In Too Deep

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Authors: Samantha Hayes
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listening to what she’s saying and have to force my eyes off the pen, telling myself that it doesn’t mean anything, that they’re as common as salt, a dime adozen. All I know is that I have to get Mum away before she makes the connection as well. If I don’t, it will ruin the evening for sure.

Gina
    ‘Susan,’ I say as lightly as I can manage. ‘You surprised me.’
    Air escapes my lungs, punctured by disappointment as she comes up behind me.
    It’s not Rick.
    I take another breath, catching Hannah’s eye. I can immediately see that she knows exactly what I was thinking.
    I have these little fantasies. Bucketloads of them, actually. And as time’s gone on, they’ve increased in number. To begin with they were mostly aimed at me – fantasies that involved me not waking up, perhaps dying mysteriously in the night from a broken heart so I wouldn’t have to deal with things any more.
    Or I dream up scenarios where I get diagnosed with an incurable disease, an illness that takes me swiftly so Hannah doesn’t have to witness my demise. Other times I pray I’ll get hit by a bus or a train, me stepping out not-so-carelessly into its path, reaching out for the hand of my son as he welcomes me over.
    But as the weeks have turned into months, as I realise that, unlike Rick, I’m here to stay, the stories in my head have turned into fantasies of his return. He comes home in many guises and ways – from delivery men, to customers at work, to patients in hospital who have lost their memories.
    That last one is perhaps my favourite – wrapping everything up in a neat parcel of forgiveness. A terrible accident, Rick was saved and taken to hospital, remaining in a coma for months. With no ID and an admin error, the police didn’t make the link. He somehow slipped through the net of identification and, when he woke, his memory was fuzzy and he didn’t know who or where he was.
    I’m always drenched in sweat when I wake from this particular dream. However hard I try, there’s always a piece of the puzzle – of
Rick
– missing, leaving a gaping hole in the middle. And in the dream, when I’m rekindling his memory, teaching him who he is again, I watch myself telling him lies, piecing him back together just the way I want him.
    ‘Mrs Forrester?’
    ‘Mum . . .’ comes the unmistakable tone of my daughter. A mother always reacts to the sound of her own child.
    ‘Sorry, love, I was miles away.’ I take a sip of my drink, trying to seem unfazed. Susan is standing beside me, her eyebrows raised, her lips poised in a ready-to-go smile.
    ‘Will you be dining at the hotel tonight?’ she asks. ‘We only have one table left if you want it.’
    I look at Hannah. Do we want it? I wish I knew. Since Rick went, even the most trivial of decisions pass me by, rendering me stuck in a place of a thousand impossible choices.
    ‘We’d love to eat here tonight,’ Hannah says right on cue. I’m so glad she’s here.
    ‘Perfect,’ Susan replies, jotting down a note on her pad.
    I look at her hands – strong and lean, capable hands, but something doesn’t feel right. Something that begins the swell of nausea inside me as I watch her write. I have no idea what it is.
    ‘May I have a glass of water, please?’ I say to the barman. I take a few sips, thinking how stupid I am to have had wine in the afternoon. I can already feel a headache blooming behind my forehead. But it’s more than that. Hannah is talking to Susan about dogs now, something about Labradors and gundogs . . . and my eyes are drawn back to Susan’s hands as she clicks her pen on and off, occasionally allowing the nib to wander across the paper in an idle doodle. The room blurs around the edges.
    Susan laughs loudly and Hannah follows suit, covering her face briefly at the funny story they’ve just shared.
    ‘That must have been sooo embarrassing,’ Hannah says in that incredulous way of hers, the same way I’ve heard her talking to her friends. But rarely

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