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If Erica hadn’t come back into his life, if she hadn’t come to Aylesford …
He remembers how he hooked up with Erica, that first time. They were out at a bar after work on a Friday night, he and Greg. Lindsey had joined them, bringing along her friend Erica. Greg’s girlfriend had been there too. Lindsey said she was tired and went home early after a couple of mocktails, waddling out the door, heavily pregnant. She left behind her best friend and her husband, not worried at all, because why should she be? She’d told him, in front of everyone, to stay and have a good time because after the baby came he wouldn’t be able to do that any more. He’d smiled at her, but the permission, and the warning, left a bad taste in his mouth.
He was twenty-three, in his first real job, and he wasn’t ready to be a father. He watched his wife make her ponderous way across the bar and out the door, wondering if he should walk her home, but was soon distracted by something Erica said. He’d met her before, though he’d never really spoken much to her. But that night, beer had loosened his tongue, he felt reckless, and after Lindsey left, Erica seemed to be flirting a little with him. He was enjoying it, and it all seemed harmless. After all, she was a friend of Lindsey’s.
They’d decided on just one more, and he’d tried to persuade Greg to stay, but he and his girlfriend wanted to go. They didn’t seem to think anything of leaving Patrick and Erica there together to have one last drink.
Once they were alone, though, the dynamic changed quickly. He realized that she wanted to sleep with him, that ending up in bed with her was actually possible. He wrestled with himself a little. She was his wife’s best friend. Another drink, and it became probable. She whispered that Lindsey would never know. And then it was inevitable.
They left the bar, and once outside, she took his hand and dragged him around the corner of the building. She leaned against the wall in the dark and pulled him to her. It was like … skydiving. That kind of daring, that exhilaration. He was harder than he’d ever been with Lindsey. He wondered how he’d ended up with Lindsey, about to become a father, when he should be fucking women like this one.
She took him back to her place. It was a short walk away – everything in the small town of Creemore was a short walk away. He kept his eyes open for people he knew who might see them together, but no one was around. When they got to her building and into the lift, alone, he almost unzipped. But there wasn’t time. The door slid open and he imagined slipping into her.
Once inside her apartment – it wasn’t much, none of them had much in those days – she led him to her bedroom. Soon, everything was a blur of pounding excitement and a loss of boundaries. Afterwards they lay on her bed, exhausted, and he stroked her hair and told her she was amazing.
She’d smiled at him and said, ‘I know,’ and they both laughed.
She hadn’t said the same about him. ‘Lindsey can’t find out about this,’ he said, turning serious. He didn’t need the grief. He looked at her lying naked beside him, her pale, slender body, and a vision of his wife popped into his head. It was wrong to compare them, it wasn’t Lindsey’s fault that she was bloated, stretched, darkened, and marked with veins – she was about to become a mother. But God, how he wanted more of this, the perfect woman lying right beside him.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It would kill her.’
Was she waiting for him to say something? ‘Will we do this again?’ he asked.
She didn’t answer him. She just smiled and said, ‘You’d best be getting back to your wife.’
That was what she was like. She liked to be the one in control. She hasn’t changed. He’d gone home feeling like he’d been dismissed, wondering how the hell he would be able to act normally around Erica and his wife when they were all together.
But then she’d called him at work that Monday – she was all he’d been able to think about – and asked him to come over to her apartment on his lunch hour. And that had been their routine. A pleasurable, exciting, but meaningless affair – for both of them.
He lies in bed, awake, staring at Stephanie’s back, thinking about the past and everything that has led to this moment. He’d never loved Erica – there was something inherently unlovable about her. Perhaps it was that she herself seemed incapable of loving anyone. She frightened him a little, even then.
And now, it’s ten years later, and Erica has wrecked everything. His once-adoring wife believes he’s a murderer. He’s afraid she’ll leave him and take her inheritance with her.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
THE NEXT MORNING Stephanie stumbles out of bed and robotically goes through her morning routine. She’d felt her husband’s eyes on her back during the night, as she feigned sleep. She wondered what he was thinking, while she was thinking about the gun.
This can’t go on.
She’s coming up with a plan. It frightens her, but she needs a way out. She’d thought of it in that darkest hour right before dawn, when the mind turns to things that shouldn’t survive the cold light of day.
But now it’s morning, the sun is streaming through the windows, and she’s still thinking about it.
Hanna has invited her over again today. Stephanie hasn’t asked Hanna over to her place because Patrick is home and she can tell that Hanna no longer wants to set foot in her house. Hanna thinks Patrick is guilty, regardless of how much Stephanie has pretended otherwise. She’d let her guard down that one time, after the arrest, and now she’s afraid Hanna knows what she really thinks.
She will go to Hanna’s this morning because she wants to – she’s desperate for normalcy – and also because Hanna is now part of Stephanie’s plan, although she does not know it.
She takes the twins over in the buggy and knocks on Hanna’s door. She lifts the twins out of the buggy and carries them into the house. She puts them on their playmats on the carpeted living-room floor. Hanna has taken to baking comfort food for each of these visits – today Stephanie can smell chocolate chip cookies, and she is absurdly grateful for Hanna’s attempts to make her feel better.
‘Here, have one,’ Hanna says when she comes back into the living room with a plate of cookies fresh from the oven. ‘I’ve just put the coffee on.’
‘You’re a godsend, Hanna,’ Stephanie says, meaning it. There’s no one else she can turn to, or even comfortably hang out with. She never realized, before, just how isolated she’s become. She hadn’t made enough of an effort to keep up with people from work when she went off on maternity leave, she thinks. She’d let the women in her moms’ group fall away, not up to making the effort with everything that has been going on. She wonders what they think. Like Hanna, they probably think her husband is guilty. They all know he cheated on his first wife and how she died. She’s sure they must ask themselves why she stays with him. Stephanie wonders if Hanna discusses her situation with the other moms in the neighbourhood. She probably does, she realizes, finishing the cookie and reaching for another. She must.
They talk about the babies, what they’ve been doing, how they’ve been sleeping, little Teddy’s latest visit to the paediatrician. But then there’s a pause, and Hanna looks at her expectantly.
There’s a long silence broken only by the sound of the babies babbling. Stephanie screws up her courage and says, ‘I’m going to leave Patrick.’ Hanna doesn’t look surprised – she looks more relieved than anything. ‘I’ve realized that it’s over for me, even if it isn’t for him,’ Stephanie says. ‘I don’t trust him any more. He cheated on Lindsey. The whole world knows it. And all this about the accident – it’s damaged us, Hanna, more than anyone knows.’
‘I understand completely,’ Hanna says. ‘I think you’re doing the right thing. When trust is gone—’
Stephanie clarifies, ‘I don’t believe he killed Lindsey on purpose – the idea is ridiculous. I’m not afraid of him, Hanna, but – I don’t love him any more.’ She adds, ‘I resent him too much for putting me through all this, even though it’s not entirely his fault.’
‘He picked the wrong woman to have an affair with,’ Hanna acknowledges.
‘He certainly did. And now we’re all paying the price,’ Stephanie says bitterly. ‘I’m going to make an appointment with a divorce attorney on Monday. I have to figure everything out before I tell him.’
‘When are you going to tell him?’ Hanna asks, her voice worried.
Stephanie takes a deep breath. ‘As soon as possible. After I see the attorney, I guess. I just need this to be over.’
‘Like I said, I think you’re doing the right thing,’ Hanna says firmly. ‘You know I’m here for you, right?’
Stephanie smiles sadly at her. ‘I know. And I appreciate it. I don’t really have anyone else I can talk to. This is so hard.’ She puts her hands up against her face. ‘I’m worried about Patrick,’ Stephanie says, ‘about how he’ll take it.’
