Page 91 of One More Day
‘Movie and wine?’ I suggest, and Rose looks at me like I’ve just handed her a winning lottery ticket.
‘By the fire?’
I nod. ‘With snacks?’
She nods too.
‘You had me at movie and wine. Let’s do this. I think I’ll put on my pyjamas and get extra cosy. I’ll be right back.’
A few minutes later, both Rose and I have turned the living room of the cottage into a cosy haven with blankets, pillows, twinkling lights on the mantlepiece and a roaring fire with two very chilled-out dogs taking up prime position on the hearth.
We have a bottle of red wine, two glasses, a bowl of crisps and dips, enough chocolate to feed a small family and Rose is flicking through Netflix to find a movie we can both zone out to, if it doesn’t glitch like it has been with the low level of signal coming into the cottage against the thick snow.
She sits on one sofa, I sit on the other, and as it begins to drop down dark we decide to keep the curtains open to watch the snowfall. It couldn’t be more festive if we tried.
‘I’d never, ever do anything like this at home,’ I say to Rose as we chat over the movie, just as I thought we might do.
‘Me neither,’ she replies. ‘I head up a business, well, with a partner, so it’s very hard to step aside and just be in the moment instead of dreaming up new ideas for marketing campaigns.’
‘So that’s where you spill out all that creativity?’ I say to her. It makes perfect sense. ‘You’re the boss?’
‘I’m the CEO. I’m one of the leaders of an amazing team,’ she says, and I shrug. If that’s the way she sees it, I guess it’s a fresh approach.
‘And what about you, then? What do you do when you’re not staying in double-booked cottages over Christmas where you make all the local ladies go weak at the knees?’
Her teasing reminds me of Beige Billy, but I’ll have to remind her of that later.
‘I’m a therapist,’ I reply.
‘You’re a therapist who suggests no communication?’
She is poking fun at me and rightly so. My cheeks flush slightly and I can’t resist an eye roll.
‘Yip, I’m the man who can sort out everyone else’s lives, but who can’t sort out his own,’ I say, finally admitting to myself that’s it in a nutshell. ‘I listen to people’s problems, I unravel them as much as I can and I send them down avenues they may not have thought of, yet when it comes to my own existence, I found myself on a road to a very dark place and it wasn’t pretty. Which is why I’m here.’
Rose shifts her position on the sofa across from me and listens intently.
‘You have a child?’ she asks me. ‘That day when you were upset, I figured it was a child you were worried about?’
‘Yeah, I’ve a little girl. Rebecca. She’s only seven. She’s moved to Tenerife with her mum and her new stepdad and, well, it almost broke me. I was facing an awful Christmas alone, and my friend suggested I come here to get away from it all.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rose replies. She pulls herself up from where she was lying down snuggled in fleecy blankets. ‘That explains so much, Charlie. That’s heartbreaking.’
‘It’s not something I ever thought would happen, that’s for sure, but life is life, eh? None of us know what’s around the corner.’
We sit in silence as we both absorb these profound moments of getting to know each other. Being with Rose in this darkened cocoon, so cushioned from the outside world, makes it easier to open up and be honest with each other. It’s like this state of enveloped enclosure brings out heightened emotions from deep within us that have been held inside for far too long.
‘I know you’re only just dealing with this fresh,’ she says after some thought, ‘but you seem like such a strong person. I imagine you’re a great daddy too. You’ll find a way of making it work. You all will. I know it’s breaking your heart now, Charlie, but finding a new normal around it will just take time.’
‘I haven’t always been the good guy,’ I confess to Rose as I look at the ceiling, and it already feels like a weight has lifted when I get to say that out loud.
‘None of us are good all the time.’
‘True, but I took what I had for granted,’ I reply. ‘I wasn’t present enough in ways that I should have been, and everything that happened since then has been my own fault. I put supporting and pleasing other people before supporting and pleasing my family – work, socialising, drinking, sport, you name it. And then one day my ex said she was leaving. Her new husband Rob is very rich, and he whisked her and Rebecca away within the space of a few months.’
‘Wow.’
‘So, I launched straight into victim mode and stayed there for quite some time, drinking to make it all go away, punishing myself physically while thinking I was dealing with it like anyone would,’ I explain. ‘But then one day I snapped out of it. I realised that Clodagh had been begging me to change for years but I hadn’t been listening. It takes a lot to admit you’re wrong. It takes longer to forgive yourself, but like you, I’m nearly there, I think. I just miss my daughter so badly. That will never go away.’
