The Lie(69)

I don’t bother taking the tube. I want to take my time, as if it’s a ritual, going over every beautiful thing that I remember. Sometimes four years seems like eons ago. Sometimes it’s just like this morning. How could I recall so much and so little at the same time? How can the dead be so close and so far away?

And yet as I walk, with so much pressure on my heart and that heavy weight of time, I think about Natasha. I think about how she should be here with me. I love her. With everything I have. And despite what we were to each other, what our actions may have caused, I want to be with her for as long as I can.

I can’t do this alone. I won’t do this alone. Not anymore. If she’s going to share my life, she has to share every part of it, including the ugly truths that we try so, so hard not to look at. We’re both so afraid to bring up our weaknesses with each other, to talk about what we did, even though we never meant for anything like that to happen. We both tiptoe over the very things that burned us both to the ground, the very things that bond us together. It can’t be ignored anymore.

There is no true peace in ignorance.

I take out my mobile and call her.

“Hi,” she says right away, though her voice is a bit cagey. I hear shuffling and I know she’s trying to be discreet about it around Melissa. That’s one thing we do have to tiptoe around. She seems to think Melissa has it out for me, and I couldn’t agree with her more.

“Listen,” I tell her. “Can you meet me at the Embankment Station?”

“Now?”

“Please.”

“Of course. I’ll come right away.”

I hang up and slow my steps, my breath coming easier to me now.

By the time I work my way across west London to the Embankment Station, I see Natasha popping out onto the street. I quickly wave at her, keeping my flowers low.

She strides over to me, and thankfully her face doesn’t show any sign of expectation that the flowers are for her.

I kiss her softly and show her the flowers and the stickers. “The flowers are for Miranda,” I tell her, hoping it’s not too weird. “Peonies were something she always went nuts for. The stickers are for Hamish. The T-Rex and Stegosaurus were his favorite. He always made them battle. I always wondered what would happen when he got old enough to realize both dinosaurs were millions of years apart and never existed together.”

She gives me a sweet smile, but I can tell she’s been crying. Her eyes are deep, glittering with fatigue. “I’m sure he would have been just as upset over Santa Claus not being real.”

“You’re probably right.”

I take her hand and we walk down to the riverfront, heading under the Golden Jubilee Bridges. The river is dark as sin at night, despite all the shimmering lights. It looks fathomless, the kind of place that holds monsters in its heart.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you,” Natasha whispers to me as we stroll past a few joggers out for their night run, past the barges and boats that hold drunken laughter from lives that don’t have to carry this burden. Light waves lap at the river wall, the air smelling briny and wet, not unlike a damp basement.

“I didn’t expect I’d call,” I admit. “But I realized something, I guess. That no matter how hard this is for me, I don’t want to do it alone. I don’t have to. I have you.”

“Brigs,” she says softly.

“I know,” I tell her. “I know it doesn’t seem right, but it is right. I want a life with you, Natasha. And both of us have suffered so much for what we’ve done. Neither of us wanted this. But it is what it is. And we don’t have much hope in working through it unless we work together. My pain is your pain. Your pain is my pain. We understand each other, we understand this, unlike anyone else.”

She rubs her lips together, nodding. “Are you sure you want me here, though? It’s just so private.”

“It is private,” I tell her. “But darling, you are my private life. I want you in on everything, just as I want to be in on everything in your life. This is deeply personal, and I need to share it with you. It’s the only way out. The only way through.”

We walk for a bit until we come to the golden winged statue of the Royal Air Force Memorial where it overlooks the river like a soldier on guard. Steps lead down to the water’s edge, and across the way, the ever roving wheel of the London Eye looks down on us.

It’s private here. It seems as good of a place as any. Hamish would have been enthralled by the statue, and Miranda would have loved the view of London.

Natasha and I stand beside each other, elbows leaning on the railing. We don’t talk at first. There’s too much to say and not enough words to express them in. I run over in my head everything I loved about them, and when it comes to Hamish, the emotions run away from me, larger than life. Tears immediately poke at my eyes, burning them, and my chest becomes raw and heavy. There’s no way I’m getting out of this without becoming a complete mess.

But Natasha reaches out and holds my pinky finger, just enough contact to let me know that she’s there for me, and somehow it gives me the courage to find my first words.

“We’re here tonight,” I say to the black river, my voice cracking already. “To give our respects to Miranda Harding and Hamish Harding McGregor. They were taken from this world unexpectedly and unfairly, far too soon, on this day, four years ago.” I take in a deep breath, closing my eyes. The air is salty, oily, smelling faintly of sewage. “I don’t think this day will get any easier. I don’t think any day will, as they live in more than just my memory. They live in my dreams and in my heart. They live in my soul, and that’s a place I will gladly keep them. I just wish…I want them to know how sorry I am for everything I ever did to hurt them. I want them to know that I truly did love them, in one way or another. Though Miranda and I had our differences, she was still the mother of my child and I respected that. I would give anything to reach back in time and prevent it all from happening. I wouldn’t have let her near the Scotch. I wouldn’t have let her near Hamish. I would have had the foresight to see this unfolding and hidden her car keys. I would have done anything.”