Page 85 of The Last Train Home
This is actually true.
‘OK,’ I agree.
She goes upstairs and I hear drawers opening and closing, cupboard doors banging shut, and when she finishes taking things from the bathroom she comes downstairs.
‘Bye, Tom,’ she says meaningfully.
I look up at this woman I know, but hardly know. ‘Bye, Samantha.’
She shuts the front door behind her and I hear a car door close. HasRonaldbeen out there the entire time, waiting for her? Or was it a taxi? I realise I don’t actually care.I don’t actually care. I stand up, put Samantha’s glass in the sink, head towards the fridge and pull out a beer.
I pop it open and let the cap tumble like a spinning top until it eventually settles itself on the granite counter. Samantha’s left me. I was trying to leave Samantha, putting it off ever since I’d had that panic attack – petrified that she was going to punish me by taking my son from me – but she’s not taking Teddy andshe’s left me. I lift the beer to my lips, but I can’t even get the first mouthful in because I’m laughing so bloody hard.
Chapter 54
Abbie
November 2009
‘You’re pregnant?’ Sean asks. ‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ I squeal, waving the little stick with its two red lines. ‘Yes! Only a few weeks, at a guess.’
‘Oh my God’, Sean says. ‘Oh my God. I’m going to be a father. I’m going to be a father!’ He looks a bit confounded. ‘That was fast,’ he says after a moment, pulling me towards him. He’s still not smiled yet. I think he’s in shock.
‘Not really. We started trying in March, when we got married.’
‘That went quickly.’
Actually I thought it had dragged and, in the end, I did succumb to ovulation kits, peeing on sticks in secret, waiting for smiley faces to tell me I was ovulating. If Sean found himself getting sexually jumped at the most random times of the day, he chose not to comment on it. Low-pressure sex became high-pressure sex, for me at any rate. But we’ve done it. We’re having a baby.
‘I thought it would take years,’ he says. ‘Years and years. I’m shocked. I genuinely thought we’d have more time.’
‘More time?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, more time.’
‘What did you want to do with more time?’
‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘More of the same, I guess.’
I’m voicing a question I never thought I’d have to ask. ‘Are you happy about this?’
He looks at me, blinks. ‘Yes,’ he says, alert now, paying attention. ‘Yes, I’m very happy.’ He sounds wooden, stunned.
‘We wanted this,’ I say.
‘We did.’
‘You don’t, now? Because, Sean … it’s too fucking late.’
‘I want a baby,’ he continues. ‘With you. I just … I’m … I thought we’d have longer. You never mentioned it really, after we spoke about it on the way back from the Seychelles.’
‘I didn’t want to go on about it the entire time, Sean. And you knew I was coming off the pill. We agreed.’
‘We did,’ he consents. ‘We did.’ He exhales loudly. ‘I’m happy, Abbie. I think I’m happy. I just need a minute to process this.’ He moves towards me. ‘OK, that was a shit reaction. I realise that now. I’m stunned. Good stunned. Oh, Christ, I’m so sorry. I’ve sorted it in my head, almost.’ He puts his hand on my stomach. ‘Wow,’ he says again. ‘Wow.’
‘OK,’ I say warily. ‘Are you sure? You’re happy about this?’
