The Lie of Love (21 page)

In the bedroom, Darcy dug in her
handbag for her phone. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the text from
Harry. She had been certain she would get one, though she wanted to be
wrong.  Why did he have to make it so hard?

One more meeting.
If that’s what it took to make him finally
drop this mad idea he seemed to have been gripped by that they could have a
real future, like ordinary couples, then she would have to indulge him.

Darcy cursed herself as Harry slept next to her.  He
looked so young, so vulnerable, not like the boy she had met during the summer.
Meeting him again had been a mistake. Declaring his love he had kissed her and
undressed her and she had let him push her gently to the bed, the lie too
beautiful to acknowledge for the black and dangerous thing it was. She should
have known better; she should have been stronger. Guilt squeezed her heart. She
had made him like this. And now she was leading him on again. She hadn’t meant
to, but it was all her fault.  

She reached for her phone from
the bedside cabinet and glanced at the clock. It was almost time to go and
fetch the children, and
Ged
would be home not long after, expecting his dinner.

Taking care
not wake Harry, Darcy pushed herself up and collected her clothes from the
floor, dressing quickly. Goodbyes were too hard and they were pointless
anyway.  They wouldn’t get another chance to see each other until Easter,
and no matter what Darcy told herself, it would happen. She wondered whether to
leave him a note. In the end, she softly closed the door behind her and left
him sleeping. 

Darcy wheeled Sophie into their hotel room.
Ged
was sleeping on the bed, Jake
next to him wrapped in his arms and also fast asleep. She smiled. There were
times when
Ged
was
infuriating, times when he fell back on the old insistence that he had never
wanted kids and Darcy had the overwhelming urge to slap him. But underneath it
all she had no doubts that he loved his children dearly, even if he sometimes
struggled to show it.

Two weeks had passed since
Sophie’s surgery. It had gone well, the doctors had told them, and Sophie’s long
and painful course of physiotherapy had begun. At first she had cried, she had
screamed, she had refused to speak to them; she was determined not to
cooperate. Darcy felt like crying and screaming herself, the distress of
watching her daughter go through this was so great. But eventually, with
cajoling, bribery and emotional blackmail, Sophie had grudgingly budged,
performing a little here and there until she was going some way towards the
exercises she needed. It wasn’t perfect, but her parents and carers took what
they could get.  Darcy and
Ged
had gone together at first, along with Jake, trying to get her working. The
strain had been so great, not only on them but on
Jake, that
they had reluctantly agreed the best way forward was to take it in turns to go
with Sophie whilst the other entertained Jake elsewhere. Everyone had been
relieved at this and each of them secretly and guiltily looked forward to their
days with Jake rather than the torture of Sophie’s sessions.

Darcy held a finger to her lips and
lifted Sophie from her chair onto the bed. ‘We won’t wake the trolls, eh?’

Sophie giggled and shook her
head. ‘No, we won’t wake the trolls.’

‘Are you hungry?’

Sophie nodded.

Darcy wandered over to a fridge
that stood in a kitchenette just off the main room. ‘I bet there’s something
nice in here to tide us over until we go for dinner.’ She stuck her head in the
fridge and pulled out a tub of pasta salad.

‘I don’t want that,’ Sophie
called, watching her through the adjoining double doors.

‘You liked it yesterday.’

‘No.’
She
shook her head.

Darcy sighed. ‘What do you want?’

‘Ice-cream.’

As part of their continued
physiotherapy bribery, and because at first the surgery had left Sophie feeling
unwell, Darcy had been letting her more or less eat whatever she fancied. Meals
had frequently been replaced by less nutritious alternatives and everyone had
turned a blind eye to it, including, most surprisingly, Jake. Ordinarily he
would have been the first one to demand similar treatment. But Darcy was
beginning to think that this indulgence had to stop.

‘If you have pasta now I’ll let
you have ice-cream at the diner later,’ Darcy said. ‘It’ll be much nicer
there.’

‘I don’t want to go to the
diner.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I want
ice-cream now.’

Ged’s
groggy voice came from the bed. ‘You can’t have
ice-cream now, madam.’  He sat up, taking care not to disturb Jake, who
roused for a moment but then snuggled back into the pillow. ‘We’re going to the
diner to eat like civilised people for once.’

Sophie pouted, but although she
had got away with a lot during the last couple of weeks, she knew better than
to argue with his current tone of voice.

Ged
swung his legs over the side of the bed and
rubbed his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep. We’ve been here for ages and
the jetlag is still getting to me.’

Darcy pulled two bottles of water
from the fridge and took one over to him. The other she gave to Sophie. ‘Sorry,
sweetie, but it looks as though you’ll have to be good until we go for dinner.’

‘I didn’t say she couldn’t eat,
just not ice-cream.’

‘If you don’t think we’ll eat
late, perhaps we can all hang on.’

Ged
nodded. ‘I’ll go and get
showered while you wake the boy.’

‘How’s little Sophie this evening?’ the waitress asked with
a broad smile as the family crossed from blazing evening sunshine into the dim
interior of the movie-themed diner. The place had been a favourite of
Ged’s
since the first night when
he had tasted one of their
ribeye
steaks, and they
had quickly become regulars. On that first evening, Tracy,
the waitress who greeted them now, had listened to their story about Sophie’s
impending surgery, and had watched their anxious faces.  She had brought
them all drinks and deserts on the house and had enquired after Sophie’s
progress every time she saw them afterwards, until Sophie was out of hospital
and had been well enough to go there again herself.

‘She’s been a very good girl
today,’ Darcy said, stroking Sophie’s long hair. ‘The best so far I think.’

‘Hey, you’ll be racing across
that baseball field in no time, then,’ Tracy
replied, winking at her. ‘And how are the rest of y’all doing?’

‘Me and dad have been to the
beach today,’ Jake said. ‘We saw jellyfish and Dad almost got stung.’

Tracy
laughed. ‘That was a lucky escape. They’re monsters here.’  She turned and
gestured them to follow her, stopping at a table underneath a huge hanging
replica of Godzilla. 
‘This ok for you?’

Ged
nodded. ‘Brilliant.’

Darcy got Sophie settled into a
chair and then sat herself. The air of the diner was cool compared to the
humidity outside. Darcy tried not to complain, knowing that back at home winter
still had its icy grip firmly on the town of
Lyme
Regis and she ought to be
grateful for a little sun. Layered over the synthetic air of the diner, the
smell of roasting meat and fries clung to everything.

‘Can I get you drinks?’ Tracy
asked.

‘I’ll have a beer,’
Ged
replied. ‘Not fussed which
one. The kids will have coke and Darcy…’

‘I’ll have a beer too.’

Tracy
nodded and left them to peruse the menus.

‘I’m starving,’ Darcy said. ‘I
didn’t get time to eat much today at the hospital.’

‘We ate plenty but I’m still
starving.’
Ged
gave her a
wide grin.

‘The beach seems to have agreed
with you.’

‘It’s amazing how a brush with a
deadly jellyfish can make you appreciate life.’

Darcy laughed. ‘I can imagine.’
She looked down the menu. ‘You’re having steak, right?’ She raised an eyebrow
as she peered around the menu at him.

‘It’s the only way to eat in America.
After all, it’s what they do best.’

‘I would imagine they’d like to
be known for more than just their steaks.’

‘Ok… they do pretty good chips
too.’

Darcy’s gaze swept their
table.  Her world was seated around it and at that moment she didn’t need
anything else.  ‘We had a really good day today, didn’t we, Sophie?’

Sophie nodded.

‘I think we might have hit a
turning point.’

‘Just as well,’
Ged
said, tossing his menu to the
table, ‘we don’t have long left here and the NHS won’t support us like these
private
physios
will.’

‘We’re getting the maximum
sessions at home available to us.’

‘It’s not really enough, though,
is it?’

Darcy was silent for a moment. ‘I
suppose not. What else can we do?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that.
I’ll see what I can borrow and we’ll look into some private sessions at home,
boost Sophie’s recovery a bit where we can.’

Darcy beamed at him. ‘You mean
it?’

‘Of course.’

Tracy
returned with a tray of drinks. She distributed them with a smile. ‘You folks
ready to order yet or do you need a while longer?’

‘Five minutes?’
Ged
replied.

She nodded and left them again.

‘I’m so glad you decided to
come,’ Darcy said as she leaned into
Ged
and lowered her voice. ‘I couldn’t have done this without you.’

‘You could. You’re stronger than
you think. But I realised that you shouldn’t have to.’

‘You mean that?’

‘Of course I do. You’re my wife
and we’re partners in everything. I’m sorry I was such a pain during the
fundraising –’

Darcy
pressed a finger to his lips and leaned over to give him a brief kiss. ‘Stop
it. You’re here now and that’s all that matters.’

Darcy couldn’t remember the
last time they had enjoyed a meal together as much as they did that night. She
couldn’t put her finger on what had changed, but something had. Perhaps
Ged’s
day out with Jake, coupled
with the leap in progress that Sophie had seemed to make that day, had relaxed
them both enough to communicate in a way they hadn’t done in months. It was
like old times, like they used to be before the bottom had fallen from their
marriage.  She wasn’t sure that it would ever truly be like that again,
but they had the kids to think about and if they could carry on like this – a
steady and civil understanding that enabled them to weather life’s storms
together – then perhaps the thorny problem of whether they actually loved one
another didn’t really matter. And in the end, wasn’t it all about the children?
Didn’t their needs have to come before anyone else’s? It would mean cutting
Harry from her life, and all the crazy complications that came with him.  As
she lay in bed later that night, listening to the steady breathing of her
children as they slept across in the other beds and the rumbling of
Ged’s
snoring next to her, Darcy
mused on whether she could live like that. And the answer that came back from
the darkness was yes.

Winter turned into spring. Easter was approaching. 
Sophie’s strength improved in astonishing leaps with the extra physiotherapy
that
Ged
had found the money
for. Darcy didn’t know where he had found it and he didn’t seem forthcoming
with the information. She had her ideas; that he had always been a little
better off than he claimed and had, for years, been keeping a stash away from
her knowledge. Once, that notion would have made her bitter and resentful, but
not now. Now she was just glad that he had chosen to spend it on his
daughter.  They had known it would be a long and painful road, and Sophie
couldn’t yet walk, but the new determination in her gave Darcy real hope that
perhaps by the end of the year they would see those first truly independent
steps. When she thought of that day, Darcy’s heart leapt. It was all she had
ever wanted for her daughter, to put right some of the wrongs nature had done
to her, and she was closer than ever now to making that dream come true.

And now she knew what she had to
do.  In her loneliness, her own need to be loved, she had been blinded by
Harry’s attention from what was really important in her life.  She cared
for him a great deal, maybe she even loved him, but she couldn’t allow herself
the luxury of those feelings.  Sophie and Jake had to come first.

The silence
they had agreed on when Harry went back to university had not been broken by either
of them, and the pain of separation had dulled with time, as it had done
before. Darcy set about her new life, determined that she would not
lapse.  But then the text came through, shortly before Easter.

I’m home for the holidays
next week. Can we meet?

Her heart ached to say yes, but
she ignored the message, not even trusting her fingers to do her brain’s
bidding if she replied.  Hours later a second message came through.

Just once?

Darcy read it over and over.
A simple
no
didn’t seem enough,
but everything else would sound cruel and callous at
worst, shallow and empty at best. The words didn’t exist to make this right.

But it had
to be done.

Sorry, I’m spending it with
my family. We can’t do this again.

It’s really over?

Yes. It’s really over this
time. You have to stop contacting me; it will only be more painful for us both
if you don’t.