Losing Me Finding You (31 page)

30th November 2009

Thirty-three years old

“Babe, what are you doing?” Ben asks, his voice heavy with sleep as he walks up and slides his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder.

“Watching her sleep,” I whisper, my hands griping the edge of her cot.

“She’s not going to disappear, Evie,” he says, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck.

I don’t take my eyes off our daughter as I slide one of my hands over Ben’s and say, “We don’t know that, Ben. We don’t know what’s going to happen at midnight.”

“But she wasn’t even born on a leap year, babe,” he says, trying to reassure me. “Why would she go?”

I exhale as I lean my head back against Ben’s warm body. “I don’t know,” I admit. “Because of when we made her, because she has me for a mother.”

“Evie,” he says, his hands on my shoulders as he forces me to turn around and look at him. “She’s not going anywhere. Lucia will stay with us, because she belongs with us.”

“Ben…” I say, trying to explain my fear to him.

“Baby,” he says, cutting me off. “She wasn’t born anywhere near those days and she isn’t going to disappear tonight, I promise you.”

“But how can you know that for sure?” I ask, having no clue whether his words can possibly be true. I don’t know what I’ll do if she disappears from us. There’s no way we will ever find her and she’s too young to ever find her way back to us. I know, because I have never found out who my original parents are. They are a distant memory, a faded dream that I can’t hang on to, no matter how many times I remember they existed. I was simply too young to remember that life properly. And if Lucia disappears tonight, then she will be too young to remember us, and I’m not sure how I’d handle losing her forever.

“Evie,” Ben says, smiling as he leans in to kiss me. “She’s not going anywhere.” And I don’t know how he does it, but his words, his confidence that she won’t be taken from us, slowly start to calm me.

“Okay,” I whisper. “But can we just stay until midnight to make sure.”

Ben smiles again, his fingers pushing my hair back as he nods before pulling me against his hard, warm chest. In silent agreement, we both turn and watch our sleeping daughter, who is oblivious to the turmoil that churns inside of me. She’s sleeping peacefully. Her tiny fingers clenched into little fists as I imagine she dreams of happy things. The soft nightlight casts a deep glow over her and the music maker that Ben put in her room plays a soft background of classical music.

I remember him smiling at me as he’d plugged it in, his words of, “It’s supposed to be calming and educational,” making me smile. I love the softer side of him, the one that he reserves for only me, and now our daughter.

As I wrap my arms around Ben’s waist, we stand over her cot, watching her sleep. My watch is on my wrist, but there’s no beeping tonight. I didn’t want the noise to wake her, and I didn’t want the reminder of what I know is coming. I glance down though, knowing it must be close.

Eleven-fifty-nine.

One minute to go. I feel Ben’s arms tighten around my shoulders and I know he must be feeling it. Despite what he thinks, it’s impossible to ignore the fear that we are about to lose our baby. I can’t turn away, and I try desperately not to blink as I count down the seconds to midnight.

“She’s staying, Evie,” Ben whispers and my fingers grip his hip as I beg for his words to be true.

As my watch clicks over to midnight though, the room suddenly plunges into darkness, the music cutting out as though the power has gone off. A strangled cry leaves me as I lunge for her cot, desperately trying to find her in the darkness.

“Oh God,” I cry. “Please, baby girl, where are you?”

Seconds tick by, that feel like hours, but finally my fingers find a warm bundle of softness just as the power kicks back in. I scoop her into my arms, no longer caring if she wakes up as I cradle her to my chest. Ben’s arms are around me, holding us both and I can feel his pounding heart against my back.

“God, I thought we lost her,” I whisper, my lips on her tiny head, breathing in the scent that is all her.

Ben exhales against me. “I know, baby, me too.”

“She stayed though,” I say, my head falling back against his shoulder as I pull her closer against my chest. “She stayed with us.”

“She did,” Ben says, pressing a kiss to our daughter’s tiny head. “And she will.”

And I know that for now, Ben is right. I wish more than anything that I could just stay too, that I could always be here for her, never worrying where I’m going to end up, or worse still, if I’ll ever find my way back when I move. I wish I didn’t have to face the prospect of explaining to my daughter why I disappear every four years and why it sometimes takes a long time for me to find my way home again.

“Come to bed, baby,” Ben says, pulling me towards the door. “Bring her with us.”

I smile up at him, grateful that he understands, that he’s feeling it too. When the blackness took hold just a few minutes ago, it was so eerily similar to the feeling that I have every time I disappear. It was impossible not to feel the fear as well.

But she’s still here and while I feel a sense of relief that comes from the fact that Lucia won’t be faced with this life, that she will be immune to all of this. I’m too scared to think about what happens when the leap year finally rolls around again.

Too scared to face the fact that the twenty-ninth might be the real day she’ll disappear from our lives.

Just like I do.

28th August 2011

Thirty-four years old

Ben’s standing in the kitchen, stirring a pot of pasta on the stove, and staring out the window when I walk in from putting Lucia to bed.

“Ben,” I say, sliding my arms around his waist. He doesn’t answer me, lost in space as he stares out the window. “Babe?”

“Huh?” he says, finally turning to look at me.

I smile up at him and he finally wakes up, smiling back as he slides an arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “What were you thinking about?” I ask him. “You looked like you were a million miles away.”

Ben smiles again, leaning down to kiss my lips this time before he turns the stove off and turns to face me. Wrapping both arms around my shoulders, he pulls me against him as he leans back against the kitchen bench.

“I guess I was thinking about next year,” he says, his eyes on mine. “When the tattoo works and you…”

“If it works,” I say quickly, squeezing my arms around his waist.

Ben leans down and kisses the end of my nose. “It’s going to work, baby,” he says, smiling.

I can’t help smiling back at him. I want to believe it will work, I mean if Lucia can happen, then this can too. And even though I definitely don’t want to rush time and get to next year yet, a part of me is anxious to know if it will. Because if it does work, then it’s over. Ben and I will never lose each other again, because I will
always
be able to find him.

“So what were you thinking about then?” I ask. Ben’s smile gets a little bigger as he leans in again and presses a soft kiss to my mouth this time. My eyes close as I sink into him and kiss him back. “Ben,” I whisper, my lips against his. “Tell me what you were thinking about.”

Ben chuckles as he kisses me once more before slowly kissing along my jaw until he reaches my neck. I let out a soft moan as he presses light kisses up to my ear and when his mouth is against it, he whispers, “I was thinking, that when you come back, I want us to have another baby.”

I feel my body as it melts against his, my fingers gripping his hips as I hold him against me. “You do?” I breathe out, my words barely audible.

Ben kisses his way back to my mouth, his fingers running slowly down my spine at the same time. When they reach my butt, he pulls me harder against him, his lips on my mouth now. I force my eyes to open and find Ben watching me, a tiny smile on his face. “Yeah, Evie,” he says. “I do.”

“Why?” I ask, having no idea why I’m even asking this question. Ben is an amazing father. Watching him with Lucia only makes me fall even more in love with him and I know if we had another baby, he’d be an amazing father again. But, there’s still a part of me that’s scared. Scared of what happens next year with Lucia. She might have stayed on the night of her birthday, but we have no idea what’s going to happen next leap year. And if we lose her…I can’t even bear to think about it.

“I know what you’re thinking, Evie,” Ben says as he runs one hand back up my spine to my neck, his thumb lightly brushing against my cheek.

“What?” I ask, looking up into his eyes.

“You’re still worried about Lucia,” he says, his hand cupping my cheek now. “You’re still scared she’s going to disappear, aren’t you?”

I nod, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” I admit.

Ben smiles as he leans in to kiss me again. “I know,” he says. “A part of me is still scared too, but that’s why I’m saying wait until you come back,” he whispers, kissing me again.

“If we lose her, Ben, if…”

“Shhh, baby, I know,” he says, his fingers brushing my cheek. “We aren’t going to lose her. I know it, but I want you to know it too,” he says. “And next year, when the tattoo works and you come back to me and you see that Lucia hasn’t gone, then you’ll know.”

I’m staring up at him, wondering how the hell he does this. How he knows just what to say to me, every single time. Ben is still smiling at me, waiting for me to say something. I don’t even know what to say so I just press up on my toes and kiss him, one arm sliding around his neck as I hold him to me.

“So, is this a yes?” Ben whispers, sliding his hand from my cheek and back down my spine.

“Mmmm,” I say, deepening our kiss.

Ben laughs. “Evie, babe,” he says, pulling back a little. “Is it?”

I smile up at him. “Yeah, Ben, it’s a yes.”

Ben’s grin widens, his eyes lighting up as he squeezes my arse. “You know what this means, don’t you?” he asks now, raising his eyebrows at me. I shake my head as I bite my lower lip, even though I’m pretty sure I know exactly what he’s going to say. “It means, Evie Foster,” Ben says, his hands under my arse and picking me up as my legs wrap around his waist. “That we should probably start practicing now.”

And I can’t help laughing as Ben walks us out of the kitchen and into our bedroom.

28th February 2012

Thirty-five years old

“Really think it’s going to work?” I ask as Ben rolls off me, both of us breathing hard.

He pulls me closer, pressing a kiss to my lips as he says, “Yes.”

I glance down at my bare fingers. I’ve taken my rings off, but I still have the letters of his name tattooed around my ring finger. Ben tangles his fingers with mine and I catch the words of my name on his, before he holds our hands between us. “It’s going to work, baby,” he whispers.

“I hope you’re right,” I say, leaning in to kiss him.

Ben smiles as he pulls me closer. “Baby, I’m always right,” he says, making me laugh against his mouth. He gently pulls my lower lip between his teeth, rolling us over so I’m lying on top of him. “But just in case,” he says, brushing the hair back from my head. “I think we should have sex again.”

I can’t help laughing again as my hands slide under his warm body. “Oh, just in case, huh, what happened to mister positive?”

Ben smiles as he pulls me closer. “I’m just covering all our bases,” he whispers before he kisses me again, silencing any more discussion.

So we do, and when I disappear at midnight, my arms still wrapped around Ben, the last thing I remember is…
this is going to work.

Thirty-six years old

The sun shines into my room and today I turn thirty-six years old.

I open my eyes and the first thing I see is my hand, resting on the pillow beside me.

And then I see his name.

Ben.

And then it hits me.

It hits me, hard and fast, like a huge flashing neon sign that I cannot miss.

I feel a huge grin break out as I roll over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling, stretching my arm out in front of me so I can look at it again. I burst out laughing because I can’t believe it’s worked. It’s
actually
worked.

Something that was so bloody obvious and so simple. Why the hell did it take us so long to figure this out?

I stretch out under the covers, still laughing as I close my eyes and let all of the memories come flooding back. They fill my brain, my body and my heart. Memories of a walk to school, of a rescued cat, a first kiss, a proposal, a baby, and a man whose love consumes me.

Memories of a million words, a million looks, a million touches, and a million kisses. Memories from every single second of my life; my life with Ben.

I lean over and pick up the mobile phone from the bedside table. I don’t bother scrolling through the contacts as I know it won’t be there, it never is, but I dial the one number I couldn’t ever forget, even if I tried.

“Hello.”

“Ben,” I say, unable to stop the smile. “It’s me.”

“Hey, baby,” he says and I can hear the smile in his voice too. “Miss me?”

I laugh. “You know it,” I tell him.

Ben laughs. “Where are you? I’ll come get you,” he asks, and my eyes close in happiness.

“I don’t know, hang on a sec while I look outside and try to work it out.”

Ben laughs again and it falls through the phone, wrapping around me. “You haven’t done that already?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “I wanted to call you first.”

“The tattoo works, doesn’t it?” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” I whisper back, my heart hammering in my chest. “It really does, Ben. I wish we’d thought of it sooner.”

“Me too, baby,” he whispers.

“Dadda!”

I laugh now. “Was that Lucia?” I ask, my heart melting at her voice.

“It was,” Ben says, laughing as I hear rustling over the phone. “She’s still here, Evie,” he says. “She never left, baby, never disappeared last night.”

I can feel the tears starting to fall as a huge weight lifts off me with Ben’s words. I am so relieved that she hasn’t been cursed like we have, that we haven’t been cursed to lose her either. She found us, but she’s staying with us, forever.

“You wanna speak to Momma, baby?” I hear Ben ask.

“Yeah,” comes her beautiful voice.

“Hi, baby girl,” I say the tears streaming down my face as my beautiful daughter starts telling me about her morning.

Somewhere in the background I can hear Ben picking up his keys and I know he’s getting ready to leave. I get out of bed and walk to the window, glance outside and see the huge castle that tells me where I am. As Lucia chats to me, my tears continue to fall and as much as I want to interrupt her and try to tell Ben where I am, I can’t bring myself to stop her talking. Even though I’ve only been away one night, I still feel like I might miss so much of her life, and I don’t want to miss this.

“Ask Momma where she is,” I hear Ben say in the background.

“Momma,” Lucia says to me.

“Yes, baby girl?” I ask, smiling through my tears.

“Dadda wants to know where are you?”

I bite my lip, loving that even though I wake up with no memory of either of them, they never forget about me.

“Momma?” she asks again.

I smile, anxious to see to them. “Tell Dadda I’m in Edinburgh, baby, can you do that?”

“Yeah,” she says as I hear her turn to Ben and try to pronounce the name of the city I’ve just discovered I’ve woken up in.

There’s more rustling and suddenly it’s Ben’s voice in my ear. “Sorry, babe, I can’t understand what she’s trying to say to me, where are you?”

I want to answer, but I can’t right now. I’m crying too hard at the enormity of what’s happened this morning, of knowing this is all over for us now.

“Evie, baby, are you okay?” Ben asks, concern in his voice.

I swallow my tears, trying to get myself under control so I don’t scare him. “Yeah, I’m good, really. I’m in Edinburgh, she was trying to say Edinburgh.”

“Oh,” Ben says laughing. “Yeah okay, that makes more sense. We’re leaving now; I’ll call you back when we get closer. We’ll see you in about four hours, okay? Hang tight.”

“No Ben, it’s okay. I’ll come to you, it will save time,” I answer, loving him so much right now.

“You sure? I don’t mind,” Ben says, and I know he really doesn’t.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say. “I’ll text you when I’m on the train.”

“Okay, we’ll be waiting at the station for you.” Neither of us says anything for a second or two and I’m about to hang up when Ben speaks. “Evie?”

“Yeah?”

I know he’s smiling again. “I love you, baby, so much.”

And now I’m smiling with him. “I love you too, Ben.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

I hang up the phone and find myself jumping up and down, laughing. Finally, we have found a way to make this work, whatever this thing is. I can’t stop it and neither of us understands it, but we’ve finally found a way to make it work. Now, I’ll only ever have to be apart from Ben for one night. Just one night and the answer to it all was so simple, it’s ridiculous.

After I take a quick shower and grab a couple of things for the train ride, I head out to the station and get the first train I can. I spend the nearly five hour journey writing, working on this story Ben wanted me to tell. I think I’m almost done now, because now, I finally feel like I have an ending for it. I have no idea if it’s going to sell or if anyone would ever want to read it, but I don’t care. This is a story that had to be told. This one’s for us.

Around four in the afternoon, I send another text to Ben, letting him know when I’m getting in. I glance at the cards in my wallet again, see the name that’s supposed to go with this Evie and this life. But they aren’t mine anymore.

I am only one Evie now, Evie Foster, and I already have a life.

The train finally arrives at St Pancreas and I’m one of the first people off it, bag over my shoulder, notepad under my arm. I run down the platform and through the gates and that’s when I see them. Ben and Lucia, standing there, waiting for me. Ben’s eyes are immediately on mine, that cheeky grin he has lighting up his whole face. Without saying a word, he walks straight up to me and wraps me in his arms. I feel Lucia’s tiny arms wrap around my neck too and the three of us stand in the middle of the station hugging as though we haven’t seen each other for months.

“Hey, baby,” Ben eventually says, kissing me. “Miss me?”

I laugh. “Always,” I say, taking Lucia in my arms as I press a kiss to her cheek.

Ben slings an arm around my shoulders and together we walk out of the station and towards the tube. “What’s that?” he eventually asks, nodding at the notepad under my arm.

“An ending,” I tell him. “I think I finally found a way to finish it.”

Ben smiles at me, his other hand tucking my hair behind my ears. It’s a lot shorter today, I lost about five inches overnight, but I like it and at least shorter is easier to explain. As I hold Lucia in my arms, Ben slides his fingers across my neck, leaning in as he closes the distance between us and kisses my lips. “Let’s go home, baby.”

By the time Ben and I arrive back at our flat, it’s already dark and Lucia has fallen asleep. Ben carries her upstairs and puts her to bed, while I head into our bathroom, stripping off my clothes as I climb into the shower. Two minutes later, Ben is sliding in behind me, his arms around my waist and his lips against my neck. I can feel his whiskers brushing against my skin, but I don’t mind it today.

“Happy birthday, baby,” he whispers, his mouth at my ear as he gently sucks on my ear lobe.

I turn in his arms, press up on my toes and put my mouth against his. Ben’s hands slide lower, until they’re under me and in one quick move he lifts me, my legs wrapping around his waist as he backs me up against the wall. He kisses me deeply, urgently, as though we’ve been apart for months, not just hours. “I love you, Evie,” Ben says, his voice husky and low.

I can’t help but smile.

This is the longest it’s ever going to be now.

Afterwards, as we dry off, Ben asks, “So, you gonna tell me how the story ends?”

I smile up at him. “Maybe you should just read it,” I say. I’ve never let him look at it before now. Not because I don’t want him to see it, it’s as much a part of him as it is me. I just wanted to get it done first. Wanted the story to be told.

“Okay,” he says. “And you’re okay with me reading it?”

“Yes,” I say, kissing him quickly. “I want you to. I want you to know the whole story. All of it.”

Ben’s eyes hold me in their gaze. “Okay,” he whispers, leaning in to kiss me again.

I walk into our bedroom and pull on some old yoga pants and one of Ben’s jumpers. Walking into the kitchen to grab some wine, I fire up my laptop on the way. Most of the story is typed up on there, but I’ll need to add the rest of it, the ending I wrote this morning, later on. I can only add to my story when I remember I’m writing it, and obviously my laptop never comes with me, so today it had to be done old school, using pen and paper. But there’s a lot to read before he reaches the end, so he can start with what’s on my laptop.

I carry it and the two glasses out to the living room, placing them on the coffee table as I curl up on the couch. It’s started snowing and I’m glad we made it home before it started to fall. By the look of it, tomorrow London will be blanketed in white.

“Ben,” I call out when I hear him rummaging around in our bedroom.

“Coming,” he says as he walks out into the room carrying a shoebox filled with what looks like letters. Smiling he takes a seat next to me, pulling me close as he wraps an arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss on my cheek.

“What’s this?” I ask, gesturing at what he’s holding.

Ben smiles, leaning in to kiss my lips this time. “You asked me once what I did while you were gone,” he says quietly.

I look into his eyes, wondering what he’s about to tell me. “Yeah?” I say. “You said you just waited for me.”

Ben chuckles a little. “I did wait, Evie, I waited as long as I had to, mostly impatiently, but I always waited for you.”

I smile, brushing my fingers down his cheek. “I know you did,” I say. “But now…”

“Now,” Ben says, kissing my fingertips. “Now, I won’t ever have to wait for you again.”

I shake my head, smiling at him. “No,” I say. “But what’s this all about?”

Ben looks down at the box of letters in his hand, his thumb flicking through them as though he’s remembering something. When he looks back up, he’s smiling as though the memory is of something good.

“I think I started doing this the second time you disappeared on me,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know where you’d gone, didn’t understand what had happened, what I’d seen that night.” He stops, as though he’s not sure how to go on.

“It must have freaked you out, seeing me disappear like that,” I whisper, not realising until I’d found him again, that he’d actually witnessed my little disappearing act on the night of my twelfth birthday.

Ben laughs a little. “It certainly was different and kinda strange, I’ll give you that,” he says. “But more than anything, I didn’t understand why. Why you had to leave again, you’d already been taken away from me once, and the second time, well it was a lot for my fourteen year old brain to process.”

I smile, my hand brushing his cheek again. “It was for me too, Ben,” I say. “I couldn’t understand why it kept happening to me. But then I couldn’t believe it when I somehow found you again, the very next year.”

“You found me, Evie,” Ben says. “Because we were always meant to find each other.”

“And now we always will,” I add on, smiling as I hold up my tattooed ring finger.

“We will,” he says, holding the letters out to me now. “And I won’t need to write these anymore,” he adds.

“What are they?” I ask, confused.

“They’re letters,” Ben says.

“Letters,” I repeat. “To who?”

“To you,” he says, smiling. “I wrote them all the times I was without you. I had so many things I wanted to tell you, Evie, in all the months you were gone. Writing them down for you just seemed like the easiest way to do that. The only way I could, at least until you found me again.”

I feel a tear roll slowly down my cheek as I realise what Ben has been doing. What he’s done all these years he’s waited for me. What he asked me to do once too.

He’s told me
his
story.

“I want you to know this side of me,” he says, his thumb brushing away the tear on my cheek. “I want you to know all the things I wanted to say to you, how I felt when you were gone, how much I wished you would come back to me. Because now, you’ll always be here for me to tell it all to.”