The Letters (Carnage #4)(2)

I watch the lights of the A13 pass by as we head away from City Airport and back towards Essex, to my home, my wife, my children, my world.



By the time I walk through my front door, it’s almost four in the morning. I need to be inside my wife. One week is far too long to go without feeling her skin against mine. I’ve gone beyond tiredness by this stage, so I head straight through the house towards the kitchen. I’ll have a coffee and some toast and then go wake my wife up with coffee with my extra special cream and a kiss … from my dick.

I take my shoes off so they don’t make noise on the hardwood floor. I’m home a day and a half early, and I don’t wanna be scaring the crap outta Georgia.

Walking down the hallway towards our family room, I pass my office first and then Georgia’s. We tried sharing, but I find her too untidy and distracting. Every time she leant forward or bent over, I’d end up f*cking her and neither of us ever got any work done. I ended up moving the gym out to the pool house and turning the extra room into a separate office for Georgia. I had it soundproofed, too. Georgia likes to listen to music when she works, I like silence.

I stop in my tracks and take a step back as I see a light shining from the slightly open door to my wife’s office. Still holding my shoes in my hand, I push the door open slowly and take a look inside.

Georgia’s office is the complete opposite of mine. Where I have a huge wooden desk facing the door, Georgia has a deep ledge against the window that she works from with her back to the door. My walls have a couple of pieces of art I’ve collected over the years by Peter Granville Edmunds and my bookshelves have pictures of Georgia, myself, and the kids on them.

Georgia’s office furniture is made from what looks like drift wood, she has one wall painted with a pop art looking piece. It’s black and white and divided into squares. Each square is a continuation of the picture in the adjoining square. In the centre is a re-joined image of us kissing, around the edges are pictures of the kids. It sounds like a complicated mess, but the impact knocks my breath away every time I step into the room. On the opposite wall, she has the kids’ heights marked out, starting from the time they could stand. The rest of the wall is covered in ours and the kid’s handprints, and each one has something written in the palm: Love. Trust. Live. Family. Laugh. Be kind. Be honest to yourself. I love you all are just some of the words and phrases that jump out at me. Every time I look at this wall it gives me a lump in my throat. On the walls on either side of the door are the gold, silver, and platinum awards Carnage has won over the years, and on the shelves on either side of the window where her desk sits are the awards she’s won for all of her charity work, framed photos of us and the kids, and drawings the kids have made for her. Her office is all family, mine more professional-looking, which sometimes makes me feel like a bit of an old fart.

Georgia’s office is never tidy, but right now, the mess is off the charts. There’s what looks like an old tea chest, or packing crate sitting in the corner and piles of documents and books on every surface. I look at the floor, and my heart rate speeds up when I see her.

Kitten.

She’s lying flat on the floor in a pair of shorts and an old Carnage T-shirt. Her hair is piled on top of her head, and she has her pink Beats covering her ears.

She has a piece of paper pressed against her chest, and she’s crying. She makes no sound, there are no facial expressions, just tears. They track from the corners of her eyes, into her ears, around her neck, and into her hairline.

I fight the urge to go to her, to sweep her up and hold her tightly in my arms. To rock her and tell her to hush, that everything will be all right, because it won’t.

She’s crying for him. Her lost love.

She’s crying for them. Her lost babies.

And there’s nothing I can do or say to make it better.

There was a time when I would have gladly taken their places. When I would’ve given my life for theirs just to bring the light back into her eyes, but not now. Now, I’m a dad. Sacrificing myself for them would mean my, our children, wouldn’t exist. So, now I say nothing when she has her bad days. I just reassure her that she’s not a bad person.

Does it hurt? Of course it f*cking does. I’m only human.

I’m always aware of when Georgia is having her bad days. I know that there’s a part of her that will forever mourn Sean and the babies they lost. I know my girl, though, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that even when she cries for them, she loves me with everything she has.

I’d be a f*cking liar if I say I don’t feel just a little stab of jealousy when she has her meltdown moments and cries for the loss of another man—a man she loved with all her heart until she met me and gave me a piece of it too. A man she left me for and went on to marry. A man she cheated on with me when she let me f*ck her senseless against my office door. A man she refused to leave so we could be together. I learnt a long time ago that being jealous of a dead bloke is futile and a complete waste of energy.

I know Georgia struggles with her guilt, and I understood that. Yet, neither of us could change the tragic events that afflict our pasts; twisted, bent, and moulded our futures; and then ultimately led us back to each other. What I can do is hold her when she cries and reassure her it is okay to let the tears flow. She loved him for most of her life and it is okay to still love him now to cry for her loss.

I knew when I married her there would always be a piece of her heart I could never mend. A piece that will always belong to them, but it’s part of what makes her Georgia, and I wouldn’t change her for the world. We both had to kick, bite, and claw our ways from the deepest depths of hell to find what we have now. It was hard, but we did it—against the odds, we f*cking did it.