Page 147 of Forever, Maybe
“Nell.”
She turned. “Yes?”
His eyes met hers, steady. “I know about the boy. Your child. The letter… I read it yesterday.”
Her mind raced.What? How? Why?
And then, just like that, it all made sense.
Pieces of the puzzle slotting together across time and space, clicking into place with a quiet inevitability. That letter. The one she had written back in August but never found the courage to send. The one she had left behind, buried in paperwork, never once imagining he would come across it.
She had scooped up the paperwork and dropped it into his office. The letter must have been there, waiting, wanting to be read.
She searched his face for anger, for hurt that she hadn’t told him sooner. She found none.
Remarkable, wasn’t it, how time softened even the sharpest edges? The great, looming secret—once so heavy, so impossible—was about to be revealed, and yet she felt it lifting, floating away like a weightless thing.
She leant in, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll tell you everything when we are back home. Is that okay?”
“Of course.” His fingers tightened around hers. “I love you.”
She smiled. “I love you too.”
The nurses sent them off with instructions the next day—how to manage the effects of smoke inhalation, how to use the crutches properly. When she asked about his return to work, they both shook their heads.
“Not for at least a week. Maybe two.”
Remarkably, her husband did not seem the least bit dismayed.
On the drive home, Nell filled him in on the insurance situation, the damage to the shop. Repairable, but slow. Months rather than weeks.
To her astonishment, Danny only shrugged. Mused aloud about giving the shop up altogether. He had others, after all.
Back at the house, the moment he sat down, Corrie launched into his lap, purring loudly as if all those months apart had meant nothing.
In the kitchen, Nell busied herself with the teapot, fussing over proper cups and saucers, carefully unwrapping foil-clad chocolate biscuits. Small, precise actions. Stalling.
The words of the letter she’d written echoed in her mind.
I didn’t do a good job of explaining how much thought went into my decision. Why, at twenty-one, the idea of having a child felt unbearable—especially when I’d already had one. A baby I gave up for adoption when I was fifteen.
I’ve always had an active imagination. I played out every scenario in my head, imagined all the ways you might react. I wondered what would happen if I told you about the other child—if you’d stay, or if it would break us. Every version of the future I could see ended badly. Maybe my imagination isn’t as sharp as I thought. Maybe you wouldn’t have minded at all…
When she returned to the living room, he patted the sofa beside him. She hesitated, then sat. A single tear traced its way down her cheek.
“It’s a long story.”
“Nell, I dinnae judge. I just want to know.”
She took a breath. “When I moved to Scotland in 1994, I swore no one in Glasgow would ever know what happened to me when I was fourteen. I kept that promise. But I often wanted to tell you… because it’s the real reason I was so adamant I didn’t want children.”
Chapter sixty-three
July1989
Nell had convinced her mother to let her take charge of decorating her bedroom. Now, she lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, where clusters of luminescent stars glowed softly in the dark.
They held her attention for minutes at a time, just as they always had.
