Through the counselling sessions I felt able to start to get rid of her things. I started slowly with her clothes and built up to other stuff but I kept her memories, I kept them safe for her and anyone else who may want to see them one day. I took down our wedding picture that hung over the fireplace, that was too much. I stored her phone and other personal items deep in the depths of what was her underwear drawer.
Over eight months I managed to make the house mine, I managed to see her things as both of ours and let them ease some of the pain. I still struggled to keep it tidy, I didn’t change the sheets as often as she did or manage to keep the washing from being a constant pile of discarded shit but I coped, I moved forward.
I missed her being next to me, and I missed her laughing at my stupid jokes. I missed holding her when I was sad or hungover or just horny. I tried to tell myself that one day I’d heal, that I’d get over it and that every day wouldn’t start with me remembering she was gone.
I was still waiting.
The door had remained closed the whole time, the only room in the house that I hadn’t trampled with my shit. The room she had spent hours in, the one we argued profusely over her decorating.
“It’s too soon,” I yelled at her as she came home with paint and artwork that I refused to go to buy with her. I’d give anything to go on those shopping trips now.
“I want to be prepared for this baby!” she’d shouted back in her feisty, Scottish accent, “it’ll be here before you know it.”
“What if she changes her mind?” I yelled, placing my hands on her shoulders, “you’ll be crushed, we need to take this one step at a time.”
She shrugged me off her shoulders, instead she poked me in the chest with a long, manicured nail. “I am doing Matt, the first step was conception and the second was the twelve week scan and the third was twenty weeks and we only have twenty left!” she raged. “Not that you would know, you’ve been to no appointments and showed zero interest and I’m doing everything!” she screamed.
“I told you, Jem,” I added defeated, “I’m doing this for you but it’s a wild arse idea and I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“This is our baby Matt, this is our chance.” She hardened her stare and my heart dropped at the way the issue had already driven such a thick wedge between us. She was rail thin and the hatred radiated off her in waves as she tried for the hundredth time to get me on board.
“It won’t be yours at all though, will it Jem? It’ll be mine and some other woman!” I raged, “it’s not our dream, this was far from my fuckin’ dream.”
She pinched her lips together and tried to push me out of her way, her tiny body was no match for my hardened gym physique. The years before I’d released my frustrations in the gym, finding a hobby where I wasn’t confronted daily with the sadness bestowed upon my wife due to her useless lady parts. I was a solid mass but moved out of her way as she huffed through to the spare room door.
The day I decided to see Ivy, I finally opened that door. After eight months of not stepping foot inside I noticed how the dust had muddied all her hard work. I sat on the white glider chair that was now greying with almost a year’s worth of neglect. I roamed my eyes around the room and saw the light grey walls and a little lamb freeze that she had thrown up all by herself. The white changing table and white crib all constructed and ready. She had so much faith in Penelope, so much faith that she would deliver and that a little life would live in this room and I hadn’t helped one bit.
As I glanced around I knew that Penelope tried to fill this room, she asked me after Jemma’s death what my plans were and how we would go on and I ignored her as long as I could. Penelope was true to her word but she still expected her twenty grand and I didn’t want anything to do with their weird agreement, not without Jemma.
Sitting in the empty nursery, looking at all Jemma’s hard work and remembering how I berated her for it made me feel shame, pure shame. It was one thing to shout and scream at my wife and let all my anger and hurt spill out as venom to burn her but it was another to deny the one thing that she had always wanted, our child.
Had Jemma not died I would have loved that little person, I would have loved her with everything and she would have fixed us, God knows we needed it. We needed her and she just came that little bit too late.
Shame made me contact Penelope but love for my wife would make me be a good dad to Ivy despite the fact that her mother is a stranger and that she’ll never get the chance to know how amazing her intended mother really was.
Words said in anger are so hard to unsay, I just hoped that wherever Jemma was that she trusted the years of love I gave her rather than the final months of hurt.
Chapter 13 - Seven Months Old
Penny
SO MATT BECAME A regular Sunday afternoon visitor to my tiny flat. That first day in the park we’d walked round, made awkward small talk whilst he held Ivy and finally pushed her on the swings. He seemed so sensible and settled compared to me, he slipped into the conversation that he was thirty-six and I daren’t even say I was only twenty-five. It was bad enough that I felt so unworthy in so many other ways but lacking age and experience was another straw to add to breaking the camel’s back.
Matt told me about his job, his life seemed to revolve around the gym and work and not much else. We discussed a few TV programmes he watched but I didn’t have Sky or Virgin and so I could only really comment on the reality TV. After a cold, blustery hour I suggested we have a coffee at the cafe in the park and he agreed.
We sat facing each other, me giving Ivy crumbs of the cake he’d bought and both of us sipping our lattes in deathly silence. It was horrendous and when he asked if he could see her the next week my stomach dropped, I couldn’t face another awkward encounter but didn’t really want him having her alone until I knew him better. So I invited him to my flat.
“I can get some jobs done whilst you spend time with her,” I said as casually as I could, strapping her into the carrier. He already knew where I lived so I didn’t see the harm. He nodded.
“Thanks Penelope,” he added graciously.
“Penny,” I told him, swallowing hard and trying my best at a friendly smile.
“Penny,” he nodded and then Ivy and I turned and walked away.
The week after he turned up at the flat at the agreed time of 1pm. He was wrapped in his expensive blue puffa coat and he gave me another awkward nod. Ivy was happy enough to see him, although it was only the second time they had officially met. I sat her in her jumparoo, a Christmas gift from Gail and Jim, he sat opposite her on the sofa, making faces as soon as he sat down. She laughed and he was content with that.
“Drink?” I asked.
“Um, coffee?” came his reply in a question.
“Sure, milk? Sugar?”
“Just milk,” he rasped out and I cringed, how long was he planning to stay? I made the coffee, myself a tea and placed it on the small side table by the sofa within his reach but not Ivy’s.
“Thanks,” he uttered.
“I’m going to do some washing,” I told him, “so I’ll just stay out of your way and you call me if you need me.”