Page 8 of Healing Hearts on Thistledown Lane, Part #4

Her sister reached out to touch her cheek. ‘You’ll be okay. I know it’s been a rollercoaster of a year but you’ve got us. We’re not going anywhere.’

The warmth of the gesture kindled a spark of gratitude in Maura’s bruised heart. She smiled and took Kirsty’s hand. ‘I know. Thank you.’

The words came back to her later, when the family was immersed in a chaotic game of Pictionary.

The notion she’d had for a while now, that Fraser was slipping away from her, still caused her stomach to clench but she thought she was starting to accept it.

Until this year, she’d all but forgotten he existed; she could do that again, although it might be more of a challenge if his face was splashed across buses and billboards all over the city.

But Kirsty was right – she had her family to hold onto. She would be okay.

She would have to be.

‘Hello, Maura.’

For a moment, Maura doubted the evidence of her eyes.

The last person she’d expected to see when she’d answered the cautious knock on the door of the studio was Jamie.

But there he was, as tall and broad as ever, wearing an expression of uncertainty that was most unlike him.

She gaped, open-mouthed, then realised she how she must look and hurriedly pulled herself together. ‘Jamie.’

His air of hesitation grew. ‘Am I interrupting? I guessed you’d probably be working, even at this hour.’

In the past, she might have taken it as a dig – it was after eight o’clock, and Jamie had always hated her working so late into the evening – but now she simply glanced down at her clay-caked hands and nodded.

‘You know me.’ She looked up at him, feeling a frown start to crease her forehead. ‘Is there something you need?’

He puffed out a breath. ‘In a manner of speaking. Can I come in? I… It shouldn’t take long.’

She looked over her shoulder, taking in the assortment of ghosts in various stages of production, the half-coiled vase she’d been battling to keep straight, and the potter’s wheel she had yet to put away from that afternoon’s session.

The studio was a mess, but whatever the reason for Jamie’s visit, she found she would much rather entertain him here than in the apartment they had once shared.

At least he didn’t smell as though he’d been drinking.

‘Sure,’ she said, stepping back to allow him to duck inside. ‘Sorry about the mess.’

‘No problem,’ he said, gazing around with cursory interest. ‘I saw you have an exhibition at the castle – I bet you’ve had a few commissions off the back of it.’

Maura nodded. ‘A few.’

‘I’m glad. You deserve the success.’

‘Um… thanks,’ Maura said, slightly nonplussed. Was this what he’d come to tell her? But it appeared not, as Jamie cleared his throat.

‘I owe you an apology,’ he said, holding up a hand to forestall any reply. ‘No, I need to say this. There’s no excuse for the way I treated you – I was the worst kind of idiot and I’m sorry.’

Maura waited. The man stood before her, eyes fixed on the floor, was so unlike the Jamie she knew that she wondered for a wild second if she might be dreaming.

His shoulders were slumped, his hands were clasped as though in prayer and his voice was utterly devoid of his usual bombast. He looked like a man consumed by regret and she was almost tempted to reach out to him.

Then he was speaking again and his next words took her breath away.

‘But more than that, I was a drunk.’ Looking up, he met her gaze with clear-eyed honesty. ‘I have a problem with alcohol and I let it affect you. For that, I’m sorry too.’

She watched him with stunned compassion. Even now, after all the pain he had put her through, her heart ached for him. How many times had she wished he would face the truth about his drinking? And how much had it cost him to admit it to her now? ‘You don’t have to apologise for that,’ she said.

‘Yes, I do.’ He ran an anguished hand through his hair. ‘My counsellor says it’s important to make amends, once you’ve decided to stop drinking, so that’s what I’m trying to do.’

‘You’ve stopped?’ Maura said, but the truth of it was written all over him.

Now that he was no longer staring at the ground, she could see his skin had lost its sallow tinge.

His hair was no longer lank, but shiny and soft, and his beard was freshly trimmed.

The biggest change of all was in his eyes, however; they were clear and bright and direct, not pink-rimmed and bleary, the way they had been most mornings for as long as she could remember.

‘Thirty-seven days sober,’ Jamie said, and he sounded both proud and surprised at the achievement.

‘I’m not out of the woods yet, still taking each day as it comes, but my counsellor is brilliant.

And now that I’m not drinking, I can see how bad it was.

’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not asking you to forgive me, Maura. I just want you to know I’m sorry.’

Silence stretched between them while Maura tried to process everything she’d heard.

It seemed that the end of their relationship had served as an abrupt wake-up call to Jamie, prompting him to face an uncomfortable truth, and for that she was glad.

A small part of her wished he’d come to the realisation earlier, before so much damage had been done, but she’d come to accept a difficult truth of her own in the months since the break-up, which was that she and Jamie hadn’t been right for each other from the start.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I do forgive you.’

His eyes brimmed with tears, and that was perhaps the most astonishing thing of all.

In the five years they had been together, Maura had never known Jamie to cry.

It went against everything he believed – that rugby players didn’t admit they were hurt, on or off the pitch, that real men stayed strong and endured, that emotions were to be tightly controlled and wielded as weapons against the opposition.

Something cataclysmic had occurred if he was able to set those beliefs aside now.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Everyone has been so kind – my parents, the guys at the club. I had to apologise for letting them down and they insisted I hadn’t. Even Liam, although I’m not sure he meant it.’

‘That might take time,’ Maura allowed, remembering how hurt the younger man had been when he discovered who his girlfriend had been cheating with. She took a deep breath, bracing herself to voice the question she couldn’t leave unasked. ‘And is Zoe being supportive?’

Jamie’s gaze was candid. ‘We’re not together. We never were, not once I found out she’d told Liam and he’d told you. I didn’t move into her place, which is probably a good thing, given how much she likes to party.’

‘Oh,’ Maura said, caught off guard again.

She’d assumed that Jamie and Zoe would be the new golden couple, perfect for each other.

But perhaps it wasn’t such a surprise, she thought.

Hadn’t she suspected the affair was a symptom of Jamie’s deeper unhappiness, rather than a serious attraction to Zoe herself?

‘So where are you staying? Did you rent a place?’

He nodded. ‘One of those fancy penthouse apartments someone had bought as an investment. But I’m not living there just now.’ A rosy blush suffused his cheeks. ‘I’m back with my parents for a while, until I’m strong enough to manage on my own.’

An unexpected surge of pride blossomed inside Maura. ‘Good for you,’ she said, impulsively closing the distance between them to lay a hand on his arm. ‘There’s no shame in admitting you need help.’

‘That’s what my counsellor says,’ Jamie said. He took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I’ve said what I came to say, so I’ll leave you to your work. Thank you for understanding.’

She managed a smile. ‘How could I not? And thank you for coming. I’m glad you’re… well, I’m glad you’re okay.’

Jamie nodded. ‘I am.’ He fixed her with a sincere look. ‘Take care of yourself, Maura. Be happy.’

Now it was Maura’s turn to feel tears welling up in her eyes.

‘You too,’ she said, and watched as he stooped through the door and disappeared.

For a moment, she thought the ache in her chest might overwhelm her, but the sadness ebbed away, leaving only a bruised, raw space.

With deliberate care, she eased the tension from her shoulders and returned to the workbench, staring down at the uneven, lumpy vase for a moment.

With a gentle exhale, she started to roll a fresh coil of clay, muscle memory guiding her hands even as the significance of Jamie’s visit sank in.

She’d thought they’d said all that needed to be said, and yet he had given her something she hadn’t known she needed – an ending.

Perhaps it also held the seeds of something else.

Her fingers stilled as she gazed at the length of clay on the workbench, and then at the stubborn vase that was resisting all her efforts to impose symmetry.

With a sudden, decisive movement, Maura flattened the walls into the base and squeezed everything together into a ball.

As symbolic gestures went, it was as subtle as a brick, but perhaps it was time for a fresh start with more than just this pot.

‘Wow,’ Kirsty said when Maura told her about Jamie’s visit the next evening. ‘I did not have that on my Jamie-is-a-bastard bingo card.’

‘Me either,’ Maura admitted. She shifted the phone from her ear and switched it to speaker phone as she stirred the chilli she was making for dinner. ‘But I’m pleased he’s getting help. Now that I’ve come to terms with what happened, I want him to be happy.’

‘Hmmm,’ Kirsty said, sounding as though the jury was very much still out for her. ‘You’re more generous than I would be.’

Maura grimaced. Her sister had suggested any number of unpleasant ways to make Jamie’s life a misery, none of which she had accepted. ‘There’s no point in hanging on to negative emotions,’ she said in a practical tone. ‘Everything worked out for the best.’

‘Hmmm,’ Kirsty said again, and hesitated. ‘Any news from Fraser?’

There it was again, Maura thought with an inward sigh, that sixth sense for subjects she would rather avoid.

After the photo in the newspaper, she’d made a conscious effort to distance herself from Fraser, in part to prevent the ache whenever his name appeared on her screen but also to wean herself off the support she’d come to rely on after breaking up with Jamie.

She would always be grateful for the way he had helped her move past the initial hurt, but it was also blindingly obvious she’d mistaken his kindness for something deeper.

It wasn’t Fraser’s fault – he had been very clear that he saw her as a friend, nothing more – but there was no doubt in her mind that she had teetered on the brink of making a fool of herself.

Thankfully, his decision to go back to acting had arrived just in time to save her from embarrassing them both again.

‘Not really,’ she said, deciding not to mention that she’d left Fraser’s most recent message unread for two days. ‘I’ve been in the studio and I imagine he’s got a lot going on too.’

There was a distinct sniff. ‘It doesn’t take a moment to say hello. Making these ghosts was his idea and now he’s vanished and left you to do all the work.’

‘Hardly,’ Maura said, uncomfortably reminded of the unread messages. ‘I deal with Tom at Dead Famous now. There’s no reason for Fraser to be in touch.’

‘If you say so,’ Kirsty replied. ‘Look, I know you think I’m poking my nose in but I’m just worried about you. We all are.’

‘You don’t need to be,’ Maura said, wanting to reassure her without fuelling her concerns.

‘I know you think the ghosts are too much work but at least they sell and give me a steady income. And over half the pieces from the exhibition have been reserved and three galleries have been in touch about stock.’

Kirsty gave an impatient sigh. ‘Yes, your career is flying, but that’s not what I asked. What about you? Are you happy, Maura?’

Feeling very much as though she was under interrogation, Maura took refuge in honesty. ‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m better than I was. I’m enjoying my work a lot more, taking time to cook proper meals and sleeping better. Is that enough for now?’

There was a brief pause, in which she pictured her sister fighting the desire to traverse the Firth of Forth to shake her into enforced happiness.

‘I suppose it will have to be,’ Kirsty said, her tone suggesting she remained a long way from convinced. ‘For now.’