Page 92 of The Good Part
As we lie spent in the dark, I whisper, ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For everything – for being you, for loving me through everything, for this life we’ve made.’
‘That sounds like a goodbye,’ Sam says, stroking his fingers gently down my arm. He starts humming softly beside me, murmuring words of a song I haven’t heard before.
‘You wrote something?’ I ask, my eyes welling with tears.
‘Just the start of something silly.’
‘What’s it called?’ I ask.
‘“Stay for All the Pocket Days”. It’s not finished, I was just messing around.’
‘I like the sound of it. You should finish it.’
‘Okay,’ he says plainly.
‘Okay?’
‘Okay.’
And then he wraps his arms around me, as though he never wants to let me go, and softly sings me to sleep.
I must be in a deep sleep because I sleep through the alarm. When I wake, Sam is gone, and there’s a note on his pillow.
Doing the school run, then coming back to work on my new song : ) Don’t go anywhere, please.
I bite my lip, feeling myself grin. I love it when he leaves notes on the pillow, like that time on our honeymoon in Italy, where he left me notes in Italian that I couldn’t even read.
On our honeymoon. In Italy.
Our honeymoon. In Italy.
Shit. I remember our honeymoon.
Chapter 34
Am I too late? Have I missed my chance?This memory is clearer than any of the glimpses I have had before. I remember Italy, the hotel, the crazy couple in the room next door. I remember all of it.I have to get to London, now.
Throwing on my clothes, I run out of the door. It’s eight thirty, nobody is here. Dashing past Felix’s room, I see something that makes me jerk to a halt and retrace my steps. The remote for the lava lamp, for the heart we built – it’s on the floor by his desk. He’s got the project fair this morning, it won’t work without the remote. He’ll be so disappointed, like that time he made a spider out of Meccano.The Meccano spider, with only five legs, I can picture it perfectly.
Grabbing the remote, I run down the corridor, glancing at our wedding photo on the stairs. We had a fruit wedding cake, my mum made it and was offended when everyone was too full to eat it. The photo of Felix on the hall table, it was taken in Crete, after the boat trip where we didn’t see any sharks.I need to stop looking at things, I need to stop remembering – I have to get to London before it’s too late.
Jumping in the car, with nothing but my wallet and the remote for the lava lamp, I speed towards the school. Logic tells me that Felix’s project doesn’t matter, that if I’m going back, none of this matters. But I can’t help feeling that it does. It matters to Felix, right here, right now, in this reality, so it matters to me.
On the drive to school, I see the street where Felix learnt to ride a bike. There’s the tree he fell out of and broke his wrist. Memories, memories, too many memories. I drive faster. Stan sternly tells me to slow down.
At the school, I park right in front of the steps, leave the engine running, then sprint in.
‘Visitors need to scan in, Mrs Rutherford,’ the receptionist calls after me.
‘I’ll only be a minute!’ I call back, searching desperately for the main hall. Worryingly, I now know the way.
Bursting through the door, I see I’m just in time, because my son, my beautiful boy, is standing at the front of the room. A crowd of staff and pupils, including Molly Greenway and the headmistress, surrounds his display. He looks pale, as though he’s about to burst into tears, because he’s realised there is something missing.
‘I have it!’ I shout, running across the hall to him. ‘I have it!’ His head whips up, the tears vanishing.
