The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

Tom grabbed me as I headed for the glass-sided staircase, and caught unawares, I squealed.

‘I think that sounds incredible.’ He nuzzled into my neck and I shivered, the thrill of his touch sending shock waves way down into the core of my aching body. I’d purposely worn the perfume he loved when I visited that he said smelled like burned sugar. ‘I can’t wait.’

‘Everything we talked about and longed for is a reality now,’ I reminded him. ‘That’s why you have to be brave and push through the next few weeks with your parents. Jill will come round, I know it.’

He bit his lip and took a step back from me. ‘I know,’ he said, but I didn’t think he did. Not really.

Jill had totally bucked against our marriage like I’d known she would. That was why Tom wanted to get married before his release. It had seemed like the perfect solution.

‘We can have a party for family and friends once they come around to the idea, but like the prison officer’s suggested, if we’re already man and wife on the day you’re released, there’s nothing anyone can do about it,’ he’d said and I’d agreed.

What he really meant was that there was nothing his mother could do about it.

I’d been prepared fully for a showdown when I went to their house, but her reaction had been totally over-the-top. While the rest of us were calmly discussing things, she’d begun making strange wailing noises, and finally losing it. Robert had ushered us out of the house in a panic.

She’d looked awful – old way beyond her years. Her neat brown bob was longer now, ragged at the ends and shot through with grey. And her clothes looked like she’d got her entire wardrobe from that grubby charity shop she worked in. She didn’t seem too fussy if the garments actually fitted or not. Her mud-coloured skirt, round-neck sweater and cardigan all bagged and hung off her scrawny frame. If she hadn’t acted like a crazy witch and upset Tom, I’d have almost felt sorry for her.

Robert had aged too, but in that infuriatingly craggy way that some men did, almost rendering them more attractive than when they were younger. I’d wanted to take Jill aside, warn her what might happen. She knew the story of how my dad had left Mum for a woman half her age once she’d hit her forties. You had to keep yourself tip-top, stay youthful and fresh. That was why I loved to be in the company of young people; it made me feel safe from getting older.

‘Brid?’ Tom said, waving his hand in front of me. ‘Ground Control speaking.’

‘Sorry.’ I smiled. ‘I’m thinking about how long I’ve waited for you to be here, for us to be together in our new home. Upstairs next.’

‘Music to my ears.’ He winked cheekily and my stomach lurched with delight like it hadn’t done since I was a teenager.

He climbed the stairs, his powerful thighs taking them two at a time. God, he looked fit from behind. Halfway up, I saw him hesitate and I swallowed. He’d spotted the photographs.

‘They don’t bother you, do they?’ I came up behind him and put a hand on the small of his back. ‘The photographs, I mean?’

‘No! I mean, I’d expect you to have photographs up.’ He did a double-take and peered closer. ‘Oh! You cut me out of that one?’

I’d taken this picture of the boys myself. We’d been on a trip to a local park during the school holidays when Jill had been working at the library. Jesse and Tom had played on the climbing frames while I’d dozed on a blanket in the sun. While the boys fished for sticklebacks with brightly coloured rod nets and jam jars, I crept up behind them with the camera. I’d loved the vitality in Jesse’s face and called out their names so they both looked straight at the camera before I snapped the shot.

‘After Jesse died, I couldn’t bear to see you up there. Not for a long time.’

‘It’s OK, you don’t have to explain,’ Tom said softly, and I loved him for that.

I showed him the two bedrooms on the first floor and the family bathroom with the free-standing white tub and the TV set into the silver marbled wall tiles.

‘Awesome.’ He gave a low whistle. ‘A beer, a bath and Man United. What more could a man want?’

‘Charming!’ I mimed a slap, and he dodged my hand like a boxer. Jesse’s face flashed into my mind and I pushed it gently away.

Tom winked and bent down to kiss my forehead. ‘Tub’s big enough for two, gorgeous, so no worries there. Footie won’t even come close.’

I headed to the next staircase and began climbing up to the second floor. Tom followed me this time, lingering again as he passed the collage I’d compiled as a visual representation of the eighteen years of Jesse’s life. From his first baby picture in hospital the day he was born to one I’d taken of him blowing me a kiss from the garden gate the week before he died.

Tom had been in many of the original photographs, but back then, in the maelstrom of raw grief, I’d taken each one and carefully snipped out his image. Excised him from my son’s life like a malignant tumour. It had felt like the right thing to do.

He didn’t comment, and I was glad.

When we reached the top landing, I led him into the large master bedroom, the pièce de résistance of the house. It featured an expansive floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the open countryside beyond the road, including what was a spectacular wildflower meadow in the summer months.

‘Wow!’ His voice sounded strange, and I saw his eyes were glistening.

‘Oh Tom, that’s so sweet.’ I wrapped my arms around his waist.

‘Ignore me, I’m turning soft,’ he said gruffly. He wiped his eyes with the back of a hand before hugging me closer.