What Once I Was

Chapter 21- Robert

I'd waved goodbye to Wendy, watching the clock, waiting for enough time to pass before it would be unlikely she would return suddenly. Safe in the knowledge that she wouldn't be home for a few hours, I made a slow walk up the stairs. I'm not entirely sure why nerves had gripped my soul, but their claws dug too deep for me to shake it off.

I trudged past the closed door to Naomi's bedroom, fighting the urge, as I always did when alone in the house, to enter. To lay myself on her bed, to pull her favourite teddy, a stuffed rabbit I'd spent hours - and endless pound coins - trying to win her on a claw machine in the arcades at Leysdown, close and breathe in her scent. Oh, how I longed to see her room just one more time. It was  time capsule, our little five year old girl forever kept behind a permanently closed door. The piece of card Wendy had wedged between the door and the frame stuck out like a sore thumb, taunting me as it always did. She would know in an instant if I ever disobeyed her.

Through tear-filled eyes, I made my way to our bedroom. Wendy's closet door was ever so slightly ajar, no doubt done so in her rush to leave. She would never normally have gone anywhere without first checking it was closed and locked. I thanked whatever force had worked in my favour that day. She always wore the key on a chain around her neck, forever distrustful of me.

She had organised her clothes by colour, coat-hangers all facing the same way. Not a speck of dust settled there, nothing so much as a millimetre out of place. If I was going to do this, I needed to make sure everything went back just as it was. I took a deep breath, readying myself. Once I did this, there was no going back. It was all or nothing. I reached up, grabbing the first of two boxes from the shelf above her dresses.

Rifling through, I soon realised this box contained only photos of mine and Wendy's wedding and memories she had with her family growing up. It was of no use to me. Laying each picture back in carefully, I placed it where I had found it. Grabbing the second box, I yelled out in shock and pain. A small green book flew at me from the top of the box, hitting my forehead before landing with a thud on the floor, its contents sprawled over my feet.

A black-and-white photo caught my eye. On closer inspection, I realised it was an ultrasound photo. One I'd never seen before. Twin A. Twin B. The words knocked the wind from me. It made no sense. The date and name in the top left-hand corner told me in clear capital letters that the image had been taken during Wendy's pregnancy with Naomi, but there had to be some mistake. She was never pregnant with twins. She would have told me. There was just no way. And yet, there they were. Two specks in a bubble, labelled for the world to see.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

I flipped open the notebook, filing through the pages. A diary of sorts, I realised. Naomi's name had been written over and over throughout. I instantly recognised the dates. It was the weeks leading up to Naomi's kidnapping. I'd been working away that weekend. If I'd been home, maybe things would have been different. Wendy had spat this truth at me on many occasions over the years, not that she needed to. The guilt had eaten me alive well enough on its own.

I leant against the closet door, reading page after page. Learning about Wendy's struggles as a new mother, her frustration at being unable to breastfeed, her exhaustion as Naomi started to teeth. One date caught my attention more than any other. The day Naomi was taken. My eyes moved across the page, widening with each word I read. It could be. It just couldn't. I dropped the book to the floor, screaming as pain seared through me. It couldn't be true.

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"Mr Collins, what was in that book? What did you read?"

I'm crying now, my body shaking uncontrollably. There is nothing but sympathy in the officer's eyes as he opens the page to the date I gave. I know he's reading it, taking in every sick and twisted word she wrote, but I also know, for the recording's sake, that I have to say out loud what that book holds. Bile rises into my mouth. I can't do this.