Watch Over You (17 page)

You were pregnant.

The words echoed through her mind and she doubled over from the agony of it. “Oh god.” A teary sob tore from her as she tried to rein her emotions in. She cupped her face in her hands as she tried to step away from Devan, but he didn’t let her. He grabbed her arm, spun her around and then pulled her into such a tight embrace that it suffused her with warmth and peace deep inside. It drew all the pain and despondency right out. No one else in the world existed but them.

He held her close; pressed her tightly to him. His arms engulfed her, protected her from the world and kept her safe. That was how she felt anyway standing there against him. “I didn’t know,” he whispered against her hair. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” He clung onto her with as much desperation as she did - as if it was as much for him as it was for her.

She held onto him, unable to keep her tears inside. He gave her that safe place where everything she had been holding in could rise up and spill out. She sobbed in his arms - for Eric and for the baby they never got to meet. She sobbed for Devan, too, and everything that he had lost in his life. So much sorrow finally made its exit. She feared she could cry forever in his arms.

“I lost everything,” she said when she was finally able to talk.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. He hesitated, searching for the right words. “Were you far along?”

Tara swallowed and tightened her arms around him. “Maybe twelve weeks.”

“You didn’t tell Eric?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Why?” He pulled away to look down at her. “You didn’t want the baby?” That just made her cry even more, making him pull her back into his embrace until she settled once again.

“I wanted it. I was so happy I wanted to shout it from the rooftops,” she said. “Every time I saw him, I couldn’t keep the grin from my face. I was so excited to tell him. He kept asking me what I was thinking. It was nearly his birthday, though. I wanted to surprise him. I bought him a card that said
Daddy
on it.” She paused, took a deep breath as the words left her mouth and the memory flooded her mind. The memory of not just buying the card, but of the smile she had imagined on Eric’s face when he saw it. “I was going to put the appointment card for my ultrasound in there. I was going to write it from the baby asking for Eric to come and meet it.” She watched Devan’s face for a reaction. She expected to see hate, disgust - something that matched what she felt about herself - but she didn’t. If anything, he was looking at her with something much deeper in his eyes. “He didn’t even know he was going to be a father,” she whispered.

Devan smoothed back her hair from her face, gently stroking it. “You’d have made him the happiest man on the planet.” He ran his thumb along her face with such tenderness, wiping away her tears, tracing across her cheeks and the shape of her mouth. His eyes explored her face, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

“I wish I had told him,” she sighed. She pulled herself away from Devan. She needed to. She had cried now and it was good, but she needed to put it back away into its box where it couldn’t hurt her again. Crying wasn’t going to bring either Eric or the baby back. Nothing would and she knew that. This was her life now and she just had to accept it. If crying was going to make an ounce of difference, it would have done so by now. She took in a deep breath and tried to wipe her face dry with her hands. She eventually gave up and just used the front of her top. She forced a smile to her lips. It was fake. She knew it and she was sure Devan knew it, but in that moment she needed the fakeness of her happy mask. Without it, she wouldn’t get through another minute of her lonely life - not that she had lived in these last three years. She simply hadn’t died; not physically at least. But Tara - the one she had known - she died three years ago.

“Should we get moving?” she asked Devan, pushing thoughts of Eric away. “Before it gets dark? Or can we maybe stay here?”

He gave a cautious shake of the head as if he wasn’t sure about the change of topic. Tara moved away from him to look around the empty shop and its equally empty shelves. 

“Shame we didn’t run into a bakery or something,” she remarked. “My stomach is all but thinking my throat got slit.”

“We can make a stop at one of the others. Maybe they have some food.”

She ran her fingers along one of the shelves, expecting them to come away with dust on them, but they didn’t. Strangely, the place was spotlessly clean. Her thoughts bounced around everything that had occurred over the past two days. “Are you going to eat something?” she asked Devan. He hadn’t vomited in a while. She was happy about that at least. He didn’t look sick and she hadn’t noticed a fever when he had held her. Maybe that had gone too. His hand kept bleeding on and off, though, and that worried her.

“I’ll have something,” he said. Tara wasn’t convinced, but she simply nodded at him. She could push when the time came.

“Mind if I go and clean up my face a moment. I’m sure I look a total state.” The truth, however, was that she wanted a minute just to be by herself. Not that being around Devan bothered her, but she just needed some time to collect herself and force herself to somewhere close to normal. She wasn’t one for crying
on people. Only Eric had ever really seen the true Tara, and many times, that wasn’t pretty either. “You can take a gander outside and see if there is anywhere that we can grab something to eat.”

When Devan hesitated as if he was going to say no, she added, “Just stay close enough so that I can yell if I need you.”

“I won’t go far,” he said.

“No,” she said, and then went to the bathroom and closed the door behind her, leaving him in the shop. Even though she knew she was alone, she closed the bathroom door and found herself looking for a way to lock it other than the latch which had already proved useless. There wasn’t one. There was a small mirror above the sink and a small fluorescent light above that. She pulled the short cord to turn it on. It flickered a couple of times before humming into life and settling at an even buzz. She stared at herself in the mirror - or at least she thought it was her. The reflection was old and tired. It was not the same reflection that she imagined in her mind. She still expected her face to look the same
way it did the day she married Eric - the day when she was happy. She reached up to touch the glass, unsure if what she was seeing was real.

She glared hard at herself. A mixture of hatred and disbelief filled her mind. She hated the woman who had killed Eric and the baby with her selfish behaviour, but she didn’t recognise the woman who stared back. She was familiar, reminiscent of a Tara she knew once, but she wasn’t what Tara wanted to see and, after a moment, she pulled the cord in frustration and dulled the mirror.

Chapter Twenty

Devan was still feeling unsettled inside as he stepped outside of the store and into the ever-changing weather. He couldn’t get the baby, the pregnancy and Tara’s loss out of his head. The rain had stopped and so had Tara’s tears. The clouds were moving away.

He hadn’t expected the news about the baby. It had thrown him. It felt unreal yet true at the same time. His mind swam, thoughts racing and colliding until an odd sense of numbness finally settled over him. There was agitation under all that, though. Something was missing, and he didn’t know how to fix it or make it better. He was hesitant to leave her alone in the shop, but he realised that she needed a minute or two. There wasn’t much that could happen. He wasn’t going to go far.

Tara was right about the time, though. They did have to get moving. The hours were ticking along faster
than she realised with a deadline that was ticking like an invisible clock above both of their heads.

Devan checked both ways before moving from the shop front. There was a nip in the air and although the grey clouds above moved quickly, the shadows he could see were all still. The wind whipped up from the sea front, making him wish that he had a coat. He would have pulled the collar up and huddled inside its warmth.

He was anxious about which way to walk. He didn’t want to go very far otherwise he wouldn’t be able to hear Tara if she called for him. He glanced across the road at a small convenience store. It was closed, too, like everything else. The street was nothing but memories now - things of yesteryear that the world didn’t need anymore. He hoped that the memories weren’t too old or else the food would be stale. He wanted Tara to be able to eat a bit.

He stood there, caught between the indecision of whether he should cross the road or whether it was too far to go. Then, there was the sweet nostalgia he felt at just being outside. It had been a long time, or that’s
what it felt like, at least. Nothing had really changed, though. Perhaps his memories had become distorted when he had been left in the darkened corners of his cell with only his own thoughts to ruminate.

He checked behind him for Tara. She hadn’t come out of the bathroom yet. He took a last look around the street and then ran across the road to the store. He pushed the door open, confident that it wouldn’t be locked. He didn’t walk right in, though. He lingered
and watched, ensuring there were no shadows ready and waiting for him. He noticed a small carousel display that held pictures of postcards - sunny days and beaches, ice-cream and children, nighttime and twinkling coloured lights on the sea front. There were cards filled with cartoon cats and topless sunbathers; cheap tat to sell to the tacky tourist. It had wheels and a floral cloth covered brick resting on the frame to keep it in place. Devan kicked it free and pushed the display in front of the door to wedge it open. Securing it with the brick he cast a glance over to the empty jewellery store where Tara was again to reassure himself that she was still fine.

The first display he could see was filled with chocolates and bags of crisps. Placed there strategically, he was sure; to entice the queuing customers that they just needed one more thing. There was a refrigerator next to the main counter, where the till was. It was off, but then Devan expected that.

If he went to the fridge, then Tara wouldn’t be in his sights any longer. Women and bathrooms, he thought to himself. He counted to three in his head and then leapt forward, wrenched open the fridge and grabbed anything within reach. Just behind the counter next to him was a ream of carrier bags. He yanked one off and started to fill it.

Bolting
back to the doorway, he gave the jewellery store another quick glance and then made a dash for some of the crisps and chocolates as well. He grabbed a couple of health bars for himself and hoped that he would be able to stomach them - although eating was more for Tara at this point than him. He hurried, wanting to get back to Tara without delay.

*    *    *

The bathroom was small, like a small closet which had had a sink and a toilet fitted in it. Tara used the toilet and as she was washing her hands, she heard Devan come back in. The front door opened and the bell that was hanging over the top rang. It jangled a second time when she heard him close the door behind himself. There was no towel on which to dry her hands so she rubbed them down her jeans. She heard Devan’s footsteps come closer and then he knocked on the bathroom door.

“Just be a second,” she called out to him.

She stood up straight, breathed in deeply, ran her fingers through her hair and squared her shoulders before she opened the bathroom door. She stepped out to leave the old, crying Tara in the bathroom and emerged wearing the metaphorical mask she was used to.

“I hope you got me something to eat. I’m so damn hungry,” she said as she reached in to turn the main bathroom light off. At that moment, she felt she could eat anything and she wouldn’t care. She closed the
bathroom door and then went to the front half of the store, expecting to see Devan there. But he wasn’t. No one was.

She turned fast. “Devan?”

It wasn’t Devan staring at her. It wasn’t his eyes, and it wasn’t his face. A dark, eerie shadow stood in front of her, grinning, his eyes focused on her. Like the girl they had seen before, his form was more solid. Tara stared back, glued to the spot. He started to move closer.

*    *    *

He could see her from where he was. She emerged from the back of the jewellery store and stepped into the front. She was beautiful, even from a distance. He’d watched her like this so many times before, and she hadn’t ever been aware. He’d stared at her, transfixed. Always unable to get close enough. Always with those shadows on his tail, ready to grasp hold of him and pull him back.

Tara didn’t even realise that it was her own doing that had brought them face to face. That day in Taylor’s, he’d almost cried with relief. He wondered what he had done to deserve Tara coming into his life. He had wondered that a long time ago, too, but he had never found an answer.

Thoughts of the baby snuck back into his mind as he watched her. He wondered what she would have looked like pregnant, her belly swollen with new life and her radiance brightening up every room she entered. It would have been some kind of dream, he supposed. He imagined her holding a baby in her arms. Her child. He pictured the smile of contentment upon her face. Now that would be a beautiful sight.

A sudden punch in the chest caused Devan to gasp in agony and stumble backwards. The pain brought him to his knees and he struggled for breath. The bag fell to the floor with a thud, the contents spilling out and scattering in
all directions. His mind went dizzy and his vision jigsawed between dark and light. Hard as he tried, he couldn’t seem to shake it off.