Rebecca bristles, holding her wine glass just a fraction too tight. Imagining for a second the glass crushing inside her firm grasp. That delicious feeling of white-hot pain as the blood seeped out from the deep cuts.
She purses her lips, then, shrugging her shoulders, quickly composes her thoughts. How she’d been about to tell him about her visit to the doctors today. About how he’d prescribed her antidepressants. Even though she was sure she wasn’t depressed, she’d gone along with it and picked up her prescription from the chemist afterwards. How she’d taken the first tablets.
But suddenly she was conscious of ruining the mood. Of Jamie’s hand slipping from hers. So, she drank some more wine, told herself that she’d tell him when things were better between them, when things weren’t so fragile.
‘I took her for a walk in the park in her buggy. It was nice to get out of the house. I think the fresh air did us both good.’ More lies. ‘I think she was just overtired.’
She was trying too hard now to play down her concerns and sound upbeat, but Jamie didn’t seem to notice.
And the wine was already working its magic, mixing with the antidepressants, making her feel lightheaded. Unburdened, almost. Free for a few minutes of the dark thoughts that had consumed her day.
Jamie must have felt her relaxing too, because his mood softened suddenly. Placing his arm around her shoulder, they both laid their heads back against the sofa, the first bit of affection between them in weeks.
It was nice, the two of them sitting silently for a few minutes, staring at the crackling fire.
Rebecca leaned her head on Jamie’s shoulder. Her touch igniting the response in Jamie that she knew it would.
He kissed her.
He wanted sex. Of course he did. It had been months. And even though the last thing she wanted right now was to have sex, she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer.
So, she kissed him back with all the passion and effort than she could summon. Hoping that this would help bring them back together somehow, that this could forge an intimacy between them once more. But the tenderness wasn’t there.
Jamie was drunk. She could still smell the acrid bitterness of whisky on his breath as he forced his mouth on hers, moving her head back forcefully when she tried to turn her head away from him. Tugging roughly at her clothes, he moved himself on top of her, inside of her in just seconds.
The pain was excruciating.
She’d thought Jamie would be more considerate seeing as it was the first time they’d had sex since Ella, but he was selfish and greedy and seemed so fuelled with anger… as if this was his right.
Then she heard it.
Jenna.
Another woman’s name entangled in the earthy groan that escaped from the back of his throat.
Though he seemed completely oblivious, so caught up in his moment, that he didn’t notice her body tensing rigidly beneath him, flinching as if she’d just been punched.
Startled, Rebecca just lay there as he continued to grunt away on top of her, willing it all to be over as quickly as it started. Fighting back her tears, along with the bile that threatened to rise from the back of her throat.
He was here in body, but his mind was somewhere else.
Had he already been with her, this Jenna? Dark thoughts swirled violently around inside her head as she tried to piece it all together.
All those late nights at the office recently. The business dinners out. The way Jamie suddenly always went for a shower the second he came through the door, no matter what time of the night it was. The tiny smear of make-up she’d spotted on his shirt collar.
It was all such a cliché.
The distracted wife, struggling with a newborn. The lying cheat of a husband.
How could he do this to her? To Ella?
Ella.
The sound of her child crying echoed from the baby monitor, just as Jamie let out one last groan, shuddering to a halt on top of her.
She’d never been so grateful to hear that sound. For Ella to give her a reason to quickly slide herself out from under him and make a rapid getaway.
Because she needed to think straight. To get her head around what just happened.
One word. One moment. It changed everything it.
Taking the stairs, she held on to the banister tightly to steady herself as she walked.
Jamie had betrayed her. She was certain of it.
He’d taken the one good thing in her life, her perfect little family, and he’d destroyed it.
Chapter Five
I was just seven years old when I realised we weren’t like other families.
That we weren’t normal.
To mistake honesty for the truth leaves you wide open for deception.
My mother had lived and breathed that phrase, which I only really understand now that I’m that much older. If you say something with enough conviction, you believe it eventually. But that doesn’t make it the truth.
And my mother always believed her own bullshit. She was one of the greatest of actresses, our mother. So great, that deep down I think she’d even convinced herself that her lies were true. A woman capable of delivering Oscar-worthy performances without any kind of dress rehearsal. Although she wasn’t ever on the screen or stage.
The only starring role she played out was that of a wife and mother, inside the four cold and decrepit walls of the house we all lived in.
I say ‘house’, because it was far from a home. But it was all we had, and we’d never known any different.
My parents had everyone around us fooled.
The police. The social workers. The teachers at school.
No one must ever know.
We must never tell, they drilled us repeatedly.
We were just kids. My sister, two years younger than me.
So, of course, we did what we were told. Going innocently about our days, aware that everything we said and did played some part in covering up the big lie we all kept, but no one actually articulated that fact.
Instead, we concentrated everything we had into showing everyone around us only what we wanted them to see.
But people around us actually wanted to believe it, fooling themselves that the façade we created was the truth. People around us actually wanted to believe it.
Sometimes though, when I think back, I’m certain someone must have known the truth.
And that cuts me deeply. Because if they did know what was going on, what was really happening in our house, no one ever offered us any kind of help. No one ever even so much as tried.
They let us suffer.
Ignorance is bliss was another of my mother’s favourite sayings.
And for a while back then, I really was oblivious to how fucked up my family were. Because it was all so normal to me. That life I’d been born into was the only life I’d ever known. I had nothing to compare it to, nothing to make me question that anything was wrong.
Not until I was seven years old; the first time I went to a friend’s house for tea.
My mother had actually encouraged the arrangement, which itself was a rarity. Because our mother had always refused to allow us to attend anything outside of school. No birthday parties, no after-school clubs. No visits to friend’s houses.
But that day had been different.
My mother had been laid up in the darkness and solitude of her bedroom for days. Much longer than she usually hid away for, so I knew something really bad had happened. This was far worse than all the other times, because even my father had made himself scarce. Normally, he’d skulk around the house, as if hiding among the shadows, not saying a word, not even looking at us.