Out Of Time | A Shelby

twenty nine

Nancy stood over the grave of her ex-husband. It was raining hard and the sky was black, wind whipped across the headstones and through the trees that lined the pathways of the cemetery, birds crowing as the sound of the metal clashing in the factories echoed over the hills.

It had been two weeks since Henry had been buried. Nancy didn't attend the funeral and she'd ignored all the attempts at contact from Henry's parents without a single ounce of regret. She knew eventually they would stop trying.

Henry Phillip Lewis
Loving son, husband and father

Nancy scoffed as she read the etching on his headstone, knowing that it couldn't have been further from the truth.

There she was, looking at the grave of her abuser, his body six feet below her. She was breathing, he was not. Her mind was free to wander, free to imagine and free to live as though she was supposed to before he came into her life and ripped her soul from her slowly over the years of their relationship.

Nancy had won. The world was in colour again, she had been pulled from the deepest darkest depths of black insanity and all of a sudden, she realised that there was a life for her outside of the one she thought she was trapped in, forgetting what it felt like to be free.

"You can't hurt me anymore." She whispered, her coat blowing in the wind and her eyes drying against the gail.

She took a deep breath, reading the headstone for the last time. This was it. She was closing the chapter of her life that should never have been written and burning the book to make a fire to warm her bones again.

Nancy didn't want her past to hold her back anymore. She was free of the pain and the torture now, forever, and she didn't want the lasting memories and nightmares to keep her chained up when Henry wasn't even alive anymore.

She would be free, and she would move forward.

The walk back home was long, but Nancy didn't mind. Though she was soaked through her skin with the rain, she enjoyed the sensation of allowing herself to feel things without fear. She didn't care anymore, she didn't have to be afraid of what was around every street corner or every long night alone, she was safe and she was alive.

It was a new beginning.

She walking through the front door and was met with the smell of freshly baked bread and spices on the stove.

"Where've you been darling? God you're soaking, come here."

Nancy was zoned out when Arthur approached her with an apron tied around his waist, tomato staining the front of it.

She let him take her coat and hang it up, helping her slide off her boots and handing her a towel, dabbing her face to dry the raindrops that hung from her long lashes.

"Nance? You alright?"

Snapping back to reality, Nancy inhaled deeply and smiled at Arthur, his worried expression fading away into a reciprocated smile.

"Sorry, I just wanted a walk after work."

"That's alright," Arthur smiled and placed his hands on her waist, kissing her gently, "I've started to make tea, Vin was moaning he was hungry."

"Thank you."

Nancy disappeared upstairs to get changed into some dry clothes and check on her son. Her eldest son.

As she peeled off her damp dress, she took a moment to pause and look at her reflection in the gold rimmed mirror that sat on her wooden dressing table.

She stared at her body, turning to the side and cradling her stomach that had the tiniest bump. Nobody would know from looking at her that she was carrying a child, but the feeling she had inside of her was unmistakable. Nancy already had an indescribable amount of love for her new baby, and she couldn't wait to shower him with the affection and happiness from two parents in a way she wished Vincent could've had since he was a baby.

It was hard for her not to think back to her first pregnancy, the sleepless nights and facing the long days of pain alone while Henry would spend his hours drinking his life and sanity away in the pub haunted her. Nancy wished her pregnancy would be a happy memory to look back on, knowing that this time, she wouldn't be going through it alone.

She pulled on a white night gown and gently knocked on Vinny's bedroom door, slowly pushing it open to see him sat on the floor playing with a wooden train set.

"Hi mum, me and Arthur thought you'd got lost. Well actually, I thought you'd been eaten by a dragon, but he said that definitely didn't happen. He must've been right."

Nancy smiled at her son's wild imagination, hoping that he never lost his sense of adventure.

"Come on you," she held her hand out and he leapt to his feet to grab it, "Arthur's made us dinner."

The three of them sat down at the table together. Vincent told them all about his day at school and how much he enjoyed learning about the Vikings in his history lesson that afternoon.

As Nancy sat and ate her meal, cooked by her partner for the first time in her life, she felt at peace. She noticed the way Arthur would steal a glance at her as they both listened to Vincent talk nonsense about monsters and dragons, sending her a sly wink as his hand reached for her thigh underneath the table, his other hand wrapped around his glass of beer.

"What about you mum? Anything interesting happen to you today?"

Vincent wiped his face clean of tomatoes with the end of his sleeve, smearing red across his cheeks, making Arthur chuckle and shake his head.

Nancy smiled, nodding at her son.

"I have something important to tell you, actually. Both of you, come here."

She stood up and walked around in front of the fireplace, Arthur and Vincent following behind her. Nancy reached into the pocket of her nightgown and pulled out a small piece of paper with a pencil sketch on it. She took one last look at the drawing, feeling her heart swell as she gazed down at it.

She handed it to Vincent first, letting him hold it between his hands, furrowing his eyebrows at the drawing.

Arthur peered over the boy's shoulder to look at what his mother had handed him. Nancy bit her lip as she saw his eyes widen, knowing that he knew exactly what it was that Vincent was holding.

"No," Arthur whispered, "You're joking?"

Nancy shook her head as both she and Arthur's lips felt into smiles.

"What is it? I don't get it? Who is this baby?"

Nancy bent down to meet Vincent's eyes, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"That is from your Auntie Esme and Auntie Polly," she began, "They can see things, Vin, they know things we don't. This is your little brother."

"You're having a baby?"

"Yes my love," Nancy smiled and Arthur helped her to her feet, pulling her closer to him by her waist as the two of them looked down at Vincent together, "We're having a baby."