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Back When I Lost You Save as PDF
Chapters (81)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. Dedication
  4. Prologue
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. Forty-seven
  52. Forty-eight
  53. Forty-nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-one
  56. Fifty-two
  57. Fifty-three
  58. Fifty-four
  59. Fifty-five
  60. Fifty-six
  61. Fifty-seven
  62. Fifty-eight
  63. Fifty-nine
  64. Sixty
  65. Sixty-one
  66. Sixty-two
  67. Sixty-three
  68. Sixty-four
  69. Sixty-five
  70. Sixty-six
  71. Sixty-seven
  72. Epilogue
  73. Acknowledgments
  74. Read More
  75. Prologue
  76. One
  77. Two
  78. Three
  79. Four
  80. Follow Merilyn online
  81. Dedication

I look at the baby. What is her name? I try to think what Aoife would have called her and feel frustrated she didn’t tell me. I kiss the baby’s hair, so fine I worry it could rub off.

‘I think I’d like to call her Joanne. After my mum. Do you think that’s OK? Jo for short.’

He comes over and smiles down at her. ‘Hello, little Jo.’

I try to cross my fingers under her blanket – maybe now she has a name, he’ll let me keep her.

The police keep talking to me and we’re both worried they will find out about Joanne. I’ve been working hard at school so as to make the social workers, who watch me like hawks, think that I’m behaving myself, but it’s still hard to sneak out and see her.

‘Why don’t we run away with her?’ I say when I’m next at his house. ‘Just take her and go somewhere no one knows us.’

He’s washing Joanne’s bottles, his back to me. ‘A twenty-year-old man and a sixteen-year-old girl with a baby in tow will look suspicious wherever we go.’

I dangle a toy in front of her face and watch as her eyes try to focus on it, mesmerised.

‘But we could go?’

I look up. He’s staring at me with an odd look on his face, his hands covered in soap suds.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re sixteen now, you can go where you like. I can move anywhere really – transfer to another force, so we could be sure of an income.’ He’s becoming animated. ‘I mean, what’s for you here?’

‘My mum,’ I say immediately, even though I haven’t seen her in over a year.

He doesn’t miss a beat. ‘We can invite her to stay with us, away from your dad. It would be like a new little family.’

The word makes my heart twitch. I look at his kind eyes and the brown hair that never looks brushed and wonder what it would be like to be a family with him.

‘But Joanne …’ I say.

He turns back to the bottles.

‘We can’t, Mary. I’m so sorry.’

And I know he’s right, I know he is sorry, and I also know he’s not going to change his mind.

The night he is to take Joanne away, rain is battering the windows.

‘You can’t go now, can you?’

I see him wince at the hope in my voice. He comes across to me and looks down at Joanne in my arms, then kisses the top of my head. I haven’t had human contact other than Joanne for so long I feel electricity jump through me. He places his hand on my shoulder; it’s warm and heavy.

‘Let me have her, Mary.’

I pull her closer. ‘No. I want to go.’