One Chance, One Choice [On Hold]

Chapter 5

We were sitting on the top of a large hill when I first told her I loved her, she had smiled at me, taken hold of my hand and told me she knew; she had winked at me and closed her eyes without saying another word. I waited to hear those words from her, she peeked at me from a barely opened eye and grinned to herself, it was too much for me and I had launched into a tickle-fest that had her squealing so loud I reckoned the local town, five miles away, could probably have heard her.

The memory of her laughter that day echoed across the fog in my brain, wounds, like cat scratches, began to open all over my heart as the knowledge of her withholding the truth of her illness ripped through my mind.

"Hamish?" Robert's voice was distant and I ignored it, pulling the fogginess closer around me, muffling him, blocking out the World and its painful truth.

~~~

"You look tired, love, everything OK?" I said, looking up from the script I was reading,

"Long day is all; I don't think I had five minutes to myself all day" Tara slumped on the sofa next to me and tried, unsuccessfully, to kick her shoes off. Putting the papers down on the floor, I picked her feet up and deftly flicked the offending items from them, before beginning a slow and gentle massage, watching her face until I saw the lines begin to relax and her smile grow; with a sigh, she pulled her feet away and opened her eyes again

"Thank you, I didn't realise how much I needed that until you started; I swear you know better than I do"

"Auch lass, I reckon as we need to take a holiday, Skye should be beautiful this time o' year, can ye get the time off?"

"I should be able to in a couple of weeks, three at the most, for a proper holiday or I can get a few days by the end of the week"

"We'll take the few days for now, you looked exhausted when you got home and it's no a look I like, ye ken?"

"Aye lad, I ken ye well!" The wink she gave me was in invitation to more and much as I wanted to take her up on it, I was sure what she needed most was sleep, I retrieved my script from the floor, pulled her over to my side of the sofa and snuggled her to my side while I continued to read; just a few minutes later I felt her breathing slow and deepen, I paused to kiss the top of her head, eliciting a contented sigh from her, before returning once again to the romantic comedy in my hands.

~~~

"HAMISH!" It wasn't the voice so much as the pain in my cheek where a small female hand had slapped me, that brought me abruptly back to my living nightmare. I tried to grasp the wisps of the memory and let it pull me back into the past but the voice was insistent and the memory wasn't. I opened my eyes and looked into Tara's, the shock wiped all trace of the fog away and I realised Danni had arrived.

"Has he been like this, the whole time?" I gathered she was asking Em or Bob rather than me and the thought flickered across my mind, why make me pay attention if you're just going to talk as though I'm not there, but I didn't have the energy to complain.

"No, he was coping well, he'd crashed obviously, but he was finding his way, hell, he'd even managed a completely natural smile this morning; before the phone call..." Em's voice faded off, a fresh mug of coffee was pushed into my hands, a slug of whisky was added to it in silence and I felt Robert's simple presence as the comfort he offered.

"That must have been quite a shock to your system" The statement was so Bob, he never beat around the bush but found the route and the destination immediately, but on this occasion, I couldn't decide which shock he was talking about.

"Which one Bob? The call, or seeing Tara's eyes looking straight at me?" The room went silent and it occurred to me that the second shock was one they had hitherto had no knowledge of, I tried to smile but something in Bob's face said it wasn't working quite as it should.

"What do you mean, Hamish, pet?" Em's curiosity getting the better of her again

"I mean, I got slapped, heard ma name, and opened m' eyes to find Tara's staring straight back at me; Danni ha' her mother's eyes" The silence that followed my words was deafening and I found myself wanting to fill it. "Aye, the phone call was a shock, it's not every day you find your wife lied to you for god only knows how long, I was tryna spot a moment in a memory, that showed the truth, even if I didna notice it at the time"

"She didn't lie Hamish, she just didn't tell you, you know she hated liars; I think I should know, I've known her the longest" I heard the crack in Danni's voice and suddenly remembered I couldn't fall apart now, Tara's daughter might be an adult now, but she was and always would be her baby, and I was the closest thing she had to a parent right now.

"Auch, never mind me, what about ye, lassie? Do ye need anything?"

"No, I'm good, well, you know, as good as can be expected, she didn't tell me either, you know." A tentative smile nudged at the corner of Danni's mouth, offering a sort of solidarity of ignorance; I raised my whisky coffee in a toast

"To your mother" she raised her empty hand which Em, promptly filled with her own mug

"You've perfected your English accent, at last, I see. To mum." Danni raised her borrowed mug in salute to the person we had both loved more than life.

I closed my eyes as I drank and when I opened them again, Em and Bob had both slipped silently from the room. Danni looked a little lost so I pushed a chair out and she sank onto it

"Thanks Hamish, sorry I slapped you"

"Ye're just like her, she'd ha' done the same and she'd be scolding me now for falling apart every five minutes..."

"No, she wouldn't scold you under these circumstances, I bet she's yelling now though, you know the sort of thing 'TALK to each other!' and generally wanting to knock our heads together; she could be subtle, my mum, but she rarely bothered around me." She reached across the table, offering her hand to give and maybe receive comfort. "how did it happen?"

I recounted that dreadful morning to her as best I could, she squeezed my hand whenever my voice faltered and I somehow got the words out in some semblance of order.

"So it was peaceful at least, that's something I can hold onto." Her voice was shaky but calmer,

"Aye lassie, in her sleep, no pain. I have to talk to her doctor to understand it further, do you want to come along or no?"

"I don't know, I'll think about it a bit if that's ok with you" I nodded and we sat in companionable silence, each thinking of the same woman, each remembering very different sides of her.