Page 54 of Forgive Not Forget
“Stealing!”
“It’s hardly borrowing, is it? I’m assuming you don’t have plans to give them back.”
Katherine turned back to face the window.
“Should you even be self-medicating?” Anna continued.
“I’m a — ”
“Doctor,” Anna finished her sentence. “Yes, I know. Should you be doing it?”
“I know what I’m doing. They helped me after I had the heart attack. I’ve not taken them for years. I feel I need them now.”
“Do you think you’ll have another attack?” Anna had to admit she hadn’t given Katherine’s medical history an ounce of thought.
“No. They just help me switch off, level me out a bit.”
“Since the letter came?”
Katherine ignored her question.
“Will you please reconsider?”
“It will just bring it all back,” Katherine replied.
“It hasn’t gone anywhere, Kat. It’s right here, consuming us and our everyday lives. Our wedding shouldn’t feel like a looming deadline.”
“You know I didn’t mean it to sound like that,” Katherine hit back, taking a seat at the island.
“We can chase a time when we feel we can say we are over it, yet none of us get over it. We just learn to live with it better. I’ve experienced it with Mum, and I let it influence how I cared for Dad. You made me realise that! If this can help you live with your grief better, then why not try it?”
“What if it doesn’t? What if going there opens me up to more pain? I can’t take anymore, Anna. I’ve existed with my grief for the last few years. Facing my wife’s killer on top of this and with everything else going on is not something I need, thank you.”
“But what if it does help?” Anna pleaded. “Do you even want closure? Because sometimes I don’t think you do. Maybe you enjoy wallowing in self-pity. Helena wouldn’t have wanted you to hold yourself back and not live your best life or enjoy your future.”
Katherine’s mouth fell open in shock. “How do you know? You didn’t know her; how would you know what she would have wanted?”
“Because we have something in common: we’ve both loved you. I know this struggle you’re going through is not what I would want, and if she was half decent enough, she wouldn’t want it either. Sometimes we have to go back a little to go forward in the right direction. You can’t just plough on in the wrong direction and hope you end up where you want to be. Won’t you take a risk? You took a risk with me after you lost her. Why not take a risk again with this letter? With a child? I really think we’d make great parents, Kat.”
She’d opened the floodgates, and now everything was pouring through when she really should have focused on the task at hand, getting Katherine to the prison.
Katherine took a long while to respond. “The loss of a child is unbearable,” she finally said. “They didn’t get their life, or to share it with me. I didn’t even get to meet them or hold them.”
Anna nodded fiercely. “And this is your chance to tell the bastard that did this what they did to you — what they took from you. If you don’t want them to feel better, then make sure they don’t. I don’t think doing it means both parties agree to make each other feel better, but I believe it could make you feel better.”
Katherine shook her head and pulled a tissue from her pocket to wipe her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m just not brave enough.”
“You’re the bravest woman I know; me being here is testament to that. I’m just asking you to remember how to be brave again.”
“Look.” Katherine rose from her stool. “You’re clearly great with children, and I don’t want to be the one to stop you from having them.”
Anna drew in a breath, unsure where that comment was going to lead, hopeful it wasn’t where she thought it was going. She reached out. “Kat.”
“No, please.” Katherine shrugged her off and backed away. “There’s no point moving forward until we know where we are moving forward to. Maybe we rushed into all this, I don’t know.”
“Kat, please?”
“Go to Laura’s. We’ll talk after. I think we both need some time apart.” Katherine opened the patio door and shut it behind her, her way of closing any further conversation.
