Page 61 of The Last Train Home
She nods, looks at her watch. ‘Technically it’s tomorrow, I suppose.’
‘That’s … soon.’
‘It is.’
‘When will you be back?’ This sounds desperate. I’m not sure why I asked in that tone.
She shrugs. Sips her tea, winces at the heat and puts it on the side. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you be back for our wedding at the end of summer?’
‘I’d like to come, but Sean’s not sure he’ll be able to take time off so soon into his new job.’
‘I don’t care if Sean comes or not – the invite was for you. Canyoucome?’
‘I don’t know, Tom. Can I let you know?’
‘I guess.’ Samantha will go nuts if she thinks someone’s going to renege after having already agreed tosave the date. I won’t tell her. Not yet. I can’t have another row. I’m exhausted by all the rowing.
But the thought of Abbie not wanting to come to my wedding, having already not wanted to come and actually meet my baby in all this time, is … disappointing, upsetting. And yet she’s got the gall to come to my house at 1 a.m. and call me out on not coming to her leaving party. Anger builds and I turn away from her for a moment, so that she can’t see how pissed off I’ve suddenly become.
‘I really messed things up, didn’t I?’ she says suddenly.
I spin round. ‘What?’
‘I messed everything up.’
‘Youmessed everything up? Are you joking?’
She shakes her head and looks at the marble floor that cost me ten grand, and which I regret bitterly every time I look at it. ‘No, I’m not joking. I could have been a better friend to you. A few emails and texts here and there weren’t enough to keep our friendship alive. And I didn’t come and see Teddy. I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say.
‘It’s not. I’m a bad person.’
I issue a dry kind of laugh. ‘You’re really not, Abbie.’
‘How old is he now?’ she asks.
‘Ten months.’
‘Oh my God.’ She puts her head in her hands.
Is she crying? She says something into her hands that sounds a lot like, ‘How is he nearly a year old and I’ve not even held him? This is you … This is your son and I didn’t come and see him.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ I ask. Because I have to know, now that she’s raised the subject. She shrugs, but that’s not enough for me. ‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘Did you hate me that much you couldn’t even come near me? Couldn’t even come near my son?’
Oh, shit. Abbie’s really crying now. I move towards her because she’s speaking into her hands and I can’t understand a word of what’s she’s on about. I pull her towards me, but her hands don’t leave her face. My arms are around her hunched figure. It feels good holding her again, after all this time. ‘Come here … It’s OK. Don’t cry. Don’t wake Teddy up, for God’s sake.’
She laughs. ‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’ I lean us towards the counter and hand her a piece of kitchen roll. She wipes her eyes. She’s managedto smudge her eye make-up everywhere, so I grab another piece. ‘Let me.’
She stands obediently while I wipe softly under her eyes. I’d forgotten how much of a mix of green and blue her eyes are. Like the ocean. Being this close to her is dangerous. It always has been.
I move back a bit. ‘I didn’t hear what you said,’ I confess. ‘But you don’t have to repeat it.’
‘Sean didn’t want me to,’ she blurts out.
