Page 63

Adam

This is it . . .

Three words, my death sentence, swim around my head.

I stumble towards Sophie, my foot tangling in a swathe of seaweed.

She catches hold of my sleeve, steadying me, and I collapse into her arms. It can’t be true.

I feel fine, apart from the stabbing pains in my chest. But that’s stress and shock.

I’m young and healthy! I haven’t hit thirty!

Even when my life is apparently about to end, I still use too many exclamation marks!

‘I’m really going to die tonight?’ I ask, my voice breaking.

I’m hoping I’ve misunderstood her or she’s playing a macabre prank, but this is Sophie, the love of my life. She’d never willingly cause me pain. The anguish etched across her face, and her jittery behaviour today, tell me this is real.

‘I’m sorry, Adam,’ she repeats.

‘H-h-how?’ My tongue feels too big for my mouth.

‘I don’t know. I only ever see the numbers counting down.’

I shake my head, unable to speak.

‘After the accident, I saw Lily’s digit getting lower and lower in ICU.

I thought she was going to wake up, but she didn’t – that’s how I learned what the numbers meant.

It’s why Mum went travelling and never came back – I’d told her how much time she had left.

And it’s why I didn’t want to see you again, Adam.

It wasn’t because I blamed you for not telling me about Stanford or for me and Lily getting into the car.

It was because I loved you so much. I couldn’t face discovering your number and watching it drop day by day. It would have been too much to bear.’

Intense pain shoots through my chest. I wonder if I’m about to suffer a fatal cardiac arrest due to an undiagnosed heart condition.

‘You still loved me . . . ? All the time we were apart?’

‘Of course I did! I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for a minute.’

‘That’s why you didn’t want to meet when I emailed you about the quilt... but I persuaded you. And you ran away when you saw I had, what, three weeks to live?’

‘Your number was a shock. I never expected it would be—’

‘So low,’ I finish her sentence. ‘If I’d known...’

I glance sideways, flicking my torchlight towards Sophie before scanning the side of the cliffs for the unusually shaped rock. Somehow, I manage to keep moving forwards, with Sophie at my side.

‘What would you have done differently if I’d told you sooner?’

I ponder her question.

‘You’d never have taken off like my mum. Wouldn’t you have chosen to stay and become closer to Wren and your own mum?’

Tears prick my eyes. I don’t have a big bucket list of places or experiences to tick off.

I don’t need to walk the Inca Trail, scale Mount Everest, visit the Taj Mahal or see the northern lights in Iceland (although I have always fancied doing this).

Everything I need and love is here in south Devon.

‘You gave me back my family,’ I say, my voice thick with emotion.

‘You had it all along, Adam. I couldn’t alter your numbers, but I could help you enjoy every single moment with them before it was too late.’

I let the tears slip down my face in the darkness.

‘I wouldn’t have changed any of the days I’ve spent with you and Wren this last week.’ I let out a hollow laugh, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. ‘I’m being greedy. I wish I had more time! I wish I’d found you sooner and learned how to be a better dad quicker.’

‘I wish I could rewind time,’ she replies.

‘I’d go back to that night and stop the car crash.

I’d save Lily and the others. I wouldn’t have this condition, but you’d still have gone to Stanford and probably met Carley and had a daughter.

’ She touches the Mobius strip necklace, which peeps out from beneath her coat.

‘We could have ended up here, at this exact moment in time, looking for Wren together.’

I lift my chin. ‘I love you, Sophie. I need to tell Wren I love her too, make sure she knows that... She remembers .’

‘You will. Let’s go.’

We run towards the cliff edge, the torch picking out the distinctive rock formation.

‘Wren! It’s Daddy. Are you here?’

The pain in my chest worsens, as if a heavy weight is crushing my ribcage. My arms tingle with pins and needles.

Is this it? I can’t die before I find her. I have to say goodbye!

I ignore the cramping sensation, scrambling over stones. Thunder rumbles loudly and lightning slashes the sky. A small, dark figure appears from a gap in the cliff, a pale light flickering.

‘Over there!’ Sophie shouts, pointing.

The sky erupts and Wren appears, apparition-like in her anorak and wellies. She’s clutching her mum’s urn and a torch.

‘Wren!’ I holler.

I stagger closer and fall to my knees, wrapping her into my arms as the ache intensifies in my ribcage.

‘I was scared I wouldn’t get here in time, terrified I wouldn’t find you!’

She clings to me, weeping against my chest.

‘S-s-sorry. W-w-wanted to do this for Mummy. She loved storms, but I d-d-don’t. The thunder scared me. I hid.’

I take the urn from her, placing it on the sand. ‘We’re here now and you’re safe. I love you so much, Wren. I haven’t said it nearly enough times, but I do.’

‘I love you too, Daddy. 100 per cent.’

My heart contracts. This is the first time I’ve ever heard her say these precious words – and it’ll possibly be the last. I hug her tighter, feeling her shudder beneath my fingertips at the clap of thunder.

‘Why don’t you both empty the urn while I let your mum know we’ve found her?’ Sophie suggests.

She takes my phone and the torch, moving away a little. She attempts to get a connection, before flashing a signal to the search party further down the beach. I take the lid off the urn and crouch next to Wren.

‘Shall we do it right here? I think your mum would have liked this spot.’

‘Okey-dokey!’

Carefully, I position Wren with her back to the wind. ‘Are you ready?’

‘I think so.’

We turn the container upside down and step back. The wind scoops up the ashes, twirling them high into the sky. The particles shimmer as lightning strikes again.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Wren gasps.

‘Goodbye, Carley. We’ll always remember you.’

‘Goodbye, Mummy! I love you.’

Wren leans against my legs, shivering, as she stares up at the darkness. ‘It’s just us now, Daddy.’

My heart feels like it’s breaking into a million pieces. I rub her back briskly, attempting to warm her. ‘This is one of my “famous” hugs and it comes with a 100 per cent guarantee to make you feel better.’

‘It does, Daddy.’

I’m fighting back tears as Sophie returns, holding my phone.

‘Your mum says the police have radioed for an ambulance to get Wren checked for hypothermia, but it could take at least twenty minutes. They’re inundated with emergency calls and some of the roads to the beach are blocked.’

The phone rings and Sophie passes it to Wren.

‘Grandma got cut off. She wants a quick word.’

Wren sits on a rock, pressing the phone to her ear. I seize the chance to speak to Sophie alone.

‘Has my number changed at all today?’ I ask hopefully. ‘That tree bough didn’t hit our cab... we didn’t crash.’

She shakes her head, gesturing for us to step further away.

‘It’s not possible to change what’s destined to happen?’ I flick a look at my watch. ‘Within the next hour and a half?’

‘I tried many, many times to save people, and nothing ever worked until recently.’

‘What happened?’ My heart leaps.

‘Walter’s numbers increased after Harry and his family flew over from Australia for the party. Being around them lengthened his life. That’s why I wanted you to come back here this week and spend time with Wren and your mum.’

‘So it is possible... we can beat this!’

‘It was only a small change, Adam. And it’s the only time I’ve ever seen it happen.’

‘But there’s hope! I can’t give up.’

Wren walks over, passing the phone. She picks up the empty urn. ‘Can we go home? I’m cold and Grandma says she’ll make hot chocolate.’

‘That sounds great, Da-Wren! Let’s go.’

‘Okay, Da-Daddy!’

I scoop her into my arms and we retrace our steps across the sand. A few minutes later, thunder erupts and another bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, illuminating the whole stretch of beach.

‘Grandma!’ Wren cries, pointing at the figures in the distance.

She slithers down, clutching the urn and her torch, and runs towards them. Sophie follows. I stop as I feel the solid velvet shape in my pocket. This is it... The only moment I’ll ever have. I flick it open with my thumb.

‘Sophie!’

She turns around and gasps as I get down on one knee, producing the open box.

‘W-w-what are you doing?’

‘I’ve been waiting all evening for the right moment, but you’ve shown me there’s no such thing as the perfect time.’

I hold up the diamond engagement ring I designed, along with Sophie’s necklace and Wren’s bracelet, at the Plymouth boutique. It’s a solitaire with a Mobius strip engraved on the inside of the gold band, along with our entwined initials.

‘I love you with all my heart, Sophie Leroux. It began with you, and it will end with you. You are the love of my life, my forever. Will you do me the honour of agreeing to be my wife? I can’t promise to grow old with you and have children or grandchildren.

We have no future, only this... the here and now.

But I promise I will love you passionately until my dying breath, whether that’s in minutes or seconds.

I want to spend every single one of those numbers with you. I’ll treasure them.’

‘I will!’ Sophie struggles to hold back her tears. ‘You’ll always be the love of my life, Adam. However long I have left on this earth, I want to be with you.’

She stretches out her hand and I slide the ring into place.

It’s too big and slips down her finger. It needs to be altered, but I won’t live long enough to see that happen.

I’ll never turn around at the altar and see her walking towards me in a beautiful dress, with Wren as our bridesmaid.

I’ll never have more children or celebrate my daughter’s birthdays.

We’ll never enjoy a family Christmas together. .. The realisation is agonising.

‘Let’s go, Mrs Bailey,’ I gasp, barely able to breathe.

‘I love the sound of that, Mr Bailey!’

She helps me to my feet. We kiss, briefly, desperately, before running after Wren, hand in hand.

‘Wait for us!’ I shout.

Wren turns around and holds the urn up as thunder explodes overhead.

‘Look, Mummy. I’m not scared of the big bangs anymore and the pretty lightning is for you!’

We’ve almost reached her when there’s a devastatingly loud crack and a flash of pure white.

‘No!’ Sophie cries.

She launches herself at Wren, but I get there first, throwing my arms over them both. Pain sears through my body like molten lava, setting every nerve ending on fire.

Sophie screams and drops first.

My knees buckle. I hit cold, wet sand yet I’m plunging deeper and deeper into a furnace, the skin flayed from my body.

Cries ring out but are smothered with hot ash.

Blackness descends in a heavy, smothering veil.

Something swirls feverishly beneath my eyelids .

A tunnel appears, stretching far ahead, filled with dazzling, dancing numbers.

They spin around in infinite combinations and incomprehensible patterns, as if attempting to be solved.

I’m sucked towards the swirling, luminous figures.

I can’t find their correct order. I’m losing my own number.

I’m becoming smaller and smaller.

I fade into zero.