Before You Go Read online

  Right, I can do this. I can open my eyes. I have to do this.

  I force them open again and this time my left eye opens almost all the way and my right eye opens a little. It feels as though a 1,000-watt bulb is being shone into my eyes, but I don’t close them; I keep them open, blinking and watering against the pain. I blink the tears away and feel them running down my cheeks towards my ears and dropping onto the pillow, and slowly, slowly, the world starts to swim into focus. A light fixture on a white ceiling. A ceiling divided into squares. An ugly light fixture, switched off. I flick my eyes to the right. A window with ribbons of light pouring through the dusty grey blinds, making the room feel more cheerful than it should. And then there’s a movement next to me and a face appears above me. There’s a gasp and an, ‘Oh my God, she’s opened her eyes,’ and a cold hand grabs mine and squeezes, and I squeeze back as hard as I can.

  ‘Zoe, can you hear me? Zoe, it’s Mum.’

  ‘Nnnggngng.’

  ‘Wait, don’t try to speak, let me get someone.’ Footsteps running off and then getting closer again. ‘I’ll be back, will you be OK?’

  ‘Nnngg.’

  Footsteps retreating once more and excited voices in the corridor outside. Lots of footsteps coming back towards me, and then there are figures silhouetted against the sunlight surrounding my bed. I feel like an animal in a zoo as they stand over me, fussing and discussing me as though I’m not there. Only two voices stand out against the murmur.

  ‘Mum . . . Dad,’ I manage through a dry throat.

  ‘Oh Zoe, thank God you’re awake.’ Mum throws herself against me, trying to be gentle but squeezing me as tightly as she dares. I long to throw my arms around her too but my muscles don’t want to work.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I say instead.

  I want to know what’s happened to me. Where I am, why, and most of all, whether anything has changed. Is Ed still dead or did I dream it all? I can’t work out what’s fact from fiction any more. But I know they’ll tell me and for now I just need to adjust to being awake again.

  Mum takes my hand and holds it tenderly as the doctors fly around me. There are wires and leads attaching me to various monitors, and printouts covered in lines and graphs and numbers are being waved around the room. It’s all about me but I don’t want to know any of that now. It doesn’t matter.

  ‘Mum,’ I whisper, and she leans down towards me to hear me better. ‘Can you sit me up?’

  Nodding, Mum presses a button and slowly the bed tilts me into a sitting position so I can see what’s going on.

  ‘That’s enough, Mrs Morgan,’ says the doctor. ‘We need to do some tests first; try not to disturb her too much, please. And try not to tire her out.’ Then the room empties and the room is quiet.

  Mum perches on the edge of the bed, nervously. ‘We thought we’d lost you, love,’ she says. Her voice cracks and there are tears shining in her eyes. She pauses, looks at Dad, then back at me. Her eyes are dark with worry. ‘Do – do you remember anything at all . . . ?’ She trails off, unsure.

  I nod, my neck stiff. ‘You mean Ed, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, love.’

  ‘Yes, Mum. I remember. Ed’s dead.’

  Silence fills the room as the words settle round us, as my mind takes in the certainty that he’s still gone. I groan, the pain too much to bear.

  ‘Oh love, I’m so sorry. Try not to get too upset, you’ve only just woken up.’ Mum’s stroking my hair down, her skin soft against my cheek. ‘Do you remember anything about your accident?’

  Do I? I remember being soaked to the skin, wet leaves, a pain in my head, bright lights, shouting. And then I’d woken up in the past. I shake my head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘You banged your head, love. You were – doing some gardening and it was raining and you must have slipped and hit your head. Jane found you, when she called in after work. She was worried about you. And thank God she did or we could have lost you . . . we didn’t know what you might have done to yourself, with the grief.’ She stops, a sob escaping her lips.

  ‘Sandra.’ Dad’s voice is firm and she looks up, shocked. He shakes his head. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘No. Sorry, love. I just mean – you were still so sad. We’ve all been so worried about you since—’ She stops, but I know what she was going to say. Since Ed died. She sits up straight, smooths the blanket under her hand. ‘Anyway, you knocked yourself out and you’ve been here ever since.’

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  Mum looks down again, then back at me. ‘Almost a month, love.’

  A month? I’ve just relived the last twenty years of my life in less than four weeks? It doesn’t seem possible.

  ‘Oh.’ There’s so much I want to say but can’t; it’s all I manage.

  Mum glances at Dad again and I can tell there’s something else.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ But Mum’s a terrible liar and she knows it.

  There’s a moment of silence as we sit there looking at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. What are they going to say? Is it about Ed? Is it about me? Has something terrible happened since I’ve been in hospital? I can’t bear it any longer.

  ‘Come on, just tell me!’ I shout and they both jump, shocked.

  Dad speaks first.

  ‘Well, there is something.’ He waits a beat and it stretches into a lifetime. ‘It’s about the baby.’

  The room seems to tilt as he says these words and I grip the bed tightly, afraid I’m going to fall out.

  ‘Baby?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mum says. ‘Your baby is OK, it’s going to be OK.’

  I think I’m going to be sick and I clutch my hand to my mouth to stop it.

  ‘Oh God, Zoe, what’s wrong?’ Mum leaps up from her seat, grabs a cardboard bowl and sticks it under my chin, scraping my hair back from my face. My stomach heaves and I retch but there’s nothing to come out, and after a few minutes the heaving stops and I settle back onto the pillow, totally drained.

  ‘I didn’t know there was a baby,’ I whisper.

  Mum gasps and claps her hand to her mouth. ‘But . . .’ She stops. ‘Oh God, Zoe, we assumed you knew and would be worried about it,’ she says. Her words fall out of her mouth like a torrent of water. ‘I mean, after everything you two went through to have a baby, we just thought you must know and . . .’

  The silence between us is enormous as what I’ve just found out hits us all.

  I’m pregnant.

  ‘How . . . how many weeks?’ I say.

  ‘The doctors think about twelve . . .’

  Oh my God. Twelve weeks. My mind races back, trying to work out what that means. When I collapsed Ed had been dead for two months. Plus another four or five weeks since then, and that means the day I fell pregnant must have been the last day we had together, the day we were never meant to have . . .

  ‘Oh my God. I changed it.’ The words are barely a whisper but Mum hears them anyway.

  ‘What do you mean, love?’

  ‘Nothing, Mum, sorry. I’m all over the place.’ I give her a weak smile and she smiles back, unsure. She looks as though she wants to say something else, then changes her mind.

  I have a sudden need to be alone, to take in the enormity of what’s just happened.

  So I close my eyes and lie still for a few minutes until I hear Mum and Dad standing up and opening the door. They slip outside and the door closes behind them and then there’s just peace and quiet, and time to think . . .

  I think back to that last day. I’d been so sure Ed was going to live: that saving him had been the reason I’d been taken back to live the whole thing all over again. Then when he’d died anyway I’d been utterly distraught, thinking I’d failed him. I hadn’t had time to think about the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the last day we’d had together was the thing that I’d changed, the one thing that I’d managed to make different from the first time. We’d loved each other that day, and been togethe
r in a way we hadn’t been for a long time before that.

  But even if I had thought about it, then of course it would never have occurred to me that I might be pregnant. I’d never managed to fall pregnant before, even with all the help we’d been given. We’d been through hell and back to have a baby and we’d been left heartbroken time and time again.

  And now, after all that, this.

  A baby.

  Ed had left me, but he’d given me the greatest gift of all. He’d left a part of him behind.

  I open my eyes and push the covers off me and place my hands gently on my belly. If you didn’t know you wouldn’t know there was anything in there, but I can see a slight swell through the hospital gown and I rub my palms gently across my tummy, back and forth. It feels warm to my touch.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper, and for a moment I can almost imagine that Ed is there with me, watching this moment.

  And then, with my hands placed across my tummy and the gentle hum of the hospital behind me, I fall asleep. And this time, for the first time in months, it’s a proper, deep, dreamless sleep.

  I snap my eyes open and my heart is pounding. My eyes flick round the room desperately, and I try to lift my head but it feels too heavy and drops silently back down onto the pillow. I take some deep breaths and try to calm myself down. I’m in the hospital, it’s OK, it’s finished. It’s not happening all over again.

  My heart rate is gradually slowing, the seconds between each beat increasing, stretching out, the rushing in my ears diminishing.

  And then I remember.

  I lift my hands from the bed and slowly bring them to rest on my tummy. The tiny swelling I’d noticed yesterday doesn’t seem as obvious now and I’m worried I might have dreamt it all. After all, it’s not as though the last few weeks have been exactly normal. But I know it’s true. Somehow I feel different. I feel as though this is what is meant to be.

  I lie like that for a few moments, believing that I’m bringing myself closer to the baby I knew nothing about until only a few hours before. It’s been growing for twelve weeks without any help from me, and I try to picture what it must look like now. Will it have any features, or will it still be a round blob of matter? Will it have any resemblances to Ed that will take my breath away when I see them for the first time? Will it have his eyes, his nose, his mouth?

  Tears roll down my cheeks, soaking the pillow beneath me, but I don’t wipe them away. I want to keep my hands where they are, for now.

  Minutes pass and the room is filled with peace. There are no machines whirring, beeping or humming, and there’s no one else here. Just me and my baby, and the sounds of the hospital rumbling away outside the door. Then I notice a creaking sound and I glance over to the door, which is very slowly inching open.

  ‘Hello?’

  A familiar face peeps round the door and I smile.

  ‘Hi, Mum. What are you doing creeping around like that?’

  ‘Sorry, love, I didn’t know whether you were asleep or not. I didn’t want to wake you.’ Mum comes fully into the room and sits down gently on the edge of my bed. The mattress sags under her weight and I roll slightly towards her. ‘How are you feeling?’

  I think about it for a minute before answering. How am I feeling? Happy, sad, relieved, frightened, excited, confused . . . all of those things and more.

  ‘I’m scared, Mum.’

  She squeezes my hand. ‘Oh sweetheart.’

  ‘I just wish – I just wish Ed could be here to see this. To meet our baby.’

  She nods silently.

  ‘What if I can’t do this on my own?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’ve never been a mum before, and I always thought if I did have a baby me and Ed would look after it together, both feed it, cuddle it, change its nappies. I never once pictured doing this alone, I—’ My voice catches in my throat and I stop.

  ‘I know, I know. But you know your dad and I will do everything we can to help you, don’t you? And Becky too.’

  ‘Thank you.’ My voice is a whisper. But I haven’t said half of what I’m really feeling. I feel empty, like a shell, and I’m terrified I won’t have enough love left in me to give to my baby; I’m scared that the grief and the pain will be too much for me to ignore and that I’ll let my baby down. Like I let Ed down. I should have been able to save him, so he could be here with us right now.

  But I don’t say any of this. Instead I just sink slowly into my pillow and close my eyes and pretend to be asleep until I hear Mum get up and leave.

  Epilogue

  19 June 2015

  It’s a cloudy day and a gentle breeze blows my hair across my face. I’m out of breath as I push the buggy in front of me up the steep path to the top of the hill and I pause for a second to catch my breath before carrying on.

  At the top we stop and look at the scene below us. London stretches out for as far as the eye can see. A dark thundercloud looms in the distance somewhere over Canary Wharf, and I shiver.

  I place my bag on the bench and glance around. The weather means there are not as many people about as usual, and I’m grateful. It makes this a little easier.

  ‘Mummy ba-bim,’ Edward says, pointing in the air and grinning.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart, Mummy’s got the balloons,’ I say, and I untie them from the handle of the buggy and bring them down level with his gaze. He reaches out a chubby hand and pushes one and giggles as it bounces straight back up in the air again.

  ‘’Gen!’ he shouts and does it again, giggling hysterically.

  ‘OK, sweetheart, shall we get you out of the buggy?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  Careful not to let go of the balloons that are bouncing about wildly in the breeze, I unclip Edward’s straps and he climbs cautiously out. I sit down on the bench and he plops himself down next to me.

  ‘Right, we’re going to let these balloons go into the sky and see Daddy,’ I explain slowly.

  He nods solemnly.

  ‘Hopefully Daddy will catch one and keep it with him forever and know it’s from us and know we love him.’

  He nods again.

  ‘Shall we do it?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  I hand him a balloon and he grips it tightly. ‘OK, when I say go, let it go. One, two, three, go!’

  ‘Go!’ he shouts, and throws the balloon up into the air. It catches the breeze and floats sharply to the left before taking flight. We sit and stare after it, then I let another one go, and another, and another, until all eight of them have lifted into the sky.

  ‘Dada,’ Edward says, pointing at the sky with a chubby finger.

  I smile and pull him onto my lap and hold him tightly.

  ‘Yes, exactly, Daddy,’ I agree.

  We sit like that for a few minutes until the last balloon has floated out of sight. Then I notice the temperature has dropped and I shiver.

  ‘OK, let’s go home.’

  I scoop Edward up and clip him back into his buggy and walk slowly back down the hill, lost in thought. I’d been desperate to do this alone, to mark the two-year anniversary of Ed’s death, just me and our son. But now it feels a little lonely and I wish I’d asked Mum and Dad or Ed’s mum to come along.

  But at least I’ll see them later. Last year had been awful – Edward had been three months old and we’d tried to hold a memorial service for Ed. But I was a bundle of emotion and I couldn’t stop crying. This year, determined to make it special for my precious son, I’d brought him to Alexandra Palace, where Ed and I had spent so many happy times, to release some balloons in memory of the daddy he never knew. He was too young to understand, but the joy in his face as he watched them rise up into the sky and disappear into the clouds made it worthwhile.

  Later, we’re having a memorial service with close friends and family. Jane has helped me organize it and I’m so grateful. She’s been there through everything since Ed died and I’m not sure I could have done it without her.

  Now, as Edward a
nd I make our way back home to get ready, I smile. It’s been a long time coming, but I finally feel ready to face life without Ed.

  After all, he left me the most precious gift of all.

  Acknowledgements

  Writing a thank you section for the back of my very own book makes me feel how an actor must feel writing an Oscar acceptance speech: it’s something you dream about, but never really believe you’ll need. So forgive me if I ramble, or if I forget anyone. It must be all the excitement.

  First, I need to thank my lovely, lovely first readers, Serena and Zoe (whose only resemblance to fictional Zoe is the name!), whose enthusiasm for the story helped me carry on and make it to the end. Thank you also to the very talented Katy Regan, who helped me see the wood for the trees, and, of course, to my very tolerant friends for listening to me endlessly going on about it, especially Sarah G, Rachel and Viks, who undoubtedly bore the brunt.

  This book would have lingered in my virtual bottom drawer, however, had it not been for Judith Murray, who is not only a brilliant agent, but also one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She saw potential in me, Zoe and Ed, and helped me shape the book into what it’s become. So thank you Judith, you made my dream come true. There are of course many other people at Greene and Heaton to thank, in particular the indomitable Kate Rizzo for her amazing tenacity and hard work.

  A massive thank you also goes out to the wonderful team at Pan Macmillan – everyone who enthused about the book and how much it made them cry (sorry!) gave me a huge boost; but most of all thank you to Victoria Hughes-Williams, my brilliant editor, who knows a thing or two about making people cry herself, and helped me bring out the best in the final drafts.

  Some very kind people gave up their time to talk to me about various subjects in the course of my research, including Andrew Taylor from the charity Headway and Sophie Franklin from Zita West Clinics. A special thank you goes to my friend Jo Littlejohn for sharing her story with me. It helped enormously with understanding Zoe’s heartache about infertility.

  There are no doubt many many more people I should be thanking, including my lovely Mum and Dad, who always encouraged me to follow my dreams. But I can’t finish without saying a huge thank you to my husband, Tom, whose patience and kindness helped me find the time to finally get the book finished. I couldn’t have done it without you, even if you still haven’t read it . . .