I was clearing out for the move when I found the cheque. It brought a lot of the old feelings back. Not the good feelings that other people seem to have when thinking of past relationships. It brought back the guilt and the regret. It brought to my mind an event I wanted to forget forever. When I did it, I didn't really feel anything. At the time I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what I'd done until it was all over. When I realised what I'd lost it was too late to do anything about it. I know exactly when I realised what I'd done. The realisation hit me sudden and hard.

I was sitting on the floor in my brother's living room playing with my nephew. His name is Luke, he's wasn't even two but already he had two obsessions in life - Bob the Builder and football. If he wasn't running up and down proclaiming that he could fix it, he was throwing his arms in the air shouting "goal!" Or at least I think that's what he was shouting. He didn't start to string sentences together until he was at least two and a half, at this stage the words were still garbled. We were playing a sit down version of football with Manchester United ball I'd bought him that afternoon when my sister-in-law, Alice, arrived back from her shopping trip.

"It's good for Luke to have another kid to play with," she said when she appeared in the doorway.

"Don't insult your babysitter or you'll get no more monster-free shopping trips."

"Don't call him that, he's my angel. Anyway, I thought you and Clare might have got your act together and given Luke a little friend to play with by now." I looked at Luke happily climbing up onto his mother's knee and just then I realised what I'd lost. What I'd given away. I blurted it out. I'd never meant to tell anyone. The last person I would have thought of telling would be Alice. My brother made us friends, we would never have chosen to be friends. "Clare had an abortion."

The silence stretched between us. She stared at me for what felt like hours. Then she put both her arms around Luke and hugged him, burying her head in his back as he squirmed to get away. She didn't look up at me when she talked.

"When?"

"About a month ago. " I waited for her to ask something else but she didn't. After a while she went into the kitchen and put on the kettle. I followed her. Luke followed me. Her face was ashen.

"I can't believe you. You're the last person I would have thought could do that. You're always here playing with Luke. How could you?" she whispered the words through clenched teeth.

"I didn't think it through." I answered her without thinking. But I knew it was the truth. It was a cold, selfish, knee-jerk reaction. If I had looked into the future and seen my child I wouldn't have done it. If I had of thought of Luke and how I felt when I saw him when he was just an hour old, I wouldn't have done it. But six weeks ago there wasn't a baby, there was a problem. There was an inconvenience.

I'd got back from work and found Clare crying in my bedroom. She couldn't talk. She just pointed at the pregnancy test on the bedside table. My first thought wasn't about our baby. It wasn't even about Clare. My first thought was about her father, I thought, "Her father's going to kill me." I told Clare I'd sort it out. It seemed the easy option. We didn't discuss it. For all our talk of freedom of choice, we never even discussed the options. An appointment made, a flight booked and she was on her way. I should have gone with her. But I didn't want to. I made up excuses about work and obligations but truthfully I didn't want to be there. I don't know why. I didn't tell Alice any of this. Standing in her kitchen, with Luke clamouring for my attention, I couldn't say anything. I remembered then that Alice had been 4 months pregnant when she'd married my brother and that was when the regret turned to guilt.

I left Alice with Luke and went home. I avoided Alice for weeks. I avoided my brother as well. I knew Alice would tell him about it. About my terrible, dirty secret. That's how I started to think about it. I was ashamed. I was ashamed of myself and I was ashamed of Clare. I didn't even want to look at her. When she called to see me we'd sit in silence watching the television, not looking at each other. One time, she called to see me and I didn't answer the door. The split was inevitable. I passed those weeks in a void. I went to work but I don't know what I did there. Nothing seemed to have any meaning. When anyone looked at me I felt like they knew what I'd done. I felt that I was being judged or pitied. After a few weeks, my brother called to see me. We sat in awkward silence, watching the weak tea grow cold, as he tried to find a way to bring it up in conversation.

"You haven't been round the house for a while now." He said.

"Alice told you?"

"Yes. But you hiding yourself in here won't help the situation."

"I'm not hiding."

"Clare did a terrible thing to you. I don't know what I'd do if Alice did something like that. You're better off without a woman who could do that to you."

"It wasn't her fault. I sorted it."

He stared at me not understanding what I'd said.

"It's always the woman's decision. You couldn't have forced her to do it if she didn't want to."

"She was scared."

"You're both a bit long in the tooth to be scared. It's not as if she didn't know it could happen. Woman like her expect other people to clean up their mess."

"It wasn't her mess. It was my mess and I sorted it." I shouted at him.

He looked at me as if I'd slapped him.

"Anyway, it was good to see you, come round the house soon. Luke misses you." He said as he got up to leave.

I let him go. I couldn't make him understand what had happened. His visit made me feel worse than I'd ever felt. I didn't feel bad because he blamed Clare for everything. I felt guilty because a part of me felt good that he blamed Clare. That dark, selfish part of me wanted to blame her too. It was her body and she could have stopped it if she wanted to. She had a lot of time to think it over - the hour-long flight, the train to the clinic the clinic waiting room. I sorted it out in one morning before the truth could sink in. She should have stopped it. I know she was to blame, but I was to blame too. It galled me that she seemed to cope with it so much easier than me. She just expected everything to be the same as before. She told me when she dumped me that I was playing the martyr. She told me that I showed her no understanding or sympathy after she'd been through such a traumatic experience. She said I was selfish. I agreed with her.

A few weeks later she sent me a letter - a cheque with a very short note. The note said she'd send me another payment next month, it was to cover the cost of the flight and the procedure. She said she didn't want to be in debt to me. At the time I didn't know what to do with the cheque. I couldn't bring myself to cash it or throw it out. A better man than me might have talked to her about it, might have resolved it in a mature, adult fashion. I think that's what she wanted me to do. I think it was her last salvage attempt. She didn't send anymore cheques. I crumbled the cheque and threw it in the bin bag that was gathering the rubbish at the door.

A new job, a new country, a new life - I was determined not to carry the old baggage with me. But as I sat waiting for the boarding call, my mind drifted back to the cheque and thoughts of Clare and what could have been. I can't lift out sections of my life and pretend they never happened, pretend that they never created the person that I am. But I also knew I couldn't let my life go because of one bad choice. I watched the plane take off and then headed for the nearest pay phone. I didn't know how she'd react to my voice after all this time, but I had to put the fear aside and find out.

^