‘You’re right. But I need to preface what I’m about to say with something else.’
He stopped walking so abruptly the coffee in my cup sploshed over the rim in protest. He took it from me and once again set it onto the grass. His hands, now free, moved to my face, gently cradling it.
‘I love you, Ellie. I know this isn’t the right time or place to tell you that.’
‘While you’re breaking up with me? No, it definitely isn’t.’
Old Ellie had leapt in with that whip-smart retort, but for once I didn’t blame her or rein her in.
‘I just needed you to hear it, to never wonder if I’d felt it. Because I have. I do. And I always will.’
‘But you’re going back to your ex?’
He looked away for a long moment, as though the words he needed to say were written on the horizon.
‘Annalise is taking Tasha to Sydney.’
‘For a holiday?’ I asked, already knowing that couldn’t be the cause of this angst.
‘For good,’ he said, tearing his eyes away from the park and returning them to me.
‘But... but... why? This is Tasha’s home. She’s lived here all her life. She’s got friends here, school, family.’
‘We met with Tasha’s doctors. I don’t think I fully realised how touch and go it had been when they brought her in. They’ve put her on the highest dose of medication they can, but they warned us that children with asthma this severe, who’ve experienced an attack like Tasha’s, are likely to do so again. It was devastating to hear, and our first question was what could be done to help prevent it. “Short of moving to a different climate, one with less pollutionthan here,” the consultant told us, “the best advice I can give is to continue monitoring her closely.”’
‘Was he serious about the moving thing?’
Rhys’s shrug looked hopeless. ‘Annalise certainly took it as a plan of action. Perhaps because it confirmed everything she’d researched. “Would her asthma improve if she lived in Australia?” she asked him.’
I didn’t need to be told his reply. The roots of it were buried in the conversation we were now having.
‘But surely Annalise can’t just run off to the other side of the world with your child. There must be laws, rules, or regulations that prevent that.’
‘There are,’ Rhys admitted, but the sadness in his voice told me I hadn’t stumbled over a miraculous solution.
‘Annalise is convinced the only way to keep Tasha healthy is for her to live in Australia and escape the cold British winters and pollution.’
‘But this was only one doctor’s opinion. Couldn’t you see another specialist? Perhaps they’d have a different prognosis.’
‘We saw a second one, the next day.’ Rhys looked beaten, and that was a look I’d never seen on him before. ‘She basically agreed that damp, cold weather is a real trigger for Tasha’s type of asthma and that she’d most likely suffer less in a hot, dry climate.’
I swallowed hard, starting several opposing arguments in my head but never allowing them airtime. They all sounded selfish.
‘Do you think they’re right?’
With the kind of regret that rips hearts apart, he took my hands in his as he spoke.
‘I don’t know, Ellie, but I can’t risk fighting her on this. Yes, there are laws that could force her to stay here. We share parental responsibility, so I could block the move by applying to the courts for a Prohibited Steps Order.’
I was nodding enthusiastically, holding out for a lifeline, only to see him reel it back in with a shake of his head. ‘But what if I did, and Tasha had another attack here, one where the ambulance doesn’t get to her in time?’
I was watching the systematic destruction of a life I hadn’t even known I was trying to build, and there wasn’t a single thing I could do to stop it, because Rhys was right. The risks to his child were too great. Tasha had to come first.
‘Annalise has wanted to go back to Australia for a long time. Even before we broke up, she was talking about it. And now that her parents are moving back to Sydney, she thinks it’s the right time to take Tasha to live near them.’
He must have read something in my eyes, something I would have been too ashamed to say.
‘But her primary motivation is to keep Tasha safe. And I can’t fight her on that. I just can’t.’