Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter - much appreciated as always. I seem to be writing quite a lot of angst ridden Sam in this fic, and I agree with ficmouse who mentioned that she is defining herself by how much she has lost. The reason for that will begin to become apparent soon, so please keep reading :)
(Oh and yes, Freya, drunken Sam may have been slightly based on my own experiences with alcohol! Lol).
Here is part 3 of 7.
Snowdrops
Chapter 3
For the first time in over a year she had woken up feeling like Mrs Samantha Keogh, rather than plain old Sam Nicholls. She couldn't help but acknowledge the domesticity of the situation she found herself in as she busied herself on Dylan's boat, but also the irony of how far removed from her former life she now was. She had slept in her ex-husband's bed, stood in her ex-husband's shower, eaten her ex-husband's food and walked her ex-husband's dog, but she had never felt further away from the man himself than she did that morning.
She hadn't been sure if it was the alcohol in her bloodstream that had disrupted her sleep or the fact that whenever she closed her eyes she pictured her husband sleeping next to Zoe in a swanky hotel room, but despite not going to bed until gone midnight she had been awake before 5am.
On opening her eyes Sam had initially been very confused as to her exact location. In the darkness before the dawn broke her husband's bedroom had seemed like an alien environment and the thumping of a hangover induced headache through her brain had prevented her from gathering her thoughts. In fact she had only been brought back to the reality of her situation by the unexpected appearance of shiny doggy eyes in the corner of the darkened room.
Dervla had seemed wary of her when Sam had eventually made her entrance in the middle of the night, but she hadn't established whether the daft dog was attempting some sort of guilt trip for her late arrival or whether it was a lingering resentment against her sudden departure from both Dervla and her master's lives last year. Dylan had been adamant that she was not to have any contact with their dog on her return from Afghanistan and she had reluctantly accepted his wishes, despite how much she had missed the mutt when she's been away. Technically they may have had an equal claim to Dervla's custody but she couldn't stand the thought of separating Dylan from his beloved dog.
The very same dog had steadfastly and stubbornly refused to eat the food Sam had laid out for her the night before and had been an unwilling participant in a walk earlier than morning. Not for the first time Sam considered the truth in the commonly held belief that dogs took after their owners and smiled as she thought of the similarities between Dylan and his "other" wife. The two of them were made for each other in a way that Sam couldn't see Dylan ever being connected with anyone else, except she thought sadly the way he had once been connected to her.
Dervla related issues aside; Sam wasn't sure how she felt at her own presence on Dylan's boat. She had only ever seen the previous model from the outside but she had imagined that it had suited her husband and his lifestyle well. This new boat was both modern and minimalist in look, to the point of reminding her of an Ikea showroom and Sam couldn't help but feel that the style jarred with Dylan's chaotic and cluttered student-like living arrangements. The boat had so far given up no clues as to the reason for its recent arrival nor had she any idea how her husband may have afforded it. She had no concept of how much a boat actually cost to buy and neither her or Dylan were particularly short of money, but they had yet to finish dividing their bank accounts and she was sure she would have noticed if he had spent the entire contents of their savings accounts in the past few weeks. That was definitely a conversation she needed to have with him upon his return, especially as she had so far not made any plans for her own living arrangements past her current lease.
After she had walked Dervla and showered Sam found herself sitting on Dylan's sofa clothed in one of his dressing gowns and with her wet hair hanging limply down her back. Due to her premature awakening it was still shy of 6am so there was no need to leave for work for at least two more hours. On any other day she would have gone into work despite the early hour as there was never a shortage of patients to treat in the E.D. yet as she had reflected the night before, this was her one opportunity to spend time in Dylan's personal space and she was determined to savour every second of it.
She drunk in the contents of the living area, starting to recognise objects and possessions that had been present in the house they once shared. The medical books and journals on the shelves and piled up on the tables were familiar to the home she had once lived in, although the editions themselves were new. Their old living room had been filled with an array of literature on cutting edge emergency medical treatment and the latest clinical diagnoses. They had been the only people she had known who didn't feel the need to own a television; rather they had spent their time studying for exams and progressing their own knowledge away from work.
She noted that there was still no television present at Dylan's current residence, despite the fact she was now the owner of one herself. She had never been someone to watch much TV and she never got caught up in watching dramas, soaps or alike, but programmes provided a strange sense of companionship in her empty flat. The silence of living alone was the worst part of returning home each night after work and the constant chatter of television news was enough to keep her just on the right side of sanity. She'd had to learn to moderate her viewing at times though, because after a traumatic shift her day could deteriorate rapidly on hearing a news report of deaths in Afghanistan. It strangely comforted her that Dylan still had no need for a television set, taking the implication it meant he was relatively happy with Dervla for company and wasn't pining away for an emotional contact with the outside world in the way she recognised that she herself was.
She stood up to look more closely at some of the items cluttering the bookcases that all but filled the small living area of the boat. Her husband wasn't one for holding onto treasured items or displaying precious possessions for visitors to see, so it was fascinating for her to see what pieces had made it onto the shelves and walls of this new boat. Unsurprisingly there were no photographs, although the charcoal picture of Dervla that she had given him for Christmas several years previously was framed and centrally placed. However the other items all appeared to be inconsistent with the Dylan she had thought she knew, with various knick-knacks, glass vases and empty plant pots cluttering the remainder of the space. The man she remembered had hated all the "girly" things she had tried to bring into the house and had killed the only plant they had owned by refusing to water the stupid thing whilst she had been away on a course.
As Sam analysed the contents of the room she realised how little she knew about her husband's current life outside of work. Whilst he was still broadly the same man she recollected, she could see so many little differences from the person she once felt so connected to. These things all seemed small and insignificant individually, such as the glaring red cushions on the sofa when he had always preferred muted colours, yet when she added them together all Sam could do was try to brush off the feeling of despondency she felt at losing her connection to how Dylan's mind worked.
After she had continued to rummage through the living area for a while longer, Sam turned her attention to the kitchen in the realisation that she had not eaten anything since lunchtime the day before. Dylan's fridge was as organised and regimented as ever, as if each item had its own precise location that it could not deviate from. She removed the milk to make herself the coffee she knew would be required before she faced her journey to work and instinctively reached out to the cupboard above the sink to source the coffee and sugar.
It was in the moment that she looked up and saw saucepans rather than the expected jars that Sam felt a sense of sadness wash over her at how far Dylan had travelled away from her since their split. She desperately opened the remainder of the drawers and cupboards in an attempt to offer an explanation as to why everything was turned on its head, yet all she found were more questions than answers. The Keogh household kitchen had been his domain as Sam had never been particularly culinary minded and she had begrudgingly accepted the irritating habit he had of organising the life out of each knife, fork and spoon.
A few years previously she remembered bickering with him about his obsessive behaviour and had changed the kitchen around whilst he had been at work just to annoy him. However rather than argue with her on his return he had instead quietly returned everything to its original location and she had come to love the structure he brought to every part of her life. From that point onwards, it hadn't mattered where they lived the coffee jar had always been in the cupboard above the sink and despite the fact she no longer lived with him she had been sure that her kitchen would match his forevermore. The fact that the coffee now appeared to live two cupboards down had thrown her far more than a single item being out of place ever should have done, yet it was not the item itself but everything it symbolised that was bringing tears to her eyes.
She nearly screamed aloud when Dervla chose that exact moment to startle her by appearing in the kitchen area beside her and tucking into the food that had been left out for her the previous night.
"So now you'll eat it?" Sam questioned, causing her dog flinch slightly at the aggressive tone to her voice and turn to look up at her, big doggy eyes looking incredibly sad. Sam closed her eyes and breathed deeply before fleeing into Dylan's bedroom. She had never once raised her voice to that dog before today and given how apprehensive Dervla had been around her anyway, she figured she had just put pay to any chance she had of having a proper reunion with the animal. Her husband had only asked her to do one thing, which was to look after Dervla yet instead she had spent her time rummaging through his possessions and alienating the only creature in the world right now who might have considered loving her.
Sam sat on the corner of Dylan's bed wishing she could take back her behaviour of the past day. She had been abrupt with her husband, she had gotten drunk despite being abstinent from alcohol and now she had shouted at her dog. Plus every time she closed her eyes she couldn't shake the image of Dylan with Zoe at the hotel and wondered if this was her mind's idea of a perverse payback for her own past indiscretions.
As she sat there she wondered if it was possible for her day to get any worse, but given the still early hour she didn't fancy her chances of making it to midnight without further incident. Of course reaching it to midnight in itself meant she would have to face up to it being Sunday without the one person in the world who would understand how she was feeling and the thought of that was more than she could bear.
It was at that moment she caught sight of a familiar bag in the furthest corner of the room and she scooted over on the floor towards it. She had been correct in her recognition of the holdall, as on closer inspection it was the bag she had handed to Dylan just before her second tour of duty with the clothes she had been wearing the preceding day to her departure inside. In opening the bag she noted that these same clothes were now washed, ironed and packed neatly away like a reminiscence of a former part of her life. She slowly lifted out her jeans, a blue blouse, a couple of strappy tops and a collection of underwear. Underneath the folded clothing were the comfiest pair of slouchy boots Sam ever remembered owning, which had been the only item she had thought had been lost when Dylan had handed her over the case of her possessions upon her arrival back in the UK some months ago.
Sam leant back against the wall in the corner of the room and clutched the boots tightly. They had been a 25th birthday present from her former husband and she had adored them from the moment she had removed their wrapping paper. She was unsure why he had kept the bag or the boots, nor why they were sitting in the corner of his room as if waiting for her to come home, but just holding them made her heart break.
Despite her annoyance at being asked to dog sit at such short notice and with an assumption she would have no other plans, she had been excited about spending time back in Dylan's space and remembering all the happy times they had shared. That had been especially at the forefront of her mind given the upcoming date that was never far from her mind. Yet since her arrival on board, she had felt like an intruder in the home of someone she barely knew. The furniture and possessions may have felt familiar in part, but she had yet to shake the feeling that everything was a little off kilter to her own expectations of his life. This feeling had only highlighted the immense feelings of loneliness Sam was struggling to manage even on a good day.
Dervla plodded into the room at that point, breaking Sam's trail of thought. The guilt at raising her voice minutes before flickered at the back of her mind and she felt the tears start to fall silently down her cheeks. For the briefest of moments there was an intensity of eye contact with her dog that Sam hadn't felt with anyone in the longest time before Dervla trudged over towards her and came to sit half on her lap, resting her head on Sam's arm in a comforting gesture.
Sam, still in her ex-husband's dressing gown and with damp hair strewn across her face, hugged both her once faithful companion and Dylan's last birthday gift to her tightly, as she finally allowed herself to cry.
Thank you once again for reading. Reviews, as always, are welcome.
Part 4 will be uploaded tomorrow. Callie x
