Page 42 of Sorry, Not Sorry
The gloomy weather lasted the rest of the week, mirroring Delilah’s mood.
The dark mornings and short days accompanied by non-stop rain lashing at her windows from morning until night merged into an endless blur of misery.
After the call with Polly and for the first time since starting therapy, Delilah had cancelled her session with Arne.
Noah’s visit, compounded by the devastating realisation she was still in limbo with her job, had left her drained.
She knew skipping therapy and avoiding the one person who could authorise her return to work was irrational and risky, but she was too emotionally spent to handle Arne’s questions.
Instead, she wandered between her bed and the bathroom, stopping occasionally in the kitchen to make a mug of tea or scrabble a makeshift snack from the dwindling supplies in the cupboard.
But staying away from Arne was doing nothing to take her mind off Noah.
In completing Salome’s challenge, Delilah had made some form of peace with each man on the list and moved on.
Until Noah. The crippling pain now sapping every ounce of her energy wasn’t embarrassment, shame, or a dented ego, but a breaking heart.
She didn’t know when it had happened, but somewhere between finding Noah and watching him race out of her flat into Zazie’s arms, Delilah had fallen head over heels in love with her former fiancé all over again, and losing him once more had left her feeling worthless and utterly hopeless.
Noah loves Zazie . Noah loves Zazie . Noah loves Zazie .
The three-word refrain ran on a constant loop in her mind interspersed with replays of the scene in her flat with Noah.
As each day passed, Delilah grew increasingly listless and apathetic, and it was only her promise to babysit Maya and Arin while Salome took Farhan to dinner for his birthday on Saturday that finally forced her into the shower and out of her flat.
* * *
‘Why are you crying, Auntie Del?’ Maya demanded.
The child’s anxious voice shook Delilah out of her daydream of Zazie walking arm in arm with Mrs West while a delighted Noah looked on. Snap out of it, Del! Quickly dashing away the tears she hadn’t realised were there, Delilah opened her arms to cuddle her niece.
‘I’m just feeling a little sad, Maya-moo,’ she said shakily, squeezing her tightly.
Glancing over Maya’s shoulder, she could see Arin crawling stealthily towards the table holding Salome’s precious blue pottery vase, and Delilah released Maya and scrambled off the sofa.
Scooping the toddler from the floor before he could grab the table leg, she dumped him back onto the rug, laughing despite herself at the child’s disgruntled expression.
Maya pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘Arin’s very naughty. Mummy’s told him he’s not allowed near that table.’
‘I know, but he’s still a baby and curious about everything,’ Delilah explained. ‘You know, you were exactly the same at his age.’
Maya dismissed the comparison and instead knitted her brows into a frown identical to Salome’s. ‘Why are you feeling sad, Auntie Del?’
Because the man I love happens to love someone else . Delilah bit back the words trembling on her lips and gave her head a virtual wobble. She was the grown-up, and it was her job to look after the children in her charge, not the other way round.
‘I was just being silly, but I’m absolutely fine now,’ she said with a bracing smile she hoped would reassure Maya. ‘I have an idea, let’s go upstairs and change Arin’s nappy and then we can come down and play cops and robbers with your new walkie-talkies.’
Twenty minutes later, while a freshly diapered Arin surreptitiously gnawed Maya’s teddy bear in his play pen, Delilah hid behind the sofa whispering into a walkie-talkie to Maya, who was stalking the corridor in search of an imaginary criminal.
The sound of the doorbell startled Delilah, and she bumped her head on the sofa and hastily squashed the curse trembling on her lips.
The walkie-talkie was still on, and Salome and Farhan wouldn’t thank her for expanding Maya’s vocabulary in that way.
She stood up and glanced over to where Arin was preoccupied with trying to pull off Bertie’s re-stitched ear, and wrested the teddy bear from his hands. Pushing a pile of coloured plastic bricks in the corner of his play pen towards him, she went out into the hall.
‘Who is it, Auntie Del?’ Maya demanded, clearly irritated by the interruption.
‘I don’t know, darling. Mummy didn’t say she was expecting anyone,’ Delilah replied, pushing back her hair to peer through the spyhole. The bell rang again before she could make out who was there, and she wrenched open the door impatiently.
‘ Oh! ’ She gasped at the sight of Noah standing on the doorstep scowling with his finger poised to press the bell again.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked curtly.
Delilah nodded in bemusement and stood back to let him pass. This angry-looking man looked nothing like the jaunty, relaxed version that had left her flat less than a week ago.
‘Come in—’ She broke off as Maya dashed past her to hurl herself onto Noah.
‘ Uncle Noah! ’ She grabbed him by the knees, squealing loudly when he picked her up and swung her round in the air before setting her down gently. His irate expression transformed into a warm smile as he crouched to let Maya wrap her small arms around his neck and plant a wet kiss on his cheek.
Delilah smoothed her hair, suddenly conscious of the faded white crop top, torn jeans, and Disney cartoon socks she had thrown on before leaving home.
When Noah released himself from Maya’s arms and stood up, Delilah quickly pulled her niece towards her as if for protection and avoided his gaze by pretending to tidy Maya’s thick curls.
‘Salome’s not at home,’ she mumbled.
‘I know. I spoke to her, and she said you were here looking after the kids.’
Delilah looked up, startled. ‘ Sal told you I was babysitting. But why…? I mean, how …?’
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said abruptly. The smile he had reserved for Maya disappeared, and he looked like a volcano about to erupt. Her stomach clenched and she scraped a nervous hand through her hair. She glanced down at Maya, who was watching them intently.
‘Go into the kitchen, Noah. We can talk in there,’ she said quickly. ‘Give me a second and I’ll put the telly on for Maya. The kids will be fine on their own for a few minutes.’
Hustling her inquisitive niece into the living room, Delilah switched on the television and flipped the channel to a children’s show. ‘Keep an eye on Arin for me, Maya-moo,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’ll just be in the kitchen talking to Uncle Noah for a few minutes, okay?’
Distracted by the TV, Maya nodded and sank cross-legged onto the rug, while Arin, who was concentrating on stacking a pile of toy bricks, didn’t even glance their way.
Ruffling his hair gently, Delilah stepped out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Forcing herself to take a deep breath to calm her jitters, she smoothed her palms down the sides of her jeans.
She and Noah had parted ways amicably, but he was clearly very unhappy and had apparently come in search of her.
She walked into the kitchen to find Noah standing by the window. Through the open blinds, the fairy lights Farhan had draped along the patio awning twinkled in the darkness. She cleared her throat, and Noah turned to face her with eyes blazing.
‘Why didn’t you tell me Zazie doesn’t want kids?’ he demanded without preamble.
Even without raising his voice, Delilah could tell Noah was livid, and caught unawares, she stood rooted to the spot.
How the hell did he find out? Had Zazie confessed and admitted telling Delilah, or—?
Her heart dropped, and she blanched as it dawned on her that she had confided in only one person. Surely, Salome wouldn’t have … ?
‘How – how did you find out?’
‘Salome told me,’ he snapped, his voice thick with anger.
Delilah flinched at the savagery in his tone and closed her eyes, unable to bear the fury directed at her and wishing the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
Salome was an absolute snake and the only secrets she was good at keeping were her own.
For a split second she wondered if it was revenge for what she’d said to Farhan, but then dismissed the thought as quickly as it came.
Sal wasn’t petty, and they had both moved past that episode.
What she did remember was how emphatic her sister had been that Noah deserved to know the truth.
‘I’m so incredibly sorry,’ Delilah said quietly, feeling completely wretched. ‘Sal had no right to tell you.’
Her cheeks burned with shame at her own cowardice in staying silent, but her sister had nothing to lose in telling Noah, whereas she… She bowed her head and focused on the toes of her Bambi socks.
‘ What the hell, Delilah! Are you serious right now? She had no right?’ Noah sounded incandescent, and Delilah looked up at him warily. ‘At least Salome had the guts to tell me something I would have expected you, of all people, to warn me about.’
Noah’s expression changed, and he looked at her with such hurt that she would have infinitely preferred his anger.
‘You know how lonely I was growing up as an only child and how desperate I was for siblings, especially with Mum being so over-protective. You and I always talked about having kids one day – have you forgotten when we made that list of names we said would be off-limits for our babies?’
Noah looked so sad that Delilah wanted to cry, and she bit down hard on her lip to stop it wobbling.
‘It wasn’t my place to interfere in your relationship. You asked me to help you both, and it wouldn’t have been ethical to take sides or break Zazie’s confidence,’ she said shakily.