The Lost Wife. Maggie Cox
I’m proud of it. But do you really believe that if we don’t discuss it the shadow of that dreadful time we endured will magically go away? If it was so easy to just let it go don’t you think I would have done it by now? I thought that the divorce would help bring some closure after our baby’s death—help us both put it behind us and eventually heal. But somehow it doesn’t feel like it has. How can it when I’ve lost half of my family and can’t even hope for more children in the future? The accident robbed me of the chance. Perhaps because we’re not together any more it helps you to pretend that it never happened at all, Jake? “Out of sight, out of mind”, as they say?’
Ailsa was so near the truth that Jake stared at her. He hadn’t really wanted a divorce at all, but he had finally instigated it when the agony and the blame he’d imagined he saw in his wife’s eyes every day began to seriously disturb him. He just hadn’t been able to deal with it.
‘How can I pretend it never happened, hmm? I only have to look in the mirror every time I go to the bathroom and see this damned scar on my face to know that it did! Anyway …’
He swallowed down a gulp of air and his thundering heartbeat gradually slowed. It gave him a chance to think what to do next … to try to blot out the torturous memory of Ailsa being so badly injured in the accident that she’d slipped into unconsciousness long before the surgeons had performed a ceasarean to try and save the baby. The head surgeon had told Jake afterwards that her womb had been irreparably damaged and their infant hadn’t survived. It was unlikely she’d ever be able to bear a child again.
‘I’ve brought some work with me that I need to take a look at before I turn in. My father’s death has meant that I’ve become CEO, and inevitably there’s a raft of problems to sort out. Thanks for dinner and the bed for the night. The food was great. I’ll see you in the morning.’
Even though his excuse was perfectly legitimate, there was no escaping the fact that it made him feel like a despicable coward.
‘If you need an extra blanket, you’ll find a pile of them in the oak chest at the end of the bed.’
Ailsa’s tone made her sound as if she was determined to rise above her disappointment at his reluctance to yet again deal with the past. He silently admired this new strength she’d acquired, and was moved to hear the compassion in her voice … compassion that he probably didn’t deserve.
‘Sleep well,’ she added with a little half-smile. ‘Don’t sit up too late working, will you? You’ve had a long day’s travelling and you must be tired.’
Obviously not expecting an answer to her remarks, she gracefully moved back to the table, then methodically started to clear away the detritus of their meal. Knowing already that his unexpected appearance had disturbed and upset her, Jake fleetingly reflected again that he should never have come here. Then he would have avoided this agonising scene. His throat locked tight with the guilt and regret that made him feel, and he swept from the room. In the prettily furnished bedroom he’d been allocated, he glanced despairingly over at the neat stack of paperwork he’d left on the hand-stitched patchwork quilt that covered the bed and angrily thumped his chest with a heartfelt groan …
Knitting at the fireside, as was her usual habit before retiring to bed—she was always working on something beautiful and handmade for a customer—Ailsa took comfort from the rhythmic click of her needles along with the crackle of fresh ash logs she’d added to the wood-burner. After that altercation with Jake earlier she was feeling distinctly raw inside—as though her very organs had been scraped with a blade. Already she’d resigned herself to another sleepless night. Sometimes she didn’t vacate the high-backed Victorian armchair until the early hours of the morning. What was the point when all she did most nights if she went to bed early was toss and turn? Sleep was still the most elusive of visitors. It wasn’t usually until around five a.m. that she’d fall into an exhausted slumber, then a couple of hours later she’d wake up again feeling drugged.
She often wondered how on earth she survived on such a relentlessly punishing lack of sleep and was able to take care of Saskia and work too. The human capacity to endure never ceased to amaze her.
But she was even more unsettled tonight by the fact that Jake was occupying the spare room upstairs. Seeing him again had been wonderful and dreadful all at the same time. But the sight of him had always made her react strongly. The deeply grooved scar on one side of his chiselled visage made him no less charismatic or handsome, she reflected. She was grief-stricken at the idea he believed that it did. And. yes … she privately admitted it did make him look rather piratical—although she hadn’t wanted to hear that other women thought so too. It nearly killed her that he seemed to have forgotten the passionate love they’d shared and moved on. There was no such ‘normal’ pattern of existence for her. How could she even look at another man with the prospect of a relationship at the back of her mind after someone like Jake Larsen?
She’d been a trainee receptionist in the Larsen offices when they’d first met. Only nineteen, yet brimming with determination to better herself after her difficult start in life, she’d been so grateful for the chance of such a ‘glamorous’ job when she’d barely had any qualifications under her belt. But she’d been studying hard at her local adult education facility to remedy that. When Jake had walked through the revolving glass doors one day, wearing a single-breasted black cashmere coat over his suit, his lightly tanned skin and blond hair making him look like some kind of mythical hero from one of those magical folk tales that had at their roots the trials and travails of life and the story of how the handsome hero and beautiful heroine overcame them together, Ailsa almost forgot to breathe.
As he’d walked up to her and her colleague, her much more confident fellow employee had whispered under her breath, ‘It’s the boss’s son … Jake Larsen. He’s come over from Copenhagen.’ But even before her colleague had told Ailsa his identity her heart had already turned over inside her chest at the arresting sight of all that sculpted Viking beauty and the spine-tingling charisma that Jake exuded. She’d never been so fascinated by a man before. And especially not a man who was clearly light years out of her league, who wore the mantle of authority and power as though it was a natural component of his DNA. Yet he’d warmly introduced himself to her, the most junior and in-experienced of his staff, as though she were no less important than one of the firm’s directors, she recalled. When he had followed up his welcome to her with a near-incandescent smile—a smile that had wiped every thought clean from her head—she’d found herself well and truly under his spell …
‘Blast!’ She dropped a stitch, patiently unravelled the multi-coloured wool, then cast on again. The logs in the burner hissed and spat and she glanced mournfully across at the beautiful Norwegian pine standing in the corner. It poignantly reminded her of a shy young girl at a party, waiting to be noticed by a boy and asked to dance … Once upon a time, in another life, Jake would have happily volunteered to help her dress the tree, singing lustily along to the carols playing in the background and teasingly increasing the volume of his voice when she protested he was singing out of tune.
It hurt that he wouldn’t discuss the baby’s death with her. Ailsa had hoped such a discussion would help them be a little easier around each other and truly be able to move on. They hadn’t had a prayer of being able to do that after the accident and then leading up to their divorce, when they’d both been so wounded, hurt and angry, blaming each other for everything. She’d even hoped that such a mutually frank discussion might at last help her to sleep better at night.
‘Oh, well …’ Murmuring under her breath, she sighed softly. When he leaves tomorrow I’ll just carry on as normal. It’s not all bad … I’ve still got Saskia. And the business is doing well … better than ever, in fact.
She bit her lip, trying hard not to cry. Sniffing determinedly, she wiped her eyes and lifted her gaze to the tree again. Her daughter might not be around to share in the joy that decorating a Christmas tree could bring but it wouldn’t stop Ailsa from taking on the task herself. After all, it was something she excelled at. She ran a very successful business designing and making beautiful things—everything