris. I know what kind of life you lead when I’m not around.’
‘Kate, I’m so sorry.’ He looks at me sheepishly.
I look out of the window as he sits opposite me. I see his reflection in the glass: his hands clasped together, hiding the gold wedding band with his thumb. I have to tell him. It has to be now otherwise I’ll lose my nerve. But I keep my eyes on the knotted wilderness of cars outside as I speak. I don’t want to see his face as he hears it; that would be the end of me.
‘I was pregnant, Chris,’ I say, my eyes fixed on those cars. ‘I wanted to tell you that day in the restaurant but you got your announcement in first.’
I hear him take a breath but I need to get the rest out.
‘The baby died a few hours later,’ I say coldly. ‘So, don’t worry, there’s no mess for you to deal with.’