The same cannot be said of Gemma. Her years were far from uneventful – though not in a good way. Some time after I left, there was another man, of course. I don’t know the details. I wouldn’t want to. But I know that it didn’t last. And I know that Gemma had a daughter by him. I didn’t find out this detail until a year ago. Or to put it another way: I didn’t find out this detail until it was too late. Until Gemma had lost her second child. After six years this time, rather than six minutes. Not that that matters. Not that it makes a difference. Having only lived through one of these losses I can’t begin to speculate which is worse. But I know this: neither six minutes nor six years constitute a life. Only a tragedy. I know I bear no direct responsibility for these events. But at the same time my decision to leave was the butterfly flapping its wings. If I hadn’t left, things would have played out differently. At the very least, I would have still been there for her. For these reasons, and many others, which can remain unspoken, my thoughts tend to spend a lot of time wallowing in the past these days.
