Ghosted: A Novel

Hamish is right, of course: they don’t let me in. The lady on the other side of the intercom sounds amazed that I’d even try.

“Is there anywhere I can wait?” I ask her. “I’ve told Sarah’s birthing partner that I’m here . . . Um, and I am actually the father, if that helps . . . Or at least I think I am . . .” At that point the woman stops replying. I wonder if she’s calling security.

I find a small waiting area at the entrance to the Women’s Center and sit under an escalator, opposite a set of lifts I’d probably be arrested for attempting to use. And here, in the strip-lit reality of a hospital corridor—with proper families, proper couples everywhere—the stupidity of this enterprise is suddenly so blindingly apparent I almost laugh.

What was I hoping? That Hannah would pause from her duties to check her messages, maybe catch up on some e-mails? That she’d read Hamish’s text and think, Oh fantastic! The father’s Eddie Wallace! And he’s turned up here—how lovely! and pop out to invite me in?

I sink my head into my hands, wondering if Hamish is doing the same back in Bisley.

If I stand any hope at all of getting Sarah back, it’s going to take a damn sight more than a dash to Gloucester Royal. Six months she’s lived less than a mile from me. Six months she’s had to get in touch, to tell me I’m going to be a father, and I haven’t heard a peep out of her.

But even though I know it’s almost certainly pointless, I stay. I can’t leave. I can’t turn my back on her again.

The lift dings and I start, but, of course, it’s not Sarah, holding a baby, it’s a tired-looking man with a lanyard round his neck and a packet of fags already halfway out of his pocket.

We have a choice, I told her, the day we met. We are not just victims of our lives. We can choose to be happy. And yet I chose not to be happy, in spite of all I’d said. I turned my back on Sarah Harrington, and this once-in-a-lifetime thing that existed between us, and chose duty. A life only half lived.

•   •   •

An hour passes, two hours, three. People come and go, bringing with them blasts of icy air that quickly turn stale. A lightbulb breaks; it flickers intermittently, but a man comes to fix it before I’ve so much as thought of telling anyone. I offer silent prayers for the NHS. For Sarah. For my mother, whose feelings about this situation I can’t even begin to imagine. Maybe Felix will have popped round. Felix with his good humor and his determination to remain positive, no matter what life throws at him.

Sometime after dark has wrapped itself around the Women’s Center, a family joins me in the little waiting area, a mother and father and a kid. The boy has a blond Afro and a naughty, impish little face that I immediately like. He assesses the waiting area, declares it boring, and asks his mum what she’s going to do about it. She’s fiddling with her phone, preoccupied. She says something to her husband about visiting hours.

Then the child says—and my heart stops—“Why hasn’t Sarah’s baby got a dad, Mum? Why is Sarah’s sister helping her and not the baby’s dad?”

I stare into my lap and my face burns.

The mother replies, “You’re not to talk to Sarah about that, babe. If we get to go in and see her, you can ask about anything other than dads. Rudi, are you listening?”

“Yes, but—”

“If you promise me you won’t, I’ll take you to the ice cream factory tomorrow, the one I told you about near Stroud.”

My heart is hammering. I chance a look at the boy, but he’s not even remotely interested in me.

“Is it the man who broke her heart? The one who made her cry because he didn’t call?”

And I feel like ripping off my skin.

•   •   •

The woman—Sarah’s friend Jo—receives a call on her phone. She wanders off toward the lifts to take it, and Rudi plays with his father. Except it can’t be his father, because after beating him at rock, paper, scissors five times in a row, he calls the man Tommy.

Tommy! Sarah’s childhood friend! Although, I realize, that doesn’t quite tally with what she told me in her life story. I know those messages off by heart: she never said Tommy and Jo were a couple. Maybe I misread? I wish I knew more about Sarah and her life. I wish I’d known what she ate for breakfast the day she went into labor, how her pregnancy has been, what it’s like to have a relationship with her sister after all these years. I wish I knew she was safe.

When Jo returns, she starts packing up their stuff. Above Rudi’s Afro, she catches Tommy’s eye and shakes her head.

“Mum? Why are you going? Mum! I want to see Sarah!”

“We’re going to stay with Sarah’s mum and dad,” she tells her son. “They just called to invite us for a sleepover. It’s getting late, you need to go to bed, and Sarah can’t have visitors today. She might not even be able to see us tomorrow.”

“When can we see her, then?”

Jo’s face is unreadable. “I don’t know,” she admits.

An ugly scene ensues: Rudi obviously loves Sarah and has no plans to leave. But eventually—furiously—he gets into his coat. And they’re just about to leave when Tommy walks past me and does a double take. He carries on walking and then stops again, and I know he’s looking at me. And after a beat I look up at him, because I’m desperate. If a crawlingly awkward conversation with Sarah’s oldest friend is going to help, I’ll take it.

“Sorry,” he says, when our eyes meet. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else . . .”

Once again he turns. Once again he stops. “No, you . . . Are you Eddie?”

Jo, who’s by the bottom of the escalator, wheels round. She stares at me. They both do. Rudi looks vaguely in my direction, but he’s too busy being pissed off to take any real notice. I see Jo mouthing a few choice words—although I’m not sure if they’re born of anger or shock—then she marches her son through an automatic door.

I stand up and offer Tommy my hand, which he shakes, although it takes him a while.

“How did you know?” he asks. “Did Sarah get in touch with you?” He’s blushed a deep, livid red, although I’m not sure why. It’s me who should be feeling ashamed.

“I only found out this afternoon. It’s a long story. But Hannah knows I’m here, I think.”

Before he’s worked out what to say, I blurt, “How is she? Is she okay? Has the baby been born? Is Sarah all right? I’m sorry—I know I sound mad, and I know I gave Sarah a terrible time last summer, but I . . . can’t bear it. I just want to know she’s okay.”

Tommy blushes even more deeply. His eyebrows have taken on a life of their own, as if he’s thinking up a speech, or solving a puzzle.

“I honestly don’t know,” he says eventually. “Jo’s just got off the phone to Sarah’s mum. I’m guessing she didn’t want to update me in front of Rudi.”

“Shit,” I say. “Does that mean it’s bad news?”

Tommy looks helpless and harassed. “I don’t know,” he repeats. “I hope not. I mean, her parents were here earlier and they’ve gone home, so it’s probably just . . . Look, I have to go. I . . .” He trails off, backing toward the exit. “Sorry, mate,” he says, and then he’s gone.

•   •   •

It’s the middle of the night. I’m pacing, like people do in films. I understand it now. Sitting down would be like staying still while someone pressed hot metal to your skin.

I’m sharing the waiting area with an aging man in his pajamas, but neither of us has spoken to each other. He looks as anxious as I do. A grandfather, maybe. Like me, he can do little else but yawn, jiggle his knees, and stare intermittently at the delivery suite entrance.

I’ve decided this must be what purgatory feels like. Perpetual postponement. Intense waiting in the key of fear minor. Nothing moving, other than the slow hands of a clock.

Alan’s been trying to reassure me—keeps sending me articles about childbirth. Gia wants me to remind you that birth doesn’t need to be like those horror shows you see on the telly, he wrote earlier. Women give birth all day long, all over the world. She says you should forget about all that overproduced drama and visualize Sarah taking long, slow breaths. Bringing a baby into the world in slow breaths.

Or something like that. I should take it seriously, but I’m too far gone.

In desperation, I start reading the messages Sarah sent me last summer. I read the whole lot, from the day she left my barn to the day before we met on Santa Monica Beach. I read them twice, three times, trying to find something I know they can’t tell me.

Then the delivery suite door opens and my heart starts galloping. But it’s just a staff member, pulling on a hat, yawning, plunging her hands deep into her coat pockets. She walks past us both with barely a sideways glance, patently exhausted.

I can’t bear it.

I scroll back to the first message Sarah sent me, twenty minutes after we said good-bye.

Back home, it said. I had such a wonderful time with you. Thank you, for everything. X

I had a wonderful time, too, I write now. In fact, I had the best week of my life. I can still hardly believe it happened.

On my way to Leicester and thinking about you, she had written, a couple of hours later.

I was thinking about you, too, I write. And while I admit my thoughts weren’t as lovely and straightforward as yours, by that stage, I want you to know that underneath it all, I was hopelessly in love with you. That was what made it more painful than anything else—I was absolutely, totally, head over heels in love with you. I couldn’t believe you existed. I still can’t.

Then her messages started getting worried. Hey—you OK? Did you get to Gatwick in time?

I swallow. It’s painful, watching her panic unfurl, knowing I could have stopped it.

I read a few more, but then I stop, because I feel too guilty.

You are the best and most beautiful person I have ever known, I write instead. And I knew that the first day we spent together. You fell asleep and I thought, I want to marry this woman.

I love you, Sarah, I write. I think I’m crying. I wish I was there with you, cheering you on. I want only for you and the baby to be safe.

I’m so sorry I haven’t been there for you. I wish I had been. I wish we could have done this together. I should have been braver. I should have trusted I’d be able to work something out with Mum. I should have stopped at nothing.

I’m definitely crying. A tear is pooling fatly across my phone screen. I try to clean it with a dirty cuff and the whole thing goes blurry. Then another one drips down and I realize I’m in danger of actually sobbing. I stand up and start walking again. I go outside, where the air is cold as an arctic sea, but it stops the tears immediately, so I stay there. The car park is quiet now. Coppery light, leafless trees swaying in a bitter breeze.

I send you every ounce of strength and courage I have, although I know you won’t need it. You are an extraordinary woman, Sarah Harrington. The best I know.

My fingers are shaking. Cold knifes in through the open front of my duffel coat, but I’ve stopped caring about me.

Please, when you’re ready, can we try again? Can we draw a line through everything—even the thing that I thought we couldn’t get past? Can we go back to the start? There’s nothing that would make me happier than being with you. You, me, this baby. A little family.

I love you, Sarah Harrington.

An ambulance wails, and a gust of paralyzing wind punches me in the side of the face.

I love you. I’m sorry.