If I Let You Go Page 6

  “Yes! That’s the point he keeps missing. It’s like he thinks working so hard will make up for everything when what she really needs is for him to be there for her.”

  How could Neil see it so clearly, but Dominic be so blind?

  “Can I ask a personal question?” Neil said, and right away I knew where he was going.

  “You can ask.”

  “Is there something else going on here? Something that’s more to do with Dominic than Tilly?”

  “No.” I sighed. “No. I do care about him. A lot. And I don’t want him to go any more than I want Tilly to. I think because he’s leaving, it’s making me wonder if I’m missing something with him but I’m pretty sure it’s just fear.”

  “Fear of what?”

  “Of starting my life. Of having to stand on my own two feet.”

  “Madison, you already do that.”

  “I know. I know, but Dom’s always been there. I can count on him for anything so I never felt like I was on my own. When they go, there’ll be a big hole in my life and I don’t know what to fill it with.”

  Neil smiled, like he knew something I didn’t. He didn’t say a word, though. Instead, he held me closer, allowing me to rest my head on his shoulder, my brain whirling at a thousand miles an hour. I hadn’t realised how scared I was until Neil asked the questions. I’d lived on my own before, my family weren’t too far away, so I would never really be alone. But Tilly had been my only priority for so long. I never intended to be Dominic’s live-in babysitter forever. I knew a point would come when things would change and I’d need to re-assess my life. But I’d expected more warning. More than a few weeks, and I’d never expected the shift to be so big.

  And underneath the fear was a nagging question. The one that cropped up when I’d watched Dominic loosen his tie, and when I’d heard Serena’s voice on the phone. The one that was too afraid to ask why I’d slept with Dominic when I knew how much damage it might do.

  Discovering the answer to the question was pointless, though. What difference would it make? If I felt nothing or if I felt something, he was still leaving. I couldn’t change that.

  Chapter 7

  Four hours trapped in a car with an almost six-year-old and a man you’re barely talking to is the definition of living hell. Okay, that might be a bit dramatic, but between the, “Are we there yets,” and the palpable tension, I spent most of my time wishing I’d taken the train.

  Dominic and I were keeping things civil, but it didn’t feel real. It was the fake kind of politeness that meant the atmosphere stayed pleasant for Tilly’s sake, but lurking underneath was a fight waiting to happen. Or if not a fight, at least an excruciatingly uncomfortable conversation.

  When Dominic dropped me at my parents’ house, I sprang out of the car as if I’d been launched from a catapult.

  My parents, bless their hearts, had made up a Devonshire cream tea for my arrival. You just can’t get proper clotted cream in London, it doesn’t taste the same. No matter how long I lived near the big city, I’d always been a small town girl at heart.

  I spent most of my first day back just chatting with them, except for a brief trip into town where some of the long-time locals greeted me as if I was a lost sheep returning to the herd. It was fun to see everyone, but also weird how so many people stayed in the same place for so long. The same people worked in the same shops, and the little old ladies still congregated outside the church in town on the benches, to pause for breath or simply to talk about whatever little old ladies talk about.

  Sitting in my parents’ living room that evening, watching Eastenders and dunking chocolate digestives into a mug of tea was the most relaxing part of my day.

  Until my phone rang.

  It was a little after nine, and I honestly hadn’t expected to hear from Dominic. I wanted to ignore the call, but I picked up anyway, assuming whatever it was could be dealt with quickly.

  Right away, I heard it. Tilly’s screams reached my ears almost as loudly as if I were there with her. My heart started to race because the sound, although familiar, always scared me.

  “Madison,” Dominic said, his voice shaky. “I need some help.”

  “She had a nightmare.”

  “Yeah, I think so. She woke up five minutes ago, screaming that something was in her room. I tried to calm her down, but she kept asking for you. She’s still asking for you, Madison, and I don’t know what to do. I told her you can’t come because you’re on holiday and I don’t want to disturb you, but she knows you’re not far away. And … she keeps asking for Mungo. What the hell is a Mungo?”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or shout at him for his cluelessness. In fairness, he knew Tilly needed her cuddly monkey, but Tilly only came up with the name quite recently.

  “It’s her monkey,” I said. “Mungo is her monkey.”

  “Oh, shit. I forgot her monkey.”

  “Dom, you know she can’t sleep without it.”

  “She fell asleep in front of the TV earlier, so I carried her to bed and hoped she’d be okay. What shall I do?”

  “Just stay with her, keep talking to her. She’ll feel better if she knows you’re not going anywhere. And … I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I hung up with a sigh.

  “Everything okay?” Mum asked, looking up from her knitting. She loved to knit, not because it’s a stereotypical thing for old people to do – she wasn’t that old – but because she always had to be doing something, even while watching television. Dad had fallen asleep in his chair.

  “Not really,” I told her. “Tilly had a nightmare and she’s asking for me. I’m going to give Dominic a hand with her.”

  She threw me a warm smile. “Madison, you can’t always be there, you know? I know that little girl means the world to you, but soon she won’t be able to count on you to go to her.”

  “I know. But while I can, I will. I’ll try not to be too long.”

  I ordered a cab to take me across town, then ran up to my room. On my old dresser, Mum had kept a selection of my old soft toys. Who knows why, but at that moment, I was glad. I picked up my former favourite childhood toy – a grey and brown fluffy dog, and tucked it into my bag before going outside to wait for the taxi.

  Dominic’s mum, Jayne, hadn’t always lived nearby. She moved into town shortly after Dominic and his wife, to be closer to them so she could help with Tilly. His older brother, David, had followed a year or so later with his own family. Having them around had turned out to be far more useful than Dominic expected, especially after Hayley left. Jayne was the sweetest person ever, and even on the few occasions I’d gone to Devon without Dominic and Tilly, I always made sure to visit her.

  Jayne greeted me with a hug, promising we’d talk soon but Tilly was still screaming upstairs, so I hurried up to her, the sound scratching at my insides.

  Dominic sat with her, but in her inconsolable state she kept pushing him away, telling him to get Mungo.

  The scene was painful in so many ways.

  “Tilly,” I said, softly.

  My voice silenced her, and she stared at me for a few moments, as if trying to work out if I was really there or part of a dream. I stepped into the room and sat with her and Dominic on the bed, pulling her into my arms. When she realised she was actually awake, she started to sob again, clinging to me. I glanced at Dominic over Tilly’s shoulder. With tears glistening in his eyes, he gave me a grateful smile before leaving the room.

  “I had a bad dream,” Tilly said, while I stroked her hair. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” I asked, trying to shake the image of Dominic’s sadness from my head.

  “No. Don’t leave me, Maddi!”

  “I’m not going anywhere, baby girl. I’ll stay right with you until you fall asleep.”

  “I’m not going to sleep. You have to stay!”

  “Shh. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “I need Mungo!”

  “Mung
o’s at home,” I said, but let go of her for a second to reach down into my bag. “But I brought something for you.”

  “What is it?”

  I lifted my dog out of my bag and handed it to her. “This is my friend, Patch. I know you want Mungo, but Patch used to look after me when I was little. I thought you might like to borrow him until we get home.”

  Tilly turned Patch over in her hands a few times, probably debating whether or not he would be an acceptable substitute. Eventually, she hugged him close to her. “He smells like you.”

  I laughed. “Well he used to be my best friend. I’ve spent lots of time with him.”

  Wiping her eyes, she said, “Thank you. Can you read me a story?”

  “Of course I can, sweetheart.”

  It was almost an hour before Tilly really calmed down. She snuggled Patch close to her as if her life depended on him. To her mind, it probably did. She refused to tell me about her nightmare, and she clung to my hand for forty minutes before she would even let me start reading to her. I was happy to stay with her for as long as she needed, but it drained me to see her so upset. No child should ever be that afraid or unhappy, and every ounce of my strength went into righting what was wrong. Even if only temporarily. It was enough for now, enough to let her rest without any fears.

  Once she fell asleep, I kissed her forehead, and crept out, leaving the door open a crack in case she woke up again.

  Dominic and Jayne sat at the kitchen table, talking quietly, and they gave me hopeful smiles as I entered.

  “She’s out for the count,” I told them. “I think she tired herself out.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Jayne said. “She certainly knows how to scream.”

  “I wish I knew what happened in those nightmares. She won’t tell.”

  “When she woke up, she said there was a stranger in her room,” Dominic said. “At first she kept saying, ‘Make her go away,’ then she started screaming for you.”

  Maybe the Disney movies she loved which emphasised wicked stepmothers, combined with her fear of who would take care of her in New York had led to her bad dreams.

  I’d had a few similar nightmares myself.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” Jayne asked, standing up. “I was about to put the kettle on.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll head home. I’m tired now.”

  “I understand,” Jayne replied, with a smile. “But you’ll come round sometime this week, won’t you? It’s been a long time since we’ve had a good natter!”

  “Of course. I’ll give you a ring, and we’ll arrange a time.”

  Jayne gave me another hug, and Dominic said, “Do you need a lift home?”

  “Yes please, if you don’t mind leaving Tilly.”

  “She’ll be fine with mum for a while. I’ll take you.”

  The silence in Dominic’s car as he drove me home made me nervous. When he offered me a lift, I assumed he had something he wanted to say. Scratch that. I knew he had something to say by the way he focused so intently on the road. He’d driven these streets a million times, it didn’t need such a high level of concentration. He was thinking. My heart began to pound, slowly at first, but by the time he pulled up outside my parents’ house, it was hammering to the point where I thought I might require a trip to A&E.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I said, trying not to look at him.

  “Thank you for coming over.”

  “No problem. I’m glad Tilly’s feeling better now.”

  I reached down to unclip my seatbelt, but Dominic put his hand over mine, forcing me to look up at him.

  “I realised something tonight,” he said. His voice was shaky, his breath a little ragged. “I realised that I don’t know how to look after my own daughter. I don’t know how to make the nightmares go away, I don’t know how to calm her down. I forgot to pack her monkey.”

  “Dom-”

  “I should know these things, Madison. But I don’t. I don’t know a thing about her.”

  “That’s not true,” I told him. “And the things you don’t know, you can learn.”

  “She’s going to be six next week! I should know them by now!”

  He slammed his hands against the steering wheel, then leaned his head against it.

  A picture of despair.

  “I watched you with her tonight,” he said, after a while. “I saw you holding her hand, stroking her hair. Talking to her about your toy dog, and listening to every word she said, even though it was coming out in a tired jumble. You always know the right things to say to her. I don’t know how to do that.”

  Resting my hand on his shoulder, I said, “It takes time. You can’t just have a kid and expect to know what they’re thinking or how they feel if you’re not always around. They change and grow up so quickly. If you turn away even for a minute, they’ve learned something new.”

  “Everything she learned, she learned from you. She tells me. Every night on the phone, and when I come home, she tells me about the things you’ve done together.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “And you’re wrong. I don’t agree with you moving to New York, but I know why you do what you do, and it’s not because you’re a bad father. I see you working every hour of every day to give Tilly everything she needs because you think you need to make up for her growing up without a mother. But you don’t need to try so hard. You’ve done it. You’re successful, you can provide for her, and now she needs you. Just you.”

  Slowly, he straightened up. “If there’s one thing I did right for her, it wasn’t working so hard. It was choosing you. Don’t think I haven’t always appreciated you, because I have, but I’m only just starting to realise how much of who she is is down to you.”

  “I think it was a team effort,” I said, softly. “But thank you.”

  Dominic hesitantly raised his hand a little, then lowered it. The move made my heart race again, and when he smiled at me, I felt it. I felt it in every part of me, like the smallest curve of his lips had the power to cause an energy surge in my body.

  The answers to those questions I’d been ignoring began to fall into place.

  “I should go,” I said.

  When he raised his hand again, he didn’t change his mind. His fingertips gently found their way into my hair, only touching very lightly, but enough to make me tingle. My head lowered as I tried to find the strength to walk away, but he put his finger under my chin and carefully tilted it upwards. I closed my eyes, because looking into his would make me fall harder, deeper than I wanted to go. With my eyes shut, every other sense I possessed came alive, and I knew his lips were a mere fraction from mine.

  “Please,” I breathed. “Please don’t make me fall in love with you.”

  His forehead rested against mine, his hand moving from under my chin to the back of my neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But I think something’s happening here.”

  All it would take is one tiny movement.

  I couldn’t let myself kiss him. Even if everything in me wanted him, I couldn’t put myself through it.

  “No,” I said, pulling away. “You’re upset about Tilly, and you’re only thinking about me this way because it’s what’s right for her.”

  Dominic only ever wanted what was best for Tilly, and he’d suddenly realised that I was it. He thought I was the best person to take care of her, but that didn’t automatically mean he should feel something for me.

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  “Isn’t it?”

  His silence gave me my answer. I took a long, deep breath, then stepped out of the car without another word.

  Chapter 8

  Day two hundred and sixty-three without any sleep, and Madison Connor is starting to lose the plot.

  There was not enough caffeine in the world to get my brain working, but I’d guzzled three cups by eight on Monday morning anyway. I planned to go to Exeter with my mum, so I could see how much the city had changed in the last couple of years, and also
, to try to block out the images of Dominic that had tattooed themselves inside my head.

  All night, it was as if he was in the room with me. The look in his eyes when I’d arrived at his mum’s the night before, the way he’d been so open about how he felt, the sensation of his fingers entwined in my hair. It all led me to the one place I never wanted to go.

  But is it real?

  When I’d told Neil that I thought my feelings for Dominic were based on fear, I truly meant it. Just as I believed his feelings for me were more about Tilly than him, I’d convinced myself I was just panicked because he was leaving.

  If that was true though, I wouldn’t have found it so hard to walk away from him when he almost kissed me. I wouldn’t have felt every word he’d said sinking into me, and I wouldn’t have stayed awake all night wishing I’d allowed myself to fall just a little bit further, to really understand.

  My plan for the day was disrupted when I got a phone call from Tilly at nine, asking me if I wanted to join her, Dominic, Jayne, Dave and his family on a picnic on Dartmoor. She said her uncle Dave had “requested my presence,” and Dominic would pick me up at ten.

  Logic told me to stay away. I was tired, confused and being near Dominic would only make it worse.

  But I wanted to be there. And I hadn’t made any official plans with my mum, so I told Tilly I’d be ready at ten, then set about getting dressed. It was the perfect day for a Dartmoor picnic. The sun promised a scorching summer day. I dressed accordingly, slipping into a short-ish denim skirt and a black vest top.

  I hadn’t been to the moors in about ten years, and in spite of any potential awkwardness, I was excited to be going back to a place where I’d spent many brilliant summers, splashing in the rivers and watching the Dartmoor ponies. Tilly’s mood was bright when she knocked on my door. She gave me a wide grin, throwing her arms around me, then dragging me down the path to Dominic’s car, her restless night forgotten.

  Climbing into the back seat - because Jayne was in the front - made the events of the night before flick through my mind. His car – a Mercedes C-Class Coupe - always smelled of leather, and a scent that was distinctly him. I tried not to breathe it in, but it’s impossible to avoid filling your senses with something that smells so good.