‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘More. Much more.’
He grins. ‘Really?’
I nod.
‘So… if I kiss you now, you won’t make me wait another year and a half before I can kiss you again?’ he asks, his eyes sparkling.
I laugh. ‘Definitely not,’ I reply, tilting my face up to his.
* * *
My heart was full to bursting that Christmas. Things progressed very quickly between us and I lost my virginity to him just before he returned to Italy. We spoke almost every day for the next year and a half, and when he finally graduated from boarding school and returned to the UK, he vowed to never again let his father or anyone else come between us.
He was my person and I would have followed him anywhere. I almost followed him to the other side of the world – Australia was his dream, not mine, but I was willing to go along with his wishes, even though my parents were shattered at the thought of us moving so far away. It’s hard to imagine how I could ever have contemplated leaving my family. Being here with Mum again and seeing Emilie thriving on the farm has made me realise how special my childhood was.
In some ways, I can see now that Theo came between my parents and me. He’d make the occasional jibe about how busy they always were or how much they depended on Jamie. I don’t blame him – when we were younger, he’d watched me grow increasingly frustrated. There was only so much I could take: I hadn’t chosen to foster, my parents had, yet I was suffering all the same.
Once, when I was seventeen, I returned from Becky’s to find that Emma, fifteen, had a knife to my mum’s throat. I called the police, but Emma fled before they came.
Mum was in pieces afterwards – Dad was at the market so I had to put her back together again.
But Emma came back, even after all that. She was so aggressive and abusive that I hated to be in the house with her. I wanted to move in with Becky. I was so sick of coming home and having no idea what I was walking into.
By the time I turned eighteen, I was ready to leave.
Theo made me think that we didn’t need my family and that they didn’t need us. I know he loved my parents, but he was still struggling so much, even to the day he died, about how his own family had failed him. I think he wanted to keep Emilie and me close. He wanted us to himself. We were his people.
I close my eyes and try to picture his face.
I see him in the sunshine on a long white stretch of beach in Brisbane, building a sandcastle for Emilie and letting her knock it down. It was the holiday we’d taken to decide if we could live there, and he spent time visiting the high schools in the area.
I see him standing up here, behind Mini Druid’s Writing Desk in the middle of winter, asking me to marry him. He’d come up the evening before and filled up the hole in the rock with the right amount of water to make it heart-shaped. It had frozen over in the night, so when we came up here together, he asked me to close my eyes before placing the engagement ring on the ice and bending to one knee.
I see him at the table with Jamie and Dani at the party shortly before he died, his face lit by the flame of his cigarette. I remember the déjà vu I experienced, how I felt as though I’d tumbled back in time.
And then there was the feeling of his hands on my waist in the car.
And the worry on his face because he cared about Katy getting home safely.
In my head I can’t help but play back the recurring nightmare I have where I step in front of the door and tell him, ‘No. You will not do this,’ before taking his car keys and hiding them away.
But I didn’t stop him. He left. And shortly after he was gone.
Now it’s time to let him go again.
Very slowly, I unscrew the cap on the urn.
The sight of the coarse grey dust within makes me break down in sobs. Is this really all that’s left of my beloved husband?
No. He lives on in Emilie, I remind myself.
I get to my feet, tears streaming down my cheeks, and walk to the edge of the overhang.
‘Goodbye, my love,’ I whisper.
I let the dust flow.
* * *
I’m lying on my bed, still unable to stop weeping, when Mum knocks on my door.
‘Darling?’
‘Come in,’ I reply in a choked voice.
I sit up in disbelief when I see what she’s carrying. She has my letters to Theo, wrapped in a pink ribbon.
‘Shauna passed these on to me,’ she says, placing them in my hands.
I look down at the name scrawled across the front: Theo White. He changed his surname to mine by deed poll, had no interest in Emilie being a Whittington, and he didn’t want to be different from us either.
There’s no address, or stamp. I sent these letters off into the universe via random post boxes in Ripon – I didn’t expect them to come back to me.
‘Gemma spotted a couple when she was emptying the post,’ Mum says. ‘She passed them on to Shauna. They weren’t sure what to do with them – you’d clearly posted them for a reason – but she’s kept an eye out for them since. I don’t know if they’re all there.’
‘I should have scattered the pages on the wind,’ I mumble, looking down at the bundle.
‘Don’t,’ Mum pleads. ‘Don’t throw them away. And please don’t stop writing to him either. Put them in a box and keep them safe. One day you might want to give them to Emilie. I think she’d like to read about the things you wanted to tell her father.’
I blink back tears, but nod at her.
I’m not ready to emerge from my room yet, so when she leaves, I lie there for a while remembering some of the things I’ve told Theo over the last few weeks, about Emilie, about Mum, even about that hussy alpaca Bramble who snuck off to have sex and is due to give birth in a few months.
But I still haven’t told him about George.
I open my bedside table drawer and pull out my notepad. I’ve written several letters since, but the one I started is still there at the top. Dear Theo, I have to tell you about George…
* * *
I put my pen to paper and take a deep breath.
He’s back in my life and I desperately want to feel happy. The problem is, I don’t know if you’d be at peace with it or not.
He’s different to the boy we knew when we were fifteen. You were both my beautiful broken boys, but you grew up and so did he. I think you’d like him now. Mum has described him as more mellow and she’s right. He’s calmer, more dependable, and he wants to be with me. He’s willing to sacrifice so much to make that happen.
He adores Emilie and he’s good with her. She likes him too. Right now, he’s just George. But in the future, there’s a possibility that she’ll think of him as a father and I hate the thought of that hurting you.
I wish she remembered you, Theo. It’s the one thing I really struggle with. I keep your photograph in her room and she knows you’re her daddy. I’ll continue to talk about you often, whether George is with me or not. I’ll keep your memory alive. I promise you that.
I love you, Theo. I will always love you. And even though I set you free on the wind today, you’re still with me in my heart and always will be.
Leah x