Friday evening, just coming up to teatime. I was in the garden with Jessica and Lauren was inside on the phone to her mum. They were arranging things for our visit the next week.
Jess was playing around with a little toy dog on a lead that her Gran had gotten her and suddenly decided she wanted to go out to the street. We didn’t normally let her, but it was a nice day and she’d been behaved up to now, so I thought "What the hell?” I opened the gate and led her out, telling her she had to keep close by me.
Of course, she immediately wanted to run off and take the dog for a walk. I told her no; she started moaning. Nothing unusual, just pushing at boundaries when she bumped into them. So she’s just wandering in a little circle while I watch, occasionally having to tell her to keep close when she starts to veer off.
Then Lauren calls to me from inside. I turn and answer and, running it back afterwards, I remember catching a glimpse of the car sliding past as I turned. Don’t remember noticing it at the time. God knows why, but it just didn’t register. Then by the time I really saw it, it was too late.
So Lauren is in the doorway, telling me about some stupid joke her mum told her and I laugh like a good husband and say something back. No idea what now. I would swear it wasn’t more than thirty seconds. Then I look round and she’s gone. Jessica’s not there. I look up and see her down the street. She’s standing near the kerb with that stupid dog in her hand, but she’s talking to whoever was in the car. It had pulled in next to her and she was talking and then…
I mean this is me describing it now. I didn’t think at the time. I just saw she was gone and then looked up and saw her move toward the car raising the dog. And something in the back of my brain took over, saw the whole situation was wrong and I was just running. She was lifted into the car as I watched and they drove off.
The worst thing is that, as I ran towards her, I could see her because she was standing on the back seat. She looked up and saw me. And she was smiling. Then she saw me and the look on my face must have made her realise that what was happening was bad. And the smile, it just, fell off her face.
Now when I think about it, which is all the time, all I can think is that I caused that loss. That I cost her those last few moments of happiness before everything else happened.
I know it’s not true, but I know it with absolute certainty.