The Good Husband, page 1
The Good Husband
Abigail Osborne
Copyright © 2022 Abigail Osborne
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The right of Abigail Osborne to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2022 by Bloodhound Books.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publisher or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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www.bloodhoundbooks.com
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Print ISBN 978-1-5040-7272-4
Contents
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Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part II
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Acknowledgements
A note from the publisher
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Part I
Chapter One
Now
Somehow, Jack knew that his father was there without needing to open his eyes. Like a gazelle that has learnt to sense danger from miles away, Jack could tell. He was puzzled. Why would his father be in his house? They only saw each other at Christmas. In fact, his father had never been to their house. Jack tried to open his eyes but they were heavy with sleep. He attempted to move his arm, intending to wake his wife, Elsie, but his arms wouldn’t obey. He tried to force his eyes open but his eyelids seemed to have weights attached.
Jack’s heart pounded. Scared by his body’s disobedience. Something was very wrong. He tried to recall his last memory. Perhaps that would explain why his body felt full of lead. But as he reached into the recesses of his mind for his memories, they danced away like leaves in the wind.
Concentrating as hard as he could, Jack focused only on trying to open his eyes. Fear pulsed around his body with every beat of his heart. He didn’t know where he was or what was happening. Just that he had to concentrate on opening his eyes.
Elsie’s voice echoed in his head, ‘mind over matter, Jack.’ Her mantra when he had been undergoing physiotherapy after his accident at work. Focusing hard, he demanded his eyelids obey and it worked. An icy white light penetrated his eyes and he had to fight the urge to close them. The room slowly came into focus and Jack looked around startled, this was not his bedroom. The room was white and clinical, a strip light blindingly bright, a collection of tubes and buttons on a panel at the head of his bed and a thin blue blanket covered him. Why was he in a hospital? In a wooden chair next to his bed, sat his father. Head bowed, unmistakably praying.
Jack almost closed his eyes again. He didn’t have the energy for him right now. He looked out of the window in the door, searching for Elsie. Why would she leave him alone with his father? She knew better than anyone how volatile their relationship was. Lost in prayer, Jack took the opportunity to study his father. There were only eighteen years between them but his father looked more like his younger brother. Even now, at seventy-three, his father’s power was tangible. His strength rippled from every pore. Jack had always thought his father was invincible and it appeared he was right. Immune from the ravages of time. He was every bit as terrifying and awe-inspiring as he was when Jack was a boy.
For most of his life, Jack had both adored and feared this man in equal measure. He had never been the doting father that would sit by his son’s bedside in times of illness. So what was he doing here? Jack looked around for Elsie again, needing her like oxygen to breathe. In her absence, he was starting to panic and wilt. He needed her calming presence to help soothe him. But she still hadn’t appeared. She was the only person who truly understood his difficulties with his father.
After all, it was meeting her that had led to his freedom from the prison his father had spent Jack’s whole childhood building. It was only because of his faith and Elsie’s support that he still tried to see the good in his father. Jesus taught compassion and forgiveness and Jack had tried his best to honour that by visiting his father every year at Christmas. It never went well. No matter how much time had passed, his father would never approve of Elsie and the way in which she had changed Jack. Which is why it was so odd to see him here. Sitting at Jack’s bedside like a loving father. Was Jack finally going to have a normal relationship with him?
Jack craned his neck to look further out into the corridor. Where was Elsie? A leathery hand took his, startling him. Had his father held his hand before? It felt so strange. Like being embraced by a random stranger off the street. Tears trickled down Jack’s face as he locked eyes with his father. Why was he such an emotional wreck?
Inside, he was screaming for Elsie. He wanted her to see this. He knew her happiness would mirror his own. It was starting to annoy him that she wasn’t there. He was obviously in a hospital, which meant something had happened to him. Why wasn’t she at his bedside holding his hand? Jack used his free hand to wipe away his tears and white-hot pain caused him to gasp. His nose. He felt a bandage taped across his face. Using the tips of his fingers, he traced the skin around his eyes and nostrils; it felt hot and swollen.
His father opened his mouth to speak but a nurse barrelled through the door. She was a short, well-built black lady with her hair cropped at her shoulders, framing her round face. She stopped abruptly when she realised that Jack was awake.
‘Ah, Mr Danvers. My name is Aisha, I’ll be looking after you today.’ She smiled at him warmly and moved closer. Jack liked her instantly. He knew Elsie would like her too. They’d be best friends after a few minutes, he just knew it. If they weren’t already.
‘Where’s my wife? Have you seen her?’
The nurse exchanged a look with his father. His eyes flicked between them, attempting to translate the unspoken conversation they were having.
‘I’m just going to have a look at your nose and then we will talk about your wife.’
The nurse’s hands moved towards him but he swatted them away.
‘I don’t understand. Why isn’t she here? Where is she?’
The nurse sighed. She pulled up a wooden chair and sat next to him. He felt her hand clasp his, skin as soft as marshmallow. Looking at the apprehension in her eyes, Jack no longer wanted to hear what she had to say.
She squeezed his hand gently and smiled at him, her caramel eyes watery.
‘Please,’ Jack said, nausea rolling in his stomach. ‘Please tell me where Elsie is.’
‘Jack, I’m afraid you and your wife were involved in a tragic accident.’ She looked around the room trying to find the right word. ‘I’m afraid your wife suffered catastrophic internal bleeding and died at the scene. You were sedated by the paramedics and brought here.’
The room around him dissolved as an explosion of sounds and images consumed him: Elsie lying on the floor, pale and unmoving. People clawing at him. High pitched screams. Jack fisted his eyes, trying to forcibly remove the memories. He refused to believe it. A wave of grief was about to consume him. A door to his old life was shutting and he couldn’t let it. He had to keep it open.
‘No.’ Jack shook his head emphatically. ‘That’s not right. Elsie is probably just signing some forms. I think you’ve got the wrong room.’ Jack hear
Jack followed the staircases, breathing heavily from the exertion. He kept climbing until he was at the top of the hospital. Not one of the people he passed was Elsie. Deep down, he knew it was fruitless but if he kept moving, he could fight off the grief that was waiting to drown him. The pain was coming ever closer. The agonising acceptance that his wife was gone. He wouldn’t, he couldn’t.
A nurse approached from the opposite side of the corridor, running towards him.
‘Mr Danvers!’
Panicking, Jack opened a doorway to his right and followed a staircase up to a metal door. Opening it, Jack was greeted by a slap of cold wind. His gown fluttered and he walked onto the roof. The giant moon shone down on him, lighting him up like his own personal spotlight.
Jack heard footsteps behind him and moved to the edge of the roof. He looked down. His stomach roiled in horror, but his mind considered the sweet relief jumping would give him. He would not have to live in a world without Elsie. Jack had loved her since he was eighteen years old. For thirty-seven years she had been his wife. She made up almost all the pieces in the jigsaw of his life. Without her he would never be complete again, the integral piece would be forever missing.
As Jack lifted his foot, a hand took his and he looked into the steel-grey eyes of his father. He could hear voices behind him, begging him to move away from the edge of the roof. But he ignored them, eyes locked on his father.
‘God is the giver of life. He gives and he takes away. Your life is the Lord’s. You do not get to decide when it is over, son.’
Jack looked back down at the concrete pavement below. People walked to and from the hospital, never looking up. Hunched over or huddling under umbrellas from the rain. Jack hadn’t even noticed the rain, he realised now his whole body was soaked through and he was shivering violently. Jack imagined himself falling through the air, on his way to ignorant bliss, to join Elsie. Taking his place next to her at the Lord’s side.
‘I can’t do it, Father. I can’t live without her.’ Jack sobbed, tears mingling with raindrops.
‘This won’t take you to Elsie.’ Jack turned to face him. ‘Suicide is a sin. Sinners do not go to Heaven.’
The truth behind his father’s words brought him to his knees. There was no choice, he had to accept that she was gone. His father gently helped him to his feet. They walked back over to the spectators who had watched with bated breath. Aisha was standing at the front of the group, two porters and a woman in a white coat stood behind her. Aisha held out a hand to him and he took it. Her face was pallid and she looked at him with cautious eyes, hair and uniform both sopping wet. Jack wanted to apologise but he was numb.
They placed Jack in a wheelchair and Aisha wheeled him back to his room. Tenderly, she dried him with a towel, her eyes brimming with compassion. It was as though she was trying to soothe his grief whilst she dried him and helped him into bed. Before she left the room, Aisha told him he would be discharged the next day pending a psychological evaluation.
Jack’s father took her place next to him. Jack met his eyes and the emotion that had been trying to escape since he woke up finally broke free. His scream of pain echoed around the corridors of the hospital. The agony in his voice stopping doctors, nurses, patients and visitors in their tracks. Arms came around him and Jack sobbed into his father’s embrace, not registering that this was the first time his father had ever held him voluntarily. Grief was slashing through his body like he’d swallowed razor blades. His brain tried to reconcile the fact that the sun he orbited had been extinguished. Suicide is a sin, but how on earth could he carry on? Jack had no reason to live anymore. It had been taken from him by monsters.
Chapter Two
Then
In one of the fields that surrounded Oakdale Farm was a rock formation lying in the centre. The huge black rocks were uniquely grouped together in a circle to form a crude sort of giant bowl. The weather had beaten them smooth, and Jack could slide from the top down into a shallow pool of rainwater collected in the bottom of the bowl of rocks. For eight-year-old Jack, it was his favourite place in the world. He spent hot days splashing in the water at the bottom, cocooned from the rest of the world.
When he first found it, Jack was convinced if he jumped into the water it would transport him to a different world. Every day he would jump into the water, just in case. It was a quiet, safe place. His imagination was free to run wild and he fought off armies of soldiers and hid from giants and saved the world from alien invasions. Today he had been defending his castle from an army of trolls when he lost his balance. Jack fell backwards. It was like falling in slow motion. It seemed to take an age for him to fall through the air and then slam into one of the rocks. He slid down to the bottom and as he did, a jagged stone he had collected and stored in the bottom sliced his leg.
Winded, Jack stared up at the blue sky. The fluffy clouds idled by as his brain tried to process what had just happened. The shock began to wear off and he sat up gingerly. It was then that he saw his leg. The skin had been ripped away, blood dripping down. The minute he saw it, the pain hit him and he began to cry. It hurt so much.
Slowly, Jack took off his shirt and wrapped it around his leg. His cries intensified with the pain as he pressed the T-shirt to his leg, the material rubbing the broken skin. Getting to his feet, Jack thought only of his mother. She would make it better. He limped his way up over the top of the rocks and jumped down. Fresh tears leached down his face as his leg absorbed the impact of the jump. It took Jack fifteen minutes to get home.
His father was in the garden, working on the vegetable patch. Taking a deep breath, he crept forward trying not to make a noise. He skirted past and as his foot crunched on the gravel driveway, a voice stopped him in his tracks.
‘Boy!’
His father was eagle-eyed when it came to Jack. He spun around to see his father straightening up, hands coated with soil. Hastily, Jack wiped at the tears on his face but from the dark, thunderous expression on his father’s face, it was too late.
‘Are you crying, boy?’ his father asked, disgusted.
Jack cowered back a few steps, wishing he could run into the house. To the safety of his mother. But with his leg injured, it was futile.
‘I said stop.’ His father took a step closer. His large frame blocked the sun, casting Jack into shadow. ‘What have you done?’
