AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Stephanie, drowsy now after lunch, thinks about it and shakes her head. ‘I’d rather just sit here.’
‘Whatever you want,’ Patrick agrees. ‘This is your day.’ He leans over and kisses her on the mouth, and she kisses him back, hungrily, the way she used to.
After a couple of lazy, almost blissful hours, they pack their things and think about returning home. Stephanie notices that a cloud has passed across Patrick’s mood. He seems to have become withdrawn, tense. Perhaps he’s thinking about what’s ahead. Their little escape is over. She imagines they’re both worried about the same thing as they load the car. When will they hear from Erica again? What happens next? She appraises him as they finish securing the babies in the back. ‘You look really tired,’ she says. ‘Maybe I should drive.’
He shakes his head. ‘No, I’m fine. I’ll drive.’
‘You did all the driving up. I’ll drive home.’
He looks at her across the hood of the car. ‘No, really, I’m fine. You should nap on the way back.’
But she won’t take no for an answer. She walks around the front of the car to the driver’s side and says, ‘I’m driving. Look, you’re actually trembling. Believe it or not, I think you’re in worse shape than I am.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A WEEK HAS gone by since Patrick visited Erica’s apartment in the middle of the night. Erica finds herself growing more and more impatient. Nothing is happening. Specifically – nothing has happened to Stephanie, and she doesn’t like fucking around. She steps into the independent bookstore in downtown Aylesford. It’s a charming place, but Erica didn’t come here to be charmed. She knows what she wants. She spots the children’s section and heads there.
It’s time she bought a gift for the twins. She’s spent so much time thinking about them, she feels like she’s almost part of their little family now. She peruses the shelves, searching for something specific, something she remembers from her own childhood. It might even be her favourite story. For a moment she’s worried she won’t find it – that she’ll have to order it online somewhere, and she really wants to give it to the twins today. Patrick needs a nudge.
Ah – there it is. She recognizes the little book and plucks it from the shelf. She finds a chair and sits down and reads it all the way through. It’s just as she remembered it, and in spite of herself she is charmed by it, finds herself smiling as she reads, enjoying the familiar words, the illustrations, the moral. It’s perfect.
Patrick sees it first, the small gift-wrapped package topped with a bow, sitting at the base of their front door. They’re returning from an evening walk around the neighbourhood with the twins. He feels Stephanie come up behind him. She sees the package, wrapped in pale-yellow paper dotted with little lambs, and gives a cry of delight.
‘A present!’ she says.
Stephanie has always loved gifts – choosing them, wrapping them, giving them and receiving them. With a jolt, Patrick realizes that he hasn’t given his wife any thoughtful gifts lately, not even flowers. He must make amends. He’ll get her something soon.
Stephanie comes up the porch steps with him and reaches down to pick up the package, while Patrick unlocks the door. ‘Let’s get the babies inside and see who it’s from,’ she says.
They make their way in and set the babies down in the living room. ‘There’s a card,’ Stephanie says. ‘To Jackie and Emma. I wonder who it’s from?’ Stephanie says, sitting down on the sofa and opening the card.
Patrick is about to sit beside her when she flings the gift away as if she’s had an electric shock. She’s still holding the card in her hand, looking at it with distaste. Patrick feels a terrible misgiving. ‘What?’
She hands him the card – he sees that her hand is shaking. ‘It’s from Erica.’ She says the name with revulsion.
He grabs the card from her and looks at it with alarm. Inside is written, ‘A little gift for you and the twins. Erica.’
A feeling of dread sweeps over him. He looks at the package that Stephanie had thrown to the floor. It’s small and flat, like a book.
‘Don’t open it,’ Stephanie says.
He hesitates. He doesn’t want to open it either. Erica is sick and she’s trying to fuck with them. But all the same, he needs to know what it is. He walks over to the gift and bends down and picks it up while Stephanie shrinks back into the sofa. He glances back at her, as if for permission. She doesn’t say anything, so he rips the paper off. He lets his breath out in relief. He turns to Stephanie and says, ‘It’s just a book. A picture book.’
He comes back to the sofa and sits beside her, reading the title out loud. ‘The Little Red Hen.’
Stephanie takes it from him and stares at the book. ‘I know this one. It’s an old folktale. The little red hen has to do everything herself.’ She turns to the first page, and they glance through the book together, reading it quickly. It’s about a little red hen who finds a grain of wheat, but no one will help her plant the seed. The goose and the cat and the pig say no. So the little red hen says she’ll do it herself. When it comes time to harvest the wheat, no one will help her. She tells them she will do it herself. Finally, when it comes time to eat the bread that she’s made from the wheat, everyone wants some, but she says that she will eat it herself.
Stephanie has flipped the pages to the end, as if expecting something more. But there’s nothing else. She turns to him, her face grim.
‘She’s just trying to mess with us,’ Patrick says. But he knows what she’s doing, and it chills him to the core. Erica is sending him a message, and it couldn’t be more clear. I’ll do it myself.
The following evening, Wednesday, Erica is walking to work at Hillcrest Hospital in Newburgh, where she is an administrative assistant three days a week. She really should have gone back to school, settled into something worthwhile. But she’s always been restless, not able to stick to anything long enough. Always looking for some quicker, easier way to make money. She’s on the night shift, and it’s already dark. The hospital is not far from her apartment, and she enjoys being alone with her thoughts. She always has so much to think about.
Erica is walking along the edge of the service road that leads to the back entrance to the hospital – there’s no pavement – and her thoughts turn to choices she’s made. She has no husband to support her. She gave her only child up for adoption. It had been a practical decision, and a financial one, and not difficult to make. Erica had leaned on the eager, well-to-do couple a little. And then a little more. It was all done very quietly. They were happy to pay.
She wasn’t ready to be a mother. How was Erica, just twenty-two, supposed to raise a child on her own? When in truth, she’d never really considered whether she even wanted children? She knows now that she doesn’t – she’s not the nurturing type. It surprises her, how little interest she has in her own child.
She walks briskly along the dark, deserted stretch of road with her head down, engrossed in her thoughts, earbuds in, listening to music. Suddenly she senses something, hears the sound of acceleration behind her. She turns to look and sees the dark, menacing shape of a car bearing down on her at high speed, its headlights off. Acting on pure instinct, she dives into the ditch at the side of the road, landing hard on her side and rolling, as she hears the car speed away.
She lies in the ditch, panting, her heart beating wildly. She sits up slowly, rubbing her shoulder. She’s shaken but unhurt. That was close.
Maybe, she thinks, suddenly afraid, maybe she’s pushed Patrick too hard. He’s made his choice. She’s fucking blown it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
IT’S LATE, AND Stephanie has Jackie in her arms, the baby’s face red and bawling and covered in mucus and tears. Her little body is hot, even in just a diaper and a light T-shirt. Stephanie is sweating, too, from holding her against her chest for so long. She talks to Jackie, jiggling her as she carries her around the living room, but the baby will not be soothed. If they try to put the babies down, they cry even more frantically, and neither she nor Patrick can stand it. Patrick has Emma in his arms and he’s walking her around the hall and in and out of the kitchen. Night after night they do this, and it’s wearing them down. They can’t even speak to each other through the noise, but maybe that’s a good thing. Stephanie doesn’t want to speak to her husband right now.
She’s angry. At him, at the situation. She’s so tired she can’t think straight. She’s generally a very rational person, but she hardly recognizes herself any more.
