Mood music
I Won't – Richards Walters, Limits – Arctic Lake, People Change – Machineheart, Life Support – Kris Angelis, Bad Liar – Imagine Dragons, Only Autumn–Eliza Elliott, Let It All Go – Rhodes & Birdy.
Chapter Fourteen
Bravery is the choice to show up and listen to another person, be it a loved one or perceived foe, even when it is uncomfortable, painful, or the last thing you want to do. ― Alaric Hutchinson
Charles wrapped his fingers around his second untouched beverage of the morning–something that was pretending to be coffee– and let his gaze drift across the posters on the wall behind Molly's determinedly turned away from him profile. A poster featuring cartoon bugs and the smiling face of a male doctor offered to inform him about flu facts versus flu fiction. He was almost willing to take it up on the offer, because just about anything would be better than the strained atmosphere stretching between them.
Avoidance would have been the easier path, instead he looked at her down-turned head with a masochistic sort of inevitability. It was like watching a car crash happen–knowing that something awful might be about to occur and at the same time being completely unable to look away. Molly had always been his inevitability, what she might say next was potentially the accident he could not look away from.
On the tortuously silent walk from Marge's hospital room to the café, Molly had let her hair down from its former uniform dress-code neat French Plait. Now sat across a table from each other, she was using her loose hair to hide behind such that he couldn't see her expression properly, but the death grip she had on the undrunk mug of tea in front of her spoke loudly enough without words. Her whole body-language screamed tension.
Once upon a time he would have held her in his arms and said, "Come on, just speak to me," but it wasn't that simple between them anymore. He couldn't read Molly when once she'd been an open book to him, and he was left with unanswerable questions and very little connection or invitation into his wife's life. Getting her to be here at all had been a major, Marge Smith sponsored, miracle.
Bridling a sigh, Charles broke the silence because somebody had to be the first to speak.
"So, your course..." he said, voice oddly hoarse, forcing him to clear his throat before continuing. "Nursing. Amazing achievement."
In response, Molly's body language uncoiled, as though his words had reanimated her and she turned her mug of tea around, curling her fingers around the handle and lifted to her lips with slow, deliberate movements.
Charles recognised her fiddling with the drink for what it was–a keeping busy sort of a gesture. The tea had to be at best tepid but likely, worst, stone cold, but Molly took two large swallows. Charles hid his inappropriate, for the moment, humour when he saw her face scrunch up fleetingly with disgust. Her show of stubbornness gave him a weird sort of comfort because it meant, despite all the pain he'd caused, Molly had come out of still true to herself. There was a strength in her stubbornness that had always been all her own.
"It seemed like a good next step." she replied carefully, laying the mug down and lifting her eyes to his.
"Enjoying it?"
"Yes."
"Getting on with your new C.O?"
"Yes."
Molly's response reminded Charles of the formal and polite answers from soldiers to a higher-up handing out medals.
Looking forward to getting home, sir...
Enjoyed the mission, Sir...
Carefully worded answers providing the right answer rather than the actual answer.
Molly shifted in her seat, and Charles watch her gaze slide towards the exit and he recognised that keeping their awkward as death conversation going was his only hope at getting her to stay and maybe talk about something more meaningful.
"Always thought you might go down the Senior CMT route."
"Why?" Molly replied. Her body language suddenly straighter, as she drew herself into a small tight shape against the back of her chair.
Unsure why he'd cause such a reaction, Charles paused not knowing what the right thing to say was, only that he'd somehow said the wrong thing about something that should have been a very benign subject.
"I don't know..."
Sitting up straighter himself, Charles gave himself a mental slap, because he was making a clumsy mess of this conversation and he could not afford to fuck this up.
"You've always been capable of taking on more," he said with more confidence. "I just thought being out in the thick of things as a Medic was more your bag than in a field hospital or NHS unit."
"Yeah, well people change, don't they?"
It was on the tip of his tongue to say not that much because they'd had this conversation before, about career aspirations and what life outside of the Army might look like for them both. Molly's thoughts had been around progression towards a Senior CMT role maybe with a view to working as a paramedic.
"I guess they do."
Then he realised the mistake he'd made because he'd been the one to change, hadn't he? Everything in Molly's life had changed as a result. Neither of the them were the same. Right in front of him, Molly's expression shifted from stoically neutral to angry and he braced himself accordingly.
"The roses?"
"First flowers I ever gave you."
"Freesias?"
"Where in your wedding headdress and bouquet."
"Tulips?"
"The first weekend we ever went away together was to Amsterdam–"
"You think I don't remember all that? That I've got some sort of faulty memory or something?" Molly said, her voice exploding across Charles' calm response. Not quite shouting, but loud enough to draw attention from the occupants of several of the tables close by.
"No, of course not."
"Of course not," she repeated sarcastically before swing around to deliver the stink-eye to a woman at one table who had blatantly turned in her seat and was now openly staring. She turned back around in response to Molly's glaring.
"I wish I didn't remember all of it." Molly said, voice quieter as she rubbed her hand across her face, as though trying to compose herself. "The napkin. That was a low bloody blow".
"That was never my intention."
"Just what was your intention, exactly?"
"You wouldn't speak to me. I wanted to remind you we had three–nearly four– amazing years together–"
"I might question your maths there."
"Does it matter?"
"Suppose not. It was all worth nothing in the end."
"You've never been nothing to me."
"Replaceable then."
"Or that. Look, maybe I went about things the wrong way."
"You think?"
"I wanted you to talk to me. Break this wall of silence you've built."
Molly's eyebrows rose challengingly at his use of 'you've built' and Charles tried to back track to a use less inflammatory language.
"That we've both contributed to." He leaned in towards her across the table, his voice urgent. "We can't keep ignoring what happened between us. We need to talk!"
"Well I'm here now. What do you want to talk about?"
"Us. You. Your life now. Lessons learnt. Anything…" he said, running an agitated hand through his hair "Just, please, don't shut me out again."
"Anything?" she said with a challenging tilt to her head that was all about defensive defiance. "Lessons learnt?"
"Anything." he replied and he meant it because honesty was about all he had left to offer.
"I'll tell you one lesson I learnt." Her voice was cold, hostile with temper. "That my expectations on happy ever afters were hollow. That loving someone with everything that you have in you is never enough and that relying on anyone but yourself is reckless, damaging and downright fucking stupid. That's what I learned."
"Bit like the way you left me feeling before I left for Belize, when you told me I needed to leave you."
The words were out of his mouth, hostile and accusing before he had a chance to stop them. He'd expected her to use attack an as a defensive response, almost school himself to be ready for it, but his own defensive snapped back response caught him by surprise. Like another person had said the words on his behalf, but there was no proxy sitting at the table with them. The words and sentiments were all his own.
Molly practically recoiled in response; eyes wide with hurt for the beat of a few seconds before they were suddenly guarded again.
"Look I'm sorry, I didn't mean–"
"Yeah you did. And I get it. We both played a part in this. I know I sent you off to Belize with my doubts in your head, but everything after was all you."
"I know."
"Why did you start texting her at Headley? I never could get my head round that. I was there, from the minute they medevacked you into Birmingham." Molly said, her voice cracking. "I was scared to death, but I was right there by your side, and you went and done that."
He reached for her hands automatically, responding to the pain her voice by wanting to offer comfort. Molly moved just as fast, tucking her hands away in her lap under the table as she looked away from his intense gaze. Instead, casting her gaze around the room as though she could quite manage to look at him in that moment.
"Actually, don't answer that, I don't want to know because it doesn't bloody matter anymore, does it?" she said, shoving back from the table, chair scrapping across the floor with the force of the movement. "None of it matters."
He was on his feet as fast as she was anticipating her bolting, then following her as she beat a retreat out of the café, catching her up in the corridor by the exit, with a hand or her arm as a gentle restraint. He steered them out of the flow of people coming in through the main entrance to stand to side by the wall.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped." he said, letting go of her arm before she had a chance to pull away.
"Wasn't as though I was exactly being quiet." she replied, her eyes looking beyond his shoulder to the entrance of the café.
Charles turned to see what she was looking at and caught the eye of the woman who'd been staring at them earlier as she walked out off down the corridor casting furtive looks over her shoulder. He moved instinctively, blocking Molly protectively from the view of the noisy busy-body with his shoulders as Molly stood leaning against the wall.
"I don't care about any of that. Not one bit. Be a loud as you like. Just please, stop running, Molly."
Molly studied his face silently for several seconds, leaving Charles wondering what she saw in his features. Her expression was oddly calm. A complete contrast to her earlier outburst.
"I won't run."
His relief at her response had him shutting his eyes for the briefest moments as he struggled to collect himself.
"Thank you. Can we go outside, maybe walk and talk?" he asked, indicating with his hand for her to precede him.
She headed out, crossing the road by the Ambulance bay towards a patch of grass at the side of a carpark. They walked side by side towards a nearby park type bench set to the side of a small flower border between the lawn and the road. Recently vacated by a smoker, the smell of cigarettes hung in the air as she sat down. Charles followed, angling his body towards hers despite the way Molly had her body turned away in comparison.
"I told Georgie in the jungle all the reasons why I was losing you. How I couldn't function at home. That you said I needed to leave you."
"I said you needed to get help or leave."
"That wasn't what I managed to get my head around at the time. I told her the uniform was the only thing holding me together at work."
"Yeah, well maybe we were both guilty of hiding behind the uniform back then."
"Perhaps."
Molly sighed. "I don't think either of us were seeing things, or each other clearly. Were we?"
"No. I guess we weren't."
"What else did you tell her?"
"Just that really." He signed. "My head was messed up with the fever was setting in but it seemed so simple at the time. Logical. We'd both lost the people that matter the most to us." He paused, trying to read Molly's expression as she stared off into to middle distance. "I suggested maybe we could build something together. Maybe make something out of all that lose."
She flinched. It was subtle. No subtle that a stranger might have missed the infinitesimal tightening of her facial muscle, but Charles read it easily and regret it the minute his words caused her pain.
"You still had me. You still had me and you were offer her that?"
"It wasn't logically, or even rational but it was what happened."
"Then I woke up in hospital in Birmingham and you were there telling me it was going to be okay. Telling me you loved me. It was like some sort of miracle because in despite all the ways I'd fucked things up between us you were there when I needed you."
For the first time since they had sat down, she turned to face him.
"I tried so hard to be careful to say the right things, not to push you. To be supportive and you seemed to need me, at least at first. For a while it felt like I'd gotten you back. Then you got stronger and started talking about getting back to work and I could see it all happening again. The silences, distance."
"I'm not sure when it switched in my head… and I know I didn't see things clearly back then, but to me you seemed so guarded, withdrawn. Like you were there out of duty because I'd messed up and got myself injured."
"I was never there out of duty. You removed yourself from me emotionally inside your own head, just like it happened before and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."
"I know, Molly. I'm sorry that I ever saw it that way. Things might have been so different if I just swallowed by pride and got help sooner or been able to see things more clearly before you left for Afghanistan again."
"Is there any point dragging it all up again? You can have regrets, but they won't change anything. It's pointless."
"We need to talk about but this. Why? To make you feel better? Because it sure as shit isn't making me anything like good."
"Where did it go so wrong between us?" he asked, his voice vulnerable. "We used to be so good at communicating with each other, right from the start. Rank, backgrounds, none of it mattered. I was drawn to you because just talking to you could make everything right in my day. We lost that somewhere along the way."
"You're asking the wrong person. I don't have the answers. Nan says it's just the shit in life that got in the way."
"Simplistic but truthful analysis."
"All I know is it felt like we were strangers. Like I didn't know my own husband anymore and I've never felt lonelier in my life."
"I'm sorry–"
She held her hand up, asking without words for him stop the using the word sorry. It didn't help. It wasn't constructive and she heard it too many times for it to have any meaning anymore beyond being just another word.
"Do you ever wonder, if Elvis hadn't died, if we'd still be together?"
"You don't think we would?" Charles asked, clearly confused by her doubts.
"Us ending made me look at a lot of things I thought were solid in my life. It rocked everything I believed in. Why wouldn't it make me think that? There were so many reasons why we shouldn't have worked and only a few why we could."
"I never believed that. Didn't I tell you that, show you that a hundred different ways when we were together?"
"Yeah, you did and I believed you."
"Until I didn't show you anymore."
Tucking her hair behind her ears, she shrugged. "Something like that."
"It wasn't that I didn't love you. The PTSD was like being in the eye of a hurricane. The numbness, detachment gives a kind of fake calm. It removes you from the reality of your world and life being smashed to bits around you. When the world stops spinning and the numbness falls away all you have left is the wreckage."
"You lost Elvis, probably the most important person in your life after Sam. I understood all that. How it changed you. The pain. Your guilt. All I wanted to do was be there for you. Instead of turning to me you turned away."
"Elvis wasn't the most important person in my life. You were, you and Sam both. But you're right that losing Elvis changed me. I wasn't who you feel in love with or who Sam knew as a dad. The shell that was left wasn't worth needing. That's how I felt."
"I asked you to get help. Over and over again, I asked."
"I know but all I heard was that I should leave you, that maybe we didn't have a future, you were having doubts. It seemed pretty clear that you didn't need me. I didn't pursue Georgie because I didn't love you anymore. By then I thought I'd already lost you and then I did lose you."
"And you had Georgie warmed up, ready and waiting for you in Bangladesh."
"It wasn't like that."
"You keep saying that."
"I know and I know it sounds like a constantly making excuses for the inexcusable."
"You were a free agent by that point. I said things were over before you and her got physical." Molly shrugged. Her attempt at being casual about the most hurtful event in her life. "You can have a clear conscience."
"I'll never have a clear conscious. I was a coward. I run away from our marriage but I was never running towards Georgie to replace you. She was never a better option. You were all I wanted, are all I want."
"So, you say."
"I don't know what else to do or say to convince you."
"I decided I needed to hear both sides of the story. I contacted Georgie."
She'd said it to challenge him. Expecting to force him onto the proverbial back foot. Instead he looked relieved.
"Good. That's good."
"Why?"
"Maybe she can convince you. I've never lied to you. I destroyed everything between us, but I never lied." Molly grimaced then laughed humourlessly and Charles watched helplessly as pain chased across her face before being hidden behind an unsmiling mask.
"Like a miracle? Is that how you put it? The second chance, come to Jesus accident. Fuck, but I was a naïve idiot because it was already too late by then, wasn't it? Your head had already turned towards Georgie."
"Yes, and no. My judgement was beyond fucked up by then. I was struggling to feeling much of anything but lost. You seemed so distant. Things between us seemed impossibly broken. I was losing Sam. Work was the only solid thing I seemed to have. Georgie was part of that and all mixed up with the loss of Elvis. I'm not trying to justify what happened later, but that was my thought process at the time. If it could even be given any form to be called a process. I was drowning. Working was a life-line, Georgie was someone who'd lost what I'd lost. A common bond. Then you went back to Afghan and left me."
"And you ran off to Bangladesh, just like you'd done when you went to Nigeria and Belize."
"Yes." he replied, his tone quiet in contrast to rising anger in Molly's.
"I'd read the texts. You asking her to contact you, visit, to talk about what you'd shared in the jungle. I know she didn't reply but you were clearly pushing for more. Was it any surprise I ran? Maybe work was all I thought I had that was solid anymore."
"I know. I'm not trying to justify it. I just trying to explain."
Molly nodded tensely. A silent indication that he should continue.
"Then the emails and the phone calls started. You were having doubts. Maybe we didn't have a future. It just solidified by belief that what we had was too broken and you wanted out."
"All I wanted was one tiny sign from you that you want us to try to fix things. Anything. I would have accepted anything. The tiniest crumble of hope. Instead all you gave me was emotionlessness and avoidance."
"I wasn't capable of giving you anything else. The emotion wasn't there to show, but do you really think I was any different under the weight of all that?" he asked, his voice cracking. "All you gave me were you doubts. All my own head was giving me was anxiety that I was dragging you down with me. That you were already gone. That you wanted out. We were both struggling with the same things and the doubts and the distance meant neither of us could see it."
"And that's were Georgie came into things."
"What can I say to make you understand? It wasn't about replacements, it was about comfort, I suppose, finding a connection again. Course it was flawed logic. I realised that after the cliff jump. Me fucking things up again. I couldn't connect with anyone any better than she could. We were both too…damaged."
We both had PTSD and we were both denying it… Georgie's words from their meeting in the cemetery came back to Molly in a silent rush of memory and realisation that it all started and ended with Elvis. It always had.
"I wonder what Elvis's reaction to this would have been." Molly said, but without heat. The thought having passed through her mind and out as words before she could silence them. Talking about Elvis hurt Charles, she knew that but despite all the pain and angry between them, her question wasn't meant to wound.
Surprisingly it was wry humour rather than pain reflected on his face.
"The delivery of a bloody good thrashing, I'd imagine.
"Then he'd get some sort of booze out."
"Yes, Tequila or Jack Daniels probably."
"And he'd have talk it out with you, wouldn't he?"
"Yep, he would. You know, right back to when were at school together. I was supposedly the sensible one out of us, but he was always the one with the heart."
The glaze of tears in his eyes was easy to see, but when he'd once have hidden from her, he didn't try to hide it from her now. The naked emotion was loud in his dark brown eyes and that easy display of it meant emotion meant he had, as he'd said, healed.
"I still miss him, you know? Every bloody day."
"I know. I miss him too."
"I miss you as well even more."
"Charles–"
"I know, I know you don't want to hear more of the same sentiments. You've heard them before but can you at least tell me you feel the same?"
"You want the brutal truth?"
"I always want to hear the truth from you."
"I try not to think about you at all. That works sometimes but I do miss, us… what we used to have and missing you is part of that. But that's gone. It can't be the same again. So, trying not to think about it at all is what I keep on trying because the rest of it is just path to madness, ain't it?"
He leaned forward, dropping his clenched hands between is knees and studying the ground and his feet as though they were suddenly fascinating. A muscle jumping in his jaw illustrated how tense he was suddenly.
"Are you happy at least? Can you tell me that much?"
"I'm not sure I know what happy means anymore." she said and watched as he looked up at her again with pain darkening his eyes.
Molly realised her unfortunate choice of words too late because she honestly hadn't been aiming for a cheap, hurtful shot but it only seeing his reaction that she realised his reasons behind the question. The first promised he'd made right at the very beginning of them. That all he wanted to do was make her happy.
"I'm not saying that to be cruel. What I mean is I'm not sure if a recognise the difference between getting on with life and being happy. The two kinda blurred into each other. Getting on with things while trying to be happy, it felt the same."
"Mutually assured destruction."
"I might need to take your word for that. Too many big words."
He laughed, inappropriately and without true humour and a roll of his eyes that suggested he didn't really believe in her confessed lack of understanding.
"I mean you can't be happy unless you keep going and you can't keep going unless you can ultimately be happy at some point. "
"Something like that, I suppose."
He was back to studying his feet again. "That wasn't…What I'm trying to ask is if you've managed to find happiness with anyone else since… we've been apart for a year. I'd understand if you–"
Molly wasn't sure if she wanted to shake him or shoot him. What right did he have to judge or give permission?
"How very magnanimous of you."
"Am I coming across as a prick?"
"A bit, but you're right, there was somebody else, after we ended."
"That's fair. We weren't together."
"For fucks sake, Charles. What right do you have–"
"I know, I don't. I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm making a mess of this. That wasn't what I meant."
"Really? What exactly do you mean? I don't need your permission or approval."
"I'm sorry I making a fool of myself. I saw the photos on your phone and I know I shouldn't pry, it's just hard to accept."
"Bit like you and Georgie."
"I can imagine."
"No, you can't. You really can't."
"Molly. I understand about you and Geddes."
Molly laughed bitterly. "There is no me and Matthew Geddes. There is, however, a Jackie and Matthew Geddes. If you'd dug a bit deeper into my phone, you'd have found the photographic evidence of just how together they both are."
"I'm sorry."
"You keep saying that."
"His name was Oliver. He was an Australian Army Doctor on a training exchange the summer after I moved to Birmingham."
She watched him swallow deeply, hand tugging at the hair at the back of his neck as he stood. Walked a tense circle away from the bench and then returned to her side once he seemed to get himself under control again.
"I'm glad you had somebody."
"Are you? I'm not sure I believe you."
Despite his reasonable tone, passive words and calm demeanour he looked like each word was like swallowing glass. Molly took in his pained expression with considered thought. Her fling with Ollie had been just that; a fling–light, drama free, meaningless– because the man sitting opposite had taught her what it meant to have more with a someone else and what it meant when that sort of deep connection shattered. She'd neither asked for or been capable of anything deeper. Her wounds inflected from the end of her marriage meaning that nothing deeper between them was likely to thrive, even if either of them had been looking for more.
Molly stood, unsure whether to expand on the subject or not. The expression on his face suggested he wanted to listen, even if he wasn't finding the subject an easy one.
"He asked me out, and I said yes. Wasn't much more complicated than that. Then he went home and it was over. So, if you've been being an arse to Matthew at work, you can stop now."
"As he said as much?"
"No, but we both know you've got a jealous streak. Always did."
"I can't argue that point."
"No, you can't can you."
"I haven't singled him out a such. Been avoiding him, if I'm honest." A faint flush of red stained his cheek bones. "What is they say? Assumption makes an ass our of you and me?"
Despite herself, Molly laughed.
"I thought you are her were off skipping through the daisies hand in hand or some such shit, didn't I, so we're both guilty of that. Everything's different now."
Charles caught her by the elbow, turning her around with gentle urgency.
"Yes. Yes, it is. All this misunderstanding and distance between us. If I had gone after you. If you hadn't left. We could have talked, should have talked."
It was all there in his eyes. Honest and bright. The same determined fire he'd shown her in the ditch in Afghanistan when he told her she could hate him if it would help and in the filthy little concrete bunker when he said she was the last thing he wanted to see.
Later in their relationship, when she'd turned down his first proposal because she'd been full up of insecurities even though she'd was happier than she'd ever been because she was scared that saying yes would change things between them and all that happiness might drain away to nothing. Charles had said, with the same stubborn determination, that he would be asking again and she would say yes eventually. He'd been right but unfortunately her doubts had also been right because life just had a habit of being a bit shit like that sometimes.
"Do you ever wonder if it was all worth? How things might have been different between us if I'd left the Army after my first injury. Seeing Elvis dying. Everything afterwards. How it might have been different?"
"No. I don't wonder about it because I believe everything we do matters and everything we do in our jobs matters even more because we're often dealing with people in crisis."
He looked doubtful and doubting, but she understood that losing Elvis shook his world view, the same way losing him had shook hers.
"What you do matters, Charles don't ever think it doesn't."
He stepped closer, a pleading look in his eyes, and pressed a kiss to her forehead before his arms tentatively moved around her waist. Surprised by her own receptiveness Molly let him hold her, relaxing into the familiar warmth of his chest willingly.
He laid his cheek against hers and sighed.
"That heart of yours...it's amazing, do you know that? To see what we see and still to be able to see the good in it all. Please don't ever loose that.
"I wish I'd managed to do the same for you. To stay the same man I was when we met, but I wasn't strong enough. Elvis…watching his death. His body laid out broken and burnt…" His breath hitched on a sob. "Made me realise what a fucking lie I was. As an Officer, husband, father. It broke me and I wasn't strong enough to put myself back together again without losing you in the process. I'll regret that for the rest of my life."
Suddenly Molly's the one clinging to him like the world might come to an end if he lets go, hands clench around the material of his jacket at his back. In tears suddenly as she shivered in reaction.
"We both made mistakes. Lost each other in the process, but I never blamed you for Elvis or how it hurt you."
He pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers in a heartbreakingly familiar gesture.
"Everything else, after. I don't know how to deal with. I've been so angry at you for so long, but I don't want to do it anymore, but I don't know how to stop either."
"I know." he said, voice cracking as stroked a tear off her cheek with a long, elegant finger.
From within the warmth of his arms she found the bravery to answer. "I'm scared. You being back in my life scares me."
"I am too."
"I know you want me to choose us. I'm scared because I don't know what to do. If it all feel apart again. I don't how I'd pick myself up again."
"I'm scared, if you don't choose us, how I'm going to be without you because I've always held onto the hope that we'd find a way to come back together. There's nothing that scares me more than the thought of losing you."
"We're both trapped, aren't we?"
"Maybe. I've been desperate to try to changing things between without crowding you and had no idea how to start a dialogue, then you came to the house, and it was like a second chance."
"I don't even know why I went. Georgie said so much and it raised this need in me to see how you were living… I don't know what I thought I'd achieve."
"I'll always be grateful that you did, whatever happens next."
Molly pulled away from him abruptly, and he step back to give her space. Worried that he had perhaps overstepped and crowded her again.
"What does happen next?" she asked.
"I don't know, and bloody terrifying me. I want you back, Molly, but I've no idea if that's what you want."
"Ever since Georgie invited herself back into my life, then bogged off to Kenya, I have had everyone yapping at me. I should have done this; we shouldn't have done that. Try this don't try that. As if I don't question myself enough as it is. As much as I want to tell them all to shut up and let me think sometimes, they're all right about one thing. I have been hiding."
"I think we're both guilty of that."
She walked away from him. Pacing a small circle with a tight, worried expression on her face until she turned back around and face him again. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she lifted her eyes to his.
"She scared me, you know, Nan and her accident. She's always seemed so indestructible, somehow." Molly laugh self-depreciatingly. "Bloody naïve way of thinking. Nobody is lives forever, but all the way on the drive over here all I could think of was what if it was worse than they said on the phone. What if she was gone before I got there?"
"It will take more than careless driver to finish off Marge. She'll out live the lot of us."
"It's a nice thought, but we both know it's not true. Life's too short. Smurf, Elvis, Nan–eventually. Living is about loss. You can't run from it or fight it."
"I know."
"She called me pig-headed, when she'd chased you out to get drinks. That I'd let my insecurities get the better of me, you know… after…when I left. She was brutal, but I can't argue her logic."
"I never blamed you for leaving, Molly. It wasn't like I left you with many other choices after Georgie and I tried to get together."
"It seemed like the only choice at the time. Maybe I'm not so sure now."
He took a hesitant step towards her. "What are you trying to say."
"That we can't keep doing what we've been doing. Avoiding things. Running away. Something has to change."
"I know."
"So, alright. Let's talk."
Confusion reflected on his face. "I don't understand."
"I'm saying let's try to talk some more, you know, later."
"Just like that. You want to try?" he said, sounding like a didn't quite believe what he was hearing but then, to be fair, an hour ago she wouldn't have believed what she was saying either.
"Isn't that what you want?"
"More than anything in the world."
"Things can't stay the same. We've both hurt each other by hiding. We need to move passed it or move on."
"Molly, I–"
"I'm not promising anything. I just want to try to keep on talking…" She bit her lip, looking worried. "Without the pressure of expectations."
His smile was tentative, voice cautious but full of optimism. "However, and whatever you need it to be. We'll go at you speed, Molly. I swear."
"Okay. We'd better get back before she sends out a search party. Probably thinks I've killed you and hidden the corpse by now. You always were her favourite Grandson-in-law."
"She shares that with my mother. You always were her favourite, too. When I finally told my parents about what had happened between us, she was furious. Said she didn't understand why you hadn't finished me off and got 2 Section to dig a hole for the body."
"Sounds like your mother."
Outside of Marge's room, after Charles had said goodbye to Marge and collected Sam, Charles handed his mobile to Sam as a distraction for a few minutes and stood by Molly, ready to leave, but struggling to make a move.
"So, I will call you?"
"Yes."
"And you'll answer."
"Yes."
"You'll be, okay with Marge?"
"Be fine. I'm quite looking forward to meeting this Edward. I'm guessing there's a story there to be told."
He seemed hesitant. It was unusual for Molly to see. Even at his most shutdown, when the PTSD had been it worst, he'd managed to hold to his purpose, usually about work, but this air of indecisiveness was new. It was a vulnerability that gave her a strange kind of confidence because he seemed as uncertain as she was, so they at least shared that commonality of feeling.
"You'd better get going. The traffic on the M4 will be a horror."
"Trying to get rid of me?"
"No, well yes, but not like that."
"Okay." He held open his arms. "Can I?"
"Emm, yes."
She moved into them stiffly, unsure, and he pressed a brief kiss to her cheek.
"You will answer, if I call?" he whispered against her ear.
"Yes, or call back. I promise."
Then he stepped back, and the warm of his closeness was gone, but was replaced quickly by Sam's in a goodbye hug.
"Bye, Sam. Be good for your Dad."
Sam rolled his eyes. "I'm always good."
"Yeah, your Mum has stories that would argue that point."
One final wave, a tentative smile from Charles and wide grin from Sam and they were gone.
Taking a deep breath, Molly let it out in a rush and entered her Nan's room.
"You and him talk?"
"A bit. Quite a lot, actually."
Molly sat down by Marge's bedside.
"And that's good?" Marge asked, making what could have been a statement a clear question.
"We're going to try to keep talking. I don't know if it's going to come to anything, but it's better than what we've been doing. Isn't it?"
Marge held out her hand, taking Molly hand into hers. "You've had your time to run and lick your wounds. It's time to start healin' them now."
Molly rolled her eyes. I left you last weekend, and you were the same old blunt Nan. Now I'm back and you've gone all philosophical or some such shit. Is this because of that knock on your head?"
"Perhaps I've hidden depths."
"Very well hidden."
"Cheeky bleedin'mare."