Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel by Dorothy Koomson Read Free Book Online

having to be everything all the time. That’s why I’m crying, Leo, I’m tired.
”
    He stared at her. Poor Mummy. From the box on the table, he pulled out a tissue. He put it on her arm and held it there, like she did to him when he had a bump and he cried. He held it and held it and then he took it away and kissed her arm.
    “
All better,” he said. “No cry anymore. All better.
”
    “
I suppose it has to be, doesn’t it?” Mummy said.
    He nodded at her. All better now.

    Leo, age 3 years

CHAPTER 5
    H
e’s been good as gold,” Nurse Melissa says as we return to Leo’s hospital room.
    She has switched on the lights and is thumbing through my book—
Methods in Experimental Psychology.
I wonder for a moment if she finds it interesting or if, as is most likely, she thinks it’s dull.
    “Thanks, Melissa,” I reply, and then I realize she is looking at, and talking to—in fact, completely focused on—Keith. I roll my eyes as I take my seat and start to examine Leo for any signs—no matter how small—of change. I often wonder if Nurse Melissa is so eager to watch over Leo because she fancies my husband. A disproportionate number of women do; Nurse Melissa is simply a shade more unsubtle than most.
    Over the years, I’ve watched otherwise sane, rational and professional women lose their minds and, frankly, their self-respect around Keith—it happens all the time, in shops, in banks, in restaurants, at airports, in this hospital. It’s his looks, his height, his job, his persona, and his presence. He is like a fantasy. Even if you didn’t know he had once been in the Army, you only have to look at him to know he’s the type of guy who would take a bullet for one of his men in battle, and would go on to lead a group of villagers to safety by putting himself between them and life-threatening danger. You spoke to him andhis voice would turn your knees to mush; he smiled at you and you felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. He might not be someone you would normally fancy on paper, but in the flesh he would make you turn a little bit silly. I know, because that’s exactly how I felt about him when I first worked with him at the bar. I had a huge crush but I got over it. Then two years later he asked me out. And the fantasy became an altogether different reality.
    The first time I’d seen him naked, the anniversary we’d just been “celebrating,” I had become frozen. His body had been carved from the most perfect block of dark mahogany, every line of him smooth and unblemished. I’d lost my nerve at that point, and my eyes started scanning the room for the clothes I’d already shed, as I decided
not
to take anything else off. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. Not when he looked like that, like a Michelangelo statue, and I was ordinary and, up until that moment, more than happy with myself. He’d taken my wrist and, gently but firmly, had placed the flat of my hand just left of the center of his bare chest, held it there. I’d immediately felt the rhythm of his heart: strong, steady, fast. Incredibly fast. “You’re the only person who’s ever been able to make my heart beat that fast without trying,” he’d said. “Do you understand now why I love you?” In his dark eyes, in his smooth voice, rang sincerity. Plain, simple, honest. I’d smiled, he’d grinned back and the roller-coaster feeling that swelled and plummeted inside me told me I was going to fall in love with him. I wasn’t then, not like he was with me, but it would happen. It would absolutely happen.
    “You’ve arrived quite late,” Melissa says to Keith. I don’t have to look at her to know she’s probably twirling a lock of hair around her fingers, sticking out her chest, just-so to sit in hisline of sight, while she simpers up at him from under her eyelashes.
    “I suppose I have,” Keith replies. “I didn’t really notice the time.”
    I have no real need to be bothered by the women who flirt with my husband,