500 More (Chapter 2)
Chapter 2: Grief
She was absolutely certain he was dead. She was no longer able to watch the news and tried to ban herself from Googling. It was no use; she was drawn like a magnet to articles which listed lost life after lost life, atrocity after atrocity. He wasn’t mentioned anywhere.
He had meant to die; he had told her so, he saw no other solution. That was why he had arranged her new identity card, marking her as his wife without a wedding, and somehow made arrangements with John Gray to have her transported here.
John was as tall as Jamie, but slim and dark, rather than broad and fair. She had been surprised to hear his accent, as plummy as her own, having assumed that he would be Scottish too. ‘We went to university together,’ he had said, nonplussed that his best friend’s wife had not known that her husband had gone to university nor that her husband even had a best friend. She had felt the shame crawl up from the pit of her stomach again.
She mourned his loss and the loss of the times they should have had together. Had they ever spoken about his family? He had briefly mentioned a sister, she thought. She should know. He should have known about her mother and father, about her beloved Uncle Lamb.
She mourned for their family, gone before it had even begun. There could be no family house, family dog, days out and proud moments. She had finally begun to believe in the baby. Her body no longer belonged to her, but to the flutters and taps that had grown into wriggles and waves of motion.
She wept at times with fear; he would have had such high expectations for his baby. She hadn’t a clue what to do with infants. She imagined him cradling a tiny bundle in his big hands, pushing a pram and reading stories. He would have brought his children up properly. They would be well-mannered but charming, precocious without being irritating, academic and sporty, good at everything. He’d have been proud of them, proud of her.
She pounded her first against the pillow in a rage of helplessness. The inhabitant of her uterus stretched lazily against their cocoon and she paused, remembering the midwife’s advice. Calm. It was important to stay calm. She rubbed the bump gently and started to sing. ‘Let me tell you that I love him, and that I think about him all the time…’
