The Reunion by Amy Silver Read Free Book Online Page B

left, he shook my hand, clapped me on the back, and said, ‘Will I be seeing you, then?’ If I’d closed my eyes at that moment, if I’d just listened to his voice, his intonation, I would have sworn it was Conor. Nothing on this earth could have persuaded me otherwise. I couldn’t say anything, I just walked away.
    I replay it, in my head, every night. Everything I did, didn’t do, every wrong decision. I would give my life to take it back.
    I don’t know where you are. Please come back.
    I am so sorry.
    With love,
    Andrew
    P.S. Nat is awake. She came out of the coma ten days ago, and is now speaking normally and there are no signs of brain damage. The doctors are still unsure about whether or not she will regain a full range of movement. She asks after you. She told me that she dreamed you came to see her. I said that you did, while she was unconscious. Perhaps you spoke to her? Perhaps she could hear you.

Chapter Five

    ANDREW LAY ON his side, his eyes fixed on the group of freckles on Natalie’s neck, just below her hairline. His wife lay with her back to him, facing the window. The curtains were drawn, but a bright sliver of sunlight, slicing through a gap between the drapes, fell across the bed, across Natalie’s shoulder, illuminating the tip of the scar which started at the base of her neck and traced halfway down her back, running parallel to her spine. He wanted to touch her, but he daren’t. He didn’t want to wake her. Assuming she was still asleep – and he hoped, fervently hoped that she was still sleeping, although he doubted it was possible, what with all the noise.
    On the other side of the wall behind their headboard, Lilah and her boyfriend were having loud and enthusiastic sex. They had been at it for some time now, and yet Andrew was pretty sure they still had a way to go. It may have been more than fifteen years since he’d last heard them, but Andrew remembered Lilah’s sex noises and he knew that she wasn’t quite there yet.
    It didn’t help that, aside from Lilah’s ecstatic cries, the house was in perfect silence. No birdsong, no traffic, no aeroplanes overhead, no police sirens. The whole world muffled and muted by snow. Andrew desperately wanted to press his fingers into his ears to drown out the din, but he didn’t dare move because then Natalie would know for sure that he was awake and that the two of them had been lying there, listening to a kind of passion and excitement which they now seemed incapable of finding together, and he didn’t want to do that to her. He wanted her to be able to pretend that he was sleeping too.
    But then the moaning started. It wasn’t Lilah, he was sure, it was the boyfriend, and that was even worse. It was horrible, a guttural, animal sound somewhere between pain and pleasure and Andrew couldn’t stand it for another second. He whipped the duvet back and jumped out of bed, grabbed his sweatshirt that for some reason was hanging over the chair next to the bedroom door, and made his exit as quickly as possible, without looking back at his wife.
    Downstairs, Jennifer, wearing jeans and a voluminous poncho-type jumper thing with an apron on top, was standing next to the range oven, frying sausages, listening to the radio which was playing some kind of awful French pop. She was singing along, her voice soft and tuneless. For a moment he just stood at the foot of the stairs, watching her: her raven hair, long and lustrous, curling down her back, the line of her neck, her pale, creamy skin, as youthful as he remembered. She was still so lovely. She looked back at him over her shoulder and caught him staring.
    ‘Smells delicious,’ he said, striding into the kitchen.
    Jen put down the fork she was holding and turned to greet him, cocking her head a little and giving him a smile, a deep dimple appearing in her left cheek. He wanted to give her a hug, but he didn’t, he just froze, overwhelmed by the most intense rush of happiness combined with a