Chapter 43: THEN - The Safe Room

Ed and I sat in a pale green doctor’s office on a warm summer day, listening to the doctor on the other side of the desk. He wore a blue shirt tucked into jeans. He had a mole next to his right nostril and spoke with a quiet, soothing voice. I remember almost every detail except the exact words he used to tell me my husband was dying.

“Undetected pancreatic cancer.”

“Liver.”

“Lungs.”

“Spread.”

I blinked. What did he say?

Ed leaned forward and put his head in his hands, but I was in shock. I realised I’d nodded my head five times for no reason.

Behind us, I heard the sound of Sophie playing with a toy train, making choo choo noises with her mouth. She was almost six. I held in my tears for her.

“What’s next?” I asked. “Radiation? Chemotherapy?”

Ed took my hand and held it. The truth was, there was very little that could be done. The cancer had grown without anyone knowing, like the mould beneath the wallpaper, the danger in the shadows. All this time I’d been afraid of Peter when I should have been afraid of those cells multiplying and multiplying.

During Ed’s last months, his parents, Rita and Bill, stayed with us to help me with Sophie. We went on walks on good days, traversing through the national park. Ed wanted to drink it all in one more time. We stayed in bed and watched movies on bad days. On the gut-wrenching, terrible days, Rita and Bill took Sophie away. But finally, Ed went into hospital and never came back.

I’ve never been so focused as I was during those four precious months. I committed it all to memory. His walk, every freckle on his skin, the broken veins by his nose, the flecks of green in his sea-blue irises. He leaned on me to walk and apologised to me when I bathed him towards the end. I memorised it all. Pain and joy both.

Every time he tried to talk to me about the end, I stopped him.

“You have to tell Sophie, that⁠—”

I placed a finger on his mouth. “She knows, Ed. She knows everything because you gave it to her in life. Let’s not…”

“All right. But you know, I⁠—”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

There are supposedly five stages of grief. There’s also something called anticipatory grief where you begin to grieve a person before they die. I was in that process, and I was stuck on anger. Every moment I was with Ed or Sophie, I’d wrestle with it, like holding onto a cat who doesn’t want to be held. It wriggled between my fingertips, desperate to come out. But I held it tight within my iron fist. I wouldn’t let them see.

I was with Ed during the final moments. His parents and I rotated childcare duties, keeping Sophie away at the end. I wanted to protect her happiest memories of her dad so I wouldn’t allow her in the hospital. Ed wasn’t lucid any longer, and all I could do was talk to him as he slept. We were alone together while it happened, which somehow felt right. While his illness filled the room, our love fought back, forming a protective bubble around us.

The nurses came in as soon as he was gone but backed away to give me a few minutes. I don’t remember much, just that I cried, kissed him on the cheek and said goodbye. I witnessed the pain leaving his body and the peace left behind. The next stage of grief didn’t hit me straight away, the anger was still there deep down inside but, in that moment, I was numb, and part of me was relieved to no longer see him suffering.

I wiped away my tears and moved into the corridor to call Rita. As I was reaching for my phone, I heard my name.

“Hi Amber. I’m sorry for your loss.”

He spoke the words so nonchalantly that I couldn’t quite believe it. I stood there, gaping at him, rooted to the spot.

“Did you hear me?” he asked. “I said I’m sorry for your loss.”

I took a step towards him, a fist raised to punch him in the face. He stepped back, smiling.

“Amber, it’s me. Come on. Why are you being like this?” His gaze skittered around the corridor, turning to a nurse as she walked by.

“Are you all right, Mrs Denton?” the nurse asked.

“I need to call the police. This man is harassing me.”

He’d smiled wider then. “No need. I’m not breaking any laws. The restraining order ran out last month.”

My heart plummeted down to my toes. I couldn’t believe it. He was right, but I hadn’t thought to update it. With everything going on, I’d let it slip my mind.

“Would you like me to call the police?” asked the nurse.

I shook my head.

Peter walked off with a spring in his step while I burst into tears.

I spent the next thirty minutes sobbing in the hospital room before another nurse gently checked in on me. I couldn’t explain to her that I was with the one person who made me feel safe. No one would understand. There was only one thing I could do next, pull myself together and call Ed’s family.

The next few weeks went by in a blur. For me, everything was about Sophie. I didn’t know how to be the mum of a child who lost her father. My grandparents had passed away in my teenage years, but I didn’t know grief until Ed passed away.

She slept in my bed with her feet pressed into my back, sometimes kicking me in the night. She threw tantrums about what food she wanted to eat while I tried to plan the funeral with Rita. There were times I had to walk away and let Ed’s parents handle her for a few minutes. And even with all of that happening, I had Peter in the back of my mind.

Once or twice, as I was running an errand—picking up milk or meeting the funeral directors—I noticed a white Audi in the rearview mirror. There was something about the way it trailed me, even down side streets, that made me think of Peter.

I took winding routes around country roads, taking sharp turns that made Sophie squeal in the back of the car. I was desperate to keep him away from the house.

It rained on the day of the funeral, but I didn’t care. What could possibly make this day better? Nothing. Why not bring on the rain? Why not let the cold chill me to the bone?

Sophie stuck to my side throughout the ceremony. I’d decided not to speak. I couldn’t do it. My parents turned up, teary-eyed and apologetic. I accepted their hugs but without emotion, as though I couldn’t bring myself to feel anything other than the numbness of grief.

“Honey is so sorry, love,” Mum said. “She loved Ed. She was in tears when…” She trailed off.

Sophie buried her head in my skirt as Rachel stood behind the lectern and talked about how Ed and I met. Halfway through her speech, I saw Rachel’s eyes trail over to the back of the church and her expression froze in shock. I turned over my shoulder, and I saw him there. Rage flooded my blood. Here, too?

Dad stood up then. He’d obviously seen Peter. But I cried out, “No!” Terrified he’d do something to get arrested again. I couldn’t cope with a second member of my family going to prison.

I stood, ready to confront him myself, but a couple of Ed’s colleagues grabbed hold of Peter and marched him out. Later I saw him lurking behind a tree at the cemetery.

He didn’t speak to me. Not even when I stayed at the graveside after everyone else had gone. Peter always knew his presence was enough. I wanted to gouge his eyes out, to stop him witnessing that private, family moment.

I watched him leave, memorising the number plate of his white Audi. Then I went back to the wake with my family, my daughter, and the other mourners.

A few weeks after the funeral, I worked with Ed’s colleague at the law firm to get a new restraining order in place. We had CCTV footage of him at the hospital to prove he had been in contact again, along with witnesses at Ed’s funeral. Things went back to a very sad and tentative state of normal. I didn’t stay in touch with my parents. Ed’s parents left to go back to their house in the south. I started searching for a new job after quitting my teaching assistant position to spend time with Sophie.

Peter Harlow disappeared from my life.

Until now.