The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

I feel a slight lump in my throat. After years of feeling like I couldn’t quite reach my emotions, lately they’ve been constantly on the verge of eruption.

“And you’ve always had mine,” I tell him.

He laughs quietly. “Well then, we’re all good, aren’t we?”

He falls silent, and in the darkness of the overgrown cottage garden, I gaze at the stars and listen to the sound of his breathing in these eerily silent surroundings.

“I fell in love with Libby again,” I admit to him.

“I know, mate,” he says, sounding sympathetic.

“You didn’t say anything.”

“I know better than to try and push you to talk. I figured you’d fess up when you wanted to.”

I sigh deeply. I don’t even know why I bothered saying anything. She’s gone now anyway, I don’t even know where to, and it’s not like I’m going to do anything about it.

“Irena said Libby has feelings for me,” I tell him, hunching my shoulders up against the cold evening air.

“You don’t say,” he replies sarcastically.

I wonder if I really have been blind.

“We want such different things,” I say, thinking it through out loud.

“Are you sure about that?”

“She wants kids and I don’t…”

“Based on what? A decision you made a long time ago following an incredibly stressful event?”

“My life’s just so chaotic, with Josh and my dad and…I dunno, there’s hardly any time and she deserves better. She deserves someone who can make her the centre of their world, someone who can give her stability and financial security and…” I trail off, staring up at the night sky. For the first time I’m not even convincing myself.

“And what about what you deserve?” asks Michael.

I look at the stars and wonder, for the first time in years, whether I’m deserving of happiness after all.

On a fresh Sunday morning, following our return from the Peak District, I pull up at the Canal House. I’ve said I’ll take some stuff to the tip for Stu in the van, seeing as I’m going anyway to dispose of a ruined carpet. It’s early, quiet, a chill in the bright air.

I go round the back and let myself in through the gate, nearly jumping out of my skin when a cat suddenly races past me. Crumble charges down the side passage and out into the car park like he’s running for his life.

And there, on the terrace in front of me, stands Libby, a cat brush in her hand.

We stare at each other, both caught off guard.

“Hi,” she says first, looking flustered, “I was just—”

“Hi. I didn’t know—”

“…I was trying to brush him—”

“…you’re… back. I didn’t…”

“Irena’s not able to work right now, so Stu asked if I—”

“Oh, right, I see.”

“Yeah, sorry. I know you were hoping you’d seen the last of me!” She laughs, but her joke falls flat and we both look away, embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure whether to come back, but Stu and Irena were pretty desperate and they’ve been so good to me…” She waves the cat brush in the air as she talks and sounds genuinely apologetic. “It’s just until the baby comes. I’ll be gone—”

“No, it’s fine. I mean, of course it’s fine, it’s none of my business, it’s nothing to do with me—”

“I’ll be working in the kitchen mainly, so we probably won’t even—”

“No, seriously, please,” I beg her, feeling terrible. This was her hometown too, once. I can’t believe I’ve made her feel so uncomfortable about being here, and not even for a genuine reason. “I’ve been so busy lately I’ve barely been around here anyway—”

“Okay, good. I mean, not good, but—”

“Ah, morning!” calls Stu, appearing from the back of the pub carrying a pile of cardboard. He stops abruptly when he reaches us, looking from me to Libby to me again, weighing up what he’s just walked into.

“I’m going to find your cat, who I’ve just scared half to death,” Libby tells him, holding up the brush and forcing a smile.

“I told you, you’re fighting a losing battle,” says Stu. “Oh, can you put these by the bins?”

He piles the cardboard into Libby’s arms, and we watch as she disappears down the side passage, struggling to see over the top of the rubbish.

Stu turns his attention to me. “So, Libby’s returned,” he declares.

“I can see that.”

He looks at me long and hard, as if he’s waiting for more.

“What?” I ask.

He shakes his head, a hint of sympathy in his eyes.

“Come on,” he sighs, as if I’ve somehow disappointed him. “Let’s get some coffee.”

“I never thanked you properly,” says Stu, his hands wrapped around his mug, squinting against the sunshine. We’re sitting at the back of the terrace under a clear, blue sky. Light bounces off his shiny bald head.

“What for?”

“For what you did when Irena… you know…”

He stares sadly into his mug.

“I didn’t do anything,” I tell him.

“Of course you did. You called the ambulance, you stayed with her. She said you were great, that you stayed calm and collected.”

Christ, I think, how could I possibly have given that impression?

“But you must have been freaking out,” continues Stu, not knowing how much of an understatement that is. “It was a really stressful situation, but she was so pleased you were there. And I know you were about to get in the ambulance with her just as I arrived.”

“What else would I have done?”

“Nothing, I guess. I just wanted to say how grateful I am.”

“Shut the hell up.”

“Okay.”

We sit in silence for a moment and I study the mural in front of us. It’s so busy that I keep finding details that I’ve never noticed before. The lady in a towel peeping out from behind the net curtain of her houseboat, the dog cocking his leg against a tree, the exhausted-looking jogger who clearly hasn’t done exercise in several years. These comical little scenes are so typical of Libby that I can almost imagine her grinning to herself as she painted them. I can’t believe that when we first met here all