Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner (primary phonics .TXT) 📕

he says. He shows me how to ball up a blanket from the pram to wedge him into the swing, instructs Ruby to push him gently. Leo is stunned, an amazed smile lighting up his face. He giggles, kicks his legs for more. And in this moment, I try not to worry. About whether he is too hot or cold, whether he should be wearing a hat, or a thicker coat. Whether he is damaged, forever. I try to just stand and smile. To see it as a gift. To be here, despite everything. Me and my son. My brother. My friend. My niece. In the park, in the sunshine.

Later there are thunderstorms. We pile back to the house. Katie and Charlie play with Leo. Ruby watches cartoons and I make her hot chocolate. When Charlie goes home, Katie follows him to the door. I think I hear him kiss her, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t look. It’s none of my business.

Leo is rubbing at his eyes, pressing his forehead against my legs. I gather him up in my arms and take him upstairs. He settles in his cot, his arms thrown over his head, the way he always sleeps. I watch his eyelashes fluttering until they rest on his chubby cheeks. Until his breathing slows.

Downstairs, Katie is sitting at the kitchen table we share. We’ve been here nearly a year now. The decor isn’t what I’d have chosen, the garden tiny, overgrown with ivy and cow parsley. But it’s cosy, and warm, and the landlord let me repaint Leo’s room, put hooks in the ceiling for the elephant mobile Katie bought for him. New curtains, with a dandelion pattern. A soft carpet he can play on. It’s home, for now.

Katie has put some thick socks on, made a pot of tea, arranged the remains of the misshapen cupcakes Ruby brought us on a plate. The thunder cracks overhead – I close the kitchen window, yanking it hard to stop it sticking. I check the washing line is empty.

‘So,’ she says. ‘Are you going to show me this letter?’

I hesitate, unsure at first whether this is a good idea. Eventually, I reach behind the coffee pot, retrieve the envelope from the shelf. The paper is pale blue and cheap, flimsy in my fingers, the hand unmistakable. My husband. The murderer. Katie’s eyes widen at the sight of it.

‘How did he find your new address?’

I shrug. ‘No idea.’

‘I thought they checked their letters, made sure they weren’t sending stuff like this. Especially when there’s a court order.’

‘I know.’ I toss the letter at her. ‘I don’t know how it got to me. Or what to make of it. Maybe you will.’

Katie unfolds the letter and reads it. Every so often she makes an expression of incredulity.

‘I picture you in your kitchen! As if you could have ever lived there again!’

I sigh. There are times when I long to go back. Some nights I dream I’m back there, in my lovely house on the park, everything back the way it was before. But then some nights I dream about other things. The buzz of the dehumidifier, the smell of smoke. A crack opening up underneath my feet. A body, hollowed out and rotting, underneath.

The cameras were all there by the time they found her body. Lights flashing, drones buzzing over the house, even a helicopter. It’s all online, if you want to find it. I couldn’t stop watching, for a while. The drilling had taken several hours, I read. Then the money shot that they had all been waiting for. Four white-suited men, like astronauts, carrying the stretcher through my front door, so carefully, like something so fragile, so precious. It occurred to me that no one had ever been careful with Rachel before.

Katie is shaking now. Tears in her eyes.

‘How dare he write these things? About Rachel, about the blood. How dare he haunt you with them? Oh, Helen, you ought to burn it. And for him to talk about Leo!’ Her voice is cracking now, and I feel the stir of a lump in my own throat. ‘How can he think you’ll let him see Leo, after what he did? After what you were put through?’

I try not to think too much about those early days. When I’d woken up in hospital, I’d tried to scream, but no sound had come out. I couldn’t work my mouth, couldn’t work my lungs. My head hurt, something pulling tight above my eye. When I’d put my hand to my head, there had been the sting of ripped flesh, raised contours, lumps of stitches. But then my hands had gone to my stomach. A hot, searing pain across my belly. And my baby was gone. And I was alone, all alone.

The nurse had come, then. Explained some things, avoided others. She explained I’d had a head injury, that the paramedics had found me unconscious. That they’d had to operate straight away to save the baby.

He was small, much smaller than he should have been at full term, and floppy, refusing to feed. They didn’t know why he’d stopped growing in the final month. Was I sure I hadn’t taken any medications? Anything at all? Any benzodiazepines? I’d shaken my head. Of course not. I would never have taken pills. Never. The doctors had glanced at each other, but they hadn’t asked again.

In the end, they said it might just be one of those things. They gave him oxygen, steroid injections to help his lungs to grow. But he was here, he was alive. And then later that day, they’d taken me in a wheelchair, to see him. His little head, all squashed and puffy. His tiny hands. His perfect, sleeping face. He didn’t know anything about what had happened. I had tried not to think about the two police officers, lurking outside the swing doors to the ward. Waiting to ask me questions. I just looked at Leo, and I