Time After Time: A heart-warming novel about love, loss and second chances. Hannah McKinnon Mary
they had at the beginning. Even Jackie, who only came home twice a month since she’d moved to Kent to train as a nurse, kept asking how things were going. Hayley hadn’t had the guts to confide in her.
‘Don’t be silly. You know I love you.’ She picked up the sleeveless red-and-white striped dress she knew Chris loved. Bad move.
‘You’re not wearing that, it’s way too short.’ Chris tried to yank it from her but she held on. He tugged on it again and, worried it might rip, she let go. He scrunched it into a ball and threw it on the floor.
‘Hey!’ she said. ‘Calm down.’
It wasn’t the first time she’d felt like an adult dealing with a stroppy teenager. Last week he’d tried to stop her from having lunch with friends she’d made at university. In a way, Hayley thought it showed he loved her, but on the other hand, it was suffocating. Ellen had been pretty blunt about how she felt when he’d convinced Hayley not to go on a girl’s weekend in Cambridge, where they’d planned to stay with Ellen’s cousin.
‘You won’t enjoy it,’ Chris had said. ‘Stay here. Mum’s away and we can rent some videos and get popcorn. It’ll be better than the cinema.’ She’d protested, but he’d been persuasive. ‘I’ll get some girly films for you. Even Dirty Dancing if you promise you won’t drool over Swayze. Come on. You love me don’t you? Stay.’
Ellen had almost flipped her lid when Hayley told her she wouldn’t be going to Cambridge. ‘Tell him to get a grip or you’ll find another boyfriend. Or dump him. Wake up, Hayley. He’s way too jealous. Even Mark thinks so. God, he’s so controlling.’
‘No, he isn’t. He’s passionate and totally in love with me.’
‘Oh come on. It’s too intense. He’s turning into a nutter.’
‘He’s not!’
‘He is!’
The discussion rapidly deteriorated into their first serious argument.
Looking at her crumpled dress on the floor, Hayley couldn’t help feeling that Ellen might have been right. Or not entirely wrong, anyway.
‘What’s the real reason you don’t want me to go?’ she asked.
Chris sank to the floor, rested his back on the bed, brought his knees up towards his chest and put his head in his hands. Hayley knelt down beside him and softly touched his shoulder.
‘Tell me. What’s going on?’
He looked at her, then hung his head. ‘I’m worried I’m going to be left behind.’
‘What do you mean?’ she whispered.
‘It’s something my mum said.’
Hayley tried not to roll her eyes, then braced herself for another warped truth from Mrs. I’ll-have-another-Jenkins.
‘She said you’ll think you’re better than me when you’re a solicitor,’ Chris said. ‘And I should find someone of my own class. She reckons you’re getting posh.’
‘What?’ said Hayley, eyebrows raised and her voice going up a notch or ten. ‘I worked my arse off to get into City. I’ve been saving up for it for years and –’
‘Yeah, but she has a point.’ Chris shrugged and continued before Hayley could finish. ‘You’ll make loads more money than me.’
For the first time ever Hayley saw herself in him: self-conscious and insecure. She’d never imagined he could feel like that. Her heart immediately softened, as did her tone.
‘This isn’t the ‘50s. There are tons of women making more than their husbands. Who cares? I love you and I don’t give a stuff. Becoming a solicitor won’t change me.’ She pulled him close and kissed him. ‘Actually I talked to Mr. Simpson yesterday. He’s one of the law professors. He said I have a real knack for law. He said I should look him up when I graduate.’ She grinned. ‘Isn’t that great?’
Chris slowly lifted his head and Hayley noticed a hint of a smile.
‘Did you say husband?’
Hayley laughed. ‘Yes, but did you hear what I said about Mr. Simpson?’
His smile broadened. As he shifted his body, she thought he was getting up but instead he stayed down on one knee.
‘Hayley,’ he said and grabbed her hands. ‘Will you marry me?’
After walking away from what should have been her home with Rick, Hayley realised there weren’t many places left for her to go. She couldn’t land on her parents’ doorstep – she’d heard the panic in her mother’s voice. There was no way she could see them in this state. Not until she’d figured things out.
Back on the tube she sat down, forced herself to breathe more slowly, close her eyes, then told herself to think things through. She’d always considered herself a logical person, a seasoned, no-bullshit solicitor, so she started doing what she did best; she analysed the events, from waking up with Chris to her mum telling her she was married to him. Then she remembered what she’d said to Ellen the night before.
What if I’d said yes when Chris proposed?
She swallowed.
Did I fall asleep as Mrs. Hayley Cooper and wake up as Mrs. Hayley Jenkins?
She couldn’t think of an explanation more absurd or more impossible. But what else could it be? The only other alternative was that she was going mad – or had gone mad – and that was just as scary.
Panic rising, she forced herself to breathe in a more controlled and Zen-like fashion – in through the nose, out through the mouth, over and over again. But the little self-control she thought she’d regained seemed to slip away each time she exhaled.
She scrunched up her eyes and pressed her balled fists over her ears, wishing herself back to her family. But when she looked up again and lowered her hands, the sounds of the tube hadn’t suddenly disappeared, and she hadn’t magically been whisked back home.
Where’s a pair of ruby slippers when you need them?
As she leaned back in her seat, the young couple standing in front of her started talking more loudly.
‘I’m telling you, you’re wrong,’ the girl said as she looked up at the guy and shifted the weight of her backpack.
‘Am not,’ the guy answered, and as he shook his head, his dreadlocks flopped around.
‘I bet you are,’ she said and laughed. ‘It’s the other way. Why don’t you ask someone?’
‘With my crap English? No way. Besides, the book says talking to people on the tube is rude.’
‘Well I want to go to Buckingham Palace today,’ the girl said and frowned, ‘I see enough of the Métro in Paris.’
‘Excuse me,’ Hayley said and they both turned towards her. ‘You’re on the right line for Buckingham Palace but,’ she pointed up at the map on the tube wall, ‘it’s true, you’re heading in the wrong direction. You have to go the other way and get off at Victoria station. See?’
‘That’s exactly what I told him,’ the girl said and winked at Hayley. ‘Men!’
The guy smiled and scratched his stubble. ‘Ah, I should’ve known. She’s always right.’
‘Thank you,’ the girl