Absolution(95)

“My life’s been on hold since the accident. This is as much a part of her recovery as rehab was.”

“You’re a good man.” Emotion heavily overlaid the words. “She’s lucky to have you in her corner.”

“Same goes for you.”

Tom picked up the brochure again, scrutinising it. “You’re right. This could change everything.”





CHAPTER 17




“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’”

- Eleanor Roosevelt




The pain in Jack’s soul had reached saturation point. Sitting at Ally’s kitchen table earlier, sharing a quiet coffee among awkward small-talk, Callum and Maggie desperately trying to lighten the mood, all he could think about was how close he had come to losing her.

She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. He wanted to take her in his arms again but he had the feeling that it was all too little, too late.

When she excused herself from the table, he made his escape. He didn’t remember getting into his car and driving away. When he finally stepped back to reality, he was driving the streets aimlessly, with no real sense of what to do or where to go. He just wanted it all to stop.

The look of utter despair on Ally’s face refused to leave him. It was real this time, not the imagined scenarios he had conjured up to torture himself with over the years. This was far worse. He recalled with vivid clarity the way she looked as she lay in the ICU that night, the fluorescent light above her bed bathing her in that peculiar eerie glow. It didn’t feel like four years ago. It felt like it was happening right now, all over again and the pain was just as intense now as it had been then.

It was perfectly clear to him now why Callum was riding him so hard. He was right, about everything. He had a lousy track record, and Ally had already fought her way back from the brink once. What was his role in her suicide attempt? She didn’t spell it out for him in so many words, but his mind went there anyway. Was it his fault, because he wasn’t here? It didn’t matter. Either way, he was guilty as hell.

He pulled in to the almost deserted parking lot outside the cemetery. He had no idea why he was here but the hidden fingers of grief reached towards him from beyond the cemetery gates, and he realised that it made sense, somehow. He was grieving – for Ally, for his father, for the lost friendships and the part of his life and himself he would never get back.

The cemetery stared back at him sombrely, offering no comfort.

He switched off the car’s ignition and as the engine died, a hush suddenly filled the void. It cloaked him, throwing an invisible blanket over him so dense he felt like he was suffocating. His lungs burned as the silence around him thickened like a living, breathing entity, growing and gnawing at him.

Ally’s voice filled the vacuum in his head as he relived their conversation, snatching snippets here and there and beating himself with them as if they were weapons. In the brief conversations he had had with his father over the past few years, none of this had been mentioned. He gripped the steering wheel tighter.

Why? Why didn’t he tell me? Why did he keep this from me?

The answer blazed through his consciousness.

Because I told him I didn’t want to know.

He felt like screaming. Callum’s words came back to him, grabbing him by the throat. What would he have done if he had known then what was happening? Would he have come back? He saw Ally as Callum had seen her that day – lying on her bed, quiet and still and waiting for death to claim her.

The truth did so much more than just hurt. The agony gouged at him, leaving a gaping wound. Now he knew why he had stayed away so long. Torturing himself with the unknown for all this time was one thing – but hearing the reality was another matter entirely. He gripped the steering wheel until his fingers were numb and he closed his eyes, willing the pain to stop.

Help me. Please?

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d prayed.

What he did remember was attending church with his parents when he was younger, sitting between them with his neatly pressed dark trousers and crisp baby blue shirt. He would sit with his father on the back doorstep on Saturday afternoon and they would polish their shoes together, him taking as much care as a child of his age could, his father overseeing his clumsy ministrations with the polish and rag. His mother fussed over his hair every Sunday, smoothing it and brushing down the stray ends and the wisps at his crown that refused to lie flat. All the while, he would grimace but not dare move. He knew this was important. Going to church on Sunday was an Event.