Lament Ch. 02

He calmed down considerably before continuing, "But we are both responsible for what has happened, you through your lack of trust and honesty, me in my lack of openness. I'm sorry, but I'm never coming back."

My world collapsed once more.

"It's not that I don't want to come back, Nikki. It's that we both deserve someone better. I deserve someone I can trust, you deserve someone who loves you. Unfortunately for both of us, I don't have any love left for you, two years of, as Mattias said, 'letting it fester', consumed it all. It's gone.

"Goodbye Nikki."

I looked up to Becca. Her eyes glistened.

"Where is he?" I demanded, grabbing her firmly, shaking her with increasing violence. "Where is he?"

"I don't know Nikki. This was sent to me in an email. It gave me instructions, and that's it. I have another recording for Olive, but he asked that I let her hear that one on her own."

"No!"

I pushed away from her and stood too quickly and my head swum, a faint feeling washed over me for a brief moment. "No," I said again softly. I realised that I didn't need to shoot the messenger. Becca was at least giving me something. "I won't let it end like this. I need his email address."

"It doesn't exist anymore, Nikki. I tried responding, but it bounces. It's been cancelled, disabled or deactivated, or deleted. I don't know the right term, but James obviously only had it set up for one purpose, and it's done and gone."

Becca stayed with me for dinner, and I offered her the spare room for the evening. She hated being away from her family and facetimed with them at length, because Olive wasn't home when she arrived. She probably wouldn't be until the early hours, or maybe even tomorrow. I'd left plenty of messages for her, insisting on the urgency of the situation and that she return as soon as possible.

It was near midnight when I heard her arrive. She came hurtling into the house, yelling for me. There was hope in her eyes, but it was also mixed with something else, fear, trepidation? Was this good news, or bad. Then she saw her Aunt Becca come from the spare room, and she ran to her father's sister, babbling incoherently.

"I have a recording for you Olive," Becca finally managed to get through, "from James. But he wants only you to listen to it."

My daughter shook her head. "Mum listens too."

Becca began to say something but stopped and shrugged. "It's your message, I guess you can let anyone you want hear it." Then once Olive and I were seated, she played the last recording of my husband as she left the room.

"Hi Olive," his voice, unlike when he spoke to me in the earlier recording, was soft, sweet, honeyed. As though Olive were once again a toddler and he was trying to drive away any fears after waking from a nightmare.

"I'm sorry Angel. I'm so, so sorry for what I did. I shouldn't have done it. But I was trapped in a prison that I made for myself. When I spoke to you before leaving, I was full of hate. For your mother mainly, but also for you and for me. I let it consume me. I told you that you weren't to blame, but I still held you accountable. I know you know that I did. I could see it in your eyes. I could hear it in your voice.

"If it wasn't for a single call with Mattias, I'd probably still be wallowing in self-pity, well...." he laughed a little, "well at least more than I am. But it was a different type of self-pity. I felt utterly betrayed. My whole life had been a lie, my whole marriage a sham. My greatest joy, you, was also my greatest regret and worst disaster. You weren't mine. My heart broke and I still feel the pain of that moment over two years ago."

He was now bawling, his words came in a broken staccato, accentuated with mournful gasps and awful stuttering.

"You weren't my little angel. You weren't my daughter. I thought of killing myself when I first discovered it," Olive's face was drained of colour, and I could see her silently gasp 'oh god' at this revelation, " I couldn't live without you in my life, but you were the source of so much pain. In the end, I just couldn't do it, even though I devised my method. I lacked the final conviction to end it all, end the pain, end my misery. Maybe I was weak, or perhaps it was a deep, subconscious strength telling me not to capitulate, I don't know.

"I should have talked to your mother when I first got the results, but I held them to my chest, and I lived in pain alone. Every waking minute I was in absolute agony. For over two years I kept it locked up inside, and I now realise that my burning hatred and rage at Nikki had metastasized, and I began to hate you as well. I had tried to do the right thing by you, and in the end it proved to be the worst.

"I told you that I would never see you or your mother again. But now, I realise that's not fair on you. Instead, I will not make that decision, it will be yours and yours alone. I may not have been your father biologically, but I've had time to think, time to understand and remember all the good times, all the love. You are my daughter, you will always be my daughter, until the day that you say otherwise.

"I love you Angel. I have a few things I need to do, but I will be back someday to see you if you will see me."

The recording trailed off. Becca returned and closed it down, putting her phone back in the pocket of her robe. "I'll forward those recordings onto both of you. Now, I need to get some sleep. This has been a long day." She reached for us, and together we shared a three-way hug.

Epilogue:

True to his word, James never did come home to me, but he kept his word to Olive.

It took another couple of months, but he sees her every other week, for coffee or for dinner. She has told me that he is now seeing a counsellor, and working on his grief and his anger issues. He won't tell her where he is living however, nor where he is working, though he does seem to have landed on his feet somewhat. He is healthy, at least physically, and has lost some weight.

She has carefully tried to inject me into their conversations, but each time she has told me that James has gone quiet, and quickly changed the subject. It is clear that he still harbours resentment towards me.

Cheryl and Mattias are pregnant, a surprising and joyous development. I had never expected that they would have children, and Cheryl admitted that they thought they never would either. But here they are. The spectre of Cheryl's past indiscretions and my own sordid history have made Mattias nervous however, and Cheryl has confirmed that, even though he is the father, she will prove it immediately with a DNA test. She couldn't bear losing him, not again.

And what of Brendan and Amy? Brendan was charged with numerous counts rapes and use of drugs. It seems that he had moved from alcohol to illegal substances to make his victims complicit. The strange thing about it, is that he always confessed afterwards, claiming the drunken mistake, whether it was part of some sick fantasy, delusion, or if he thought that it was his way of constantly putting off the suspicions of those involved. Other than myself and the three other women that he had done it to when he was with Amy, another five came forward with stories of him over the years once his relationship with her was over. He was a serial offender, and is now locked up awaiting trial.

As for me, I still wear my wedding and engagement rings and live in constant hope of some fairy tale redemption story, where my knight comes through to rescue me from the dragon of despair. My friends and family, including James' parents and sister are encouraging me to move on, to divorce James and reclaim my life. But how do I move on? How can I move on? My lamentation for my past life is the only thing that keeps me going, keeps my head above water.

He said that I should have been honest with him, he said he should have been open with me. So that is what I am going to do. I am going to be open and honest and truthful for the both of us. I don't know how I will do it, but I'm hoping that in time, and with Olive's help, I can rekindle the love that James had for me, build it from nothing once more if need be.

I don't need another man, I just need James. We both need to atone for our transgressions, and we can't do that if I leave as well.