Zach looks up and down the street when he gets out of the car. Robbie knows where he works. Does he know where he lives, too? Has he watched the house, seen Izzy and Carson go about their daily routine? The thought makes Zach feel sick.
The house is in darkness, except for the light in their bedroom. He sees Izzy in his head. Hair in a long plait down her back. A book propped on her knees. She’ll be tired, gently affectionate, oblivious to what’s coming. Zach hates himself for the upset he is about to cause.
He slips off his shoes and socks at the door.
‘Dadda?’
‘Coming.’
He pads into his son’s bedroom. ‘Hey, mate, what are you doing awake?’
‘Waiting for you,’ Carson replies, his voice overly loud; whispering is something he finds difficult to do. ‘To tell you about my day.’
This is part of their routine, when time permits. Carson recounts the minutiae of his day and usually falls asleep well before he gets to the end.
‘Well, I’d be happier if you got your beauty sleep,’ Zach says, kissing his son’s forehead. ‘You need all the help you can get.’
Carson giggles – his sense of humour is more sophisticated than many of his other cognitive skills.
Zach puts a finger to his lips. ‘Shush. Now, tell me a short version of what you did today.’
Carson snuggles under the sheets, sighing contentedly. He’s at his happiest when everyone in the family is present and accounted for. ‘I wrote story about kitten ... His name Scratchy ... He black and white ... He go on bus and get lost ... and ... and...’
Carson’s eyes are drooping. He manages another disjointed sentence or two. Zach waits a few minutes, absorbing the purity of those closed eyelids.
‘Hey.’ Izzy smiles when he walks into their room, directly next door. ‘Long day, huh?’
Zach nods a reply. The toll of two late shifts in a row, dealing with ill patients and medical emergencies while those words – For the last twenty years, I’ve thought of nothing else but killing you – tumbled round in his head. He needs to tell Izzy. He should have done so last night, but she was complaining of a headache and he put it off.
The mattress sinks as he sits down. She reaches to put her hand on his arm.
‘Everything okay?’
‘No.’ He feels a surge of self-loathing as he extracts the note from his pocket. ‘This was left on my car last night.’
Her fingers brush his as she takes the piece of paper into her possession. Is this a moment he will look back on? A line in time, distinguishing between ‘before’ and ‘after’? ‘Before’ signifying love, trust and closeness. ‘After’ being the disintegration of their marriage.
She reads. Her eyebrows – fine and with a natural arch – rise until they almost reach her hairline. ‘This is scary ... Is this person mentally ill?’
‘Perhaps, I don’t know.’
‘You need to tell me something ... What is it you need to say?’
Zach forces himself to meet her eyes. ‘I need to tell you two things, actually.’
She takes a sharp breath. ‘Two things?’
‘The first goes back to my school days. There was this kid, Robbie McGrath. I was a shit to him.’
Her expression is guarded. ‘What did you do, Zach?’
‘Poor kid had epilepsy. Had a few seizures at school. I am ashamed to say it, Izzy, but my party piece was to mimic him.’
‘Mimic him?’
‘Having the seizure. Jerking and moaning on the ground. Then getting up and walking as though I’d wet my pants.’ Every part of Zach is cringing. He’s mortified and utterly perplexed by the cruelty of his teenage self. How had he thought it was even remotely funny? Why hadn’t someone punched him in the face and made him stop?
‘You did this “party piece” at school?’ Izzy’s voice drips with disdain. ‘In front of this unfortunate boy?’
‘Sometimes at school. Mostly at someone’s house, when we were bored or drunk.’
At school Robbie would’ve seen snippets. Zach contorting his eyes and mouth, or pretend-shuddering, clutching his crotch. Nothing longer than a few seconds, but enough. The ‘full performance’ was reserved for parties, and Robbie was spared because he wasn’t part of that scene. Except for one memorable occasion, when someone actually thought to invite him. It was a big party; Zach hadn’t even noticed Robbie was there. He launched himself on to the ground, writhing his body, lurching his head from side to side, hysterical laughter prompting him to exaggerate his movements even further. Then the laughter stopped dead and someone said, ‘For fuck’s sake, Zach. Cut it out. He’s here.’
By the time Zach got unsteadily to his feet, Robbie was gone. There were a few awkward minutes, when nobody knew where to look or what to say, then someone turned up the music, and the party resumed with as much gusto as before: Robbie’s feelings were no reason to stop enjoying themselves. The party was shortly after the HSC. Zach hasn’t set eyes on Robbie since that night.
‘And you think this boy, this man, left you this note on your car?’ Izzy asks now.
Zach shrugs. ‘Whoever it is has been waiting twenty years, which means it’s someone from school.’
‘Maybe there are other people who hated you. I would have hated you.’
Izzy has a point. There were other victims, other students and even some of the teachers: Mr Collins with his nervous facial tics; Mrs Romford with her masculine voice. He can’t recall wanting to deliberately embarrass or belittle anyone: his actions were prompted by the need to elicit laughter from his friends, nothing more. Does that mean that underneath all the bravado he was as insecure as everyone else? Or is that just looking for excuses?
What appals him the most is the thought of Carson being subjected to the same kind of treatment, his clunky movements and speech providing comic material for some smart-arse kid. Zach now understands the irreparable hurt that can be inflicted by mockery, especially when it’s targeted at something that can’t be controlled. One minute, Robbie would be walking to his locker. The next he’d be on the floor, body shaking violently, saliva frothing from his mouth, urine spreading across the crotch of his school shorts.
‘What’s the other thing you need to tell me?’
Zach stalls. Does he really need to tell her? He’s vacillated since last night, changing his mind every five minutes.
Tell her. You should have told her years ago.
Don’t. She’ll never trust you again.
Izzy is strong and incredibly forgiving. She can recover.
Some things can’t be recovered from.
His wife is his closest confidante. This confession is long, long overdue. He has hated himself, for the deception as much as the act itself. His relief at getting it off his chest is almost as great as his shame.
Nobody knows. Whoever wrote this note can’t know about this.
A few people know. And they could have told others. When someone says they want to kill you, doesn’t it make sense to be fully honest?
‘It happened about a month after Carson’s birth. I tried to be strong, like you were, but every time someone looked at him or said something ... I guess I underestimated how it would impact our family and friends. Their pity derailed me ... You remember I had a medical conference around then?’
Her expression hardens. She’s guessed. Bed-hopping is common at these conferences. If you’re the cheating type.
He forces himself to go on. ‘I cried and cried that weekend. All the tears I felt I couldn’t shed in front of you. I couldn’t understand it ... Why was I so deeply affected by the change in expression every time someone peeked into his pram? It wasn’t as though I was scared of having a disabled child. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t adjusted my expectations ... But every one of those pitying glances broke something in me. I got drunk on the second night of the conference. Outrageously drunk. And I was unfaithful to you ...’
Silence. He searches her face, her eyes, for the disgust, for the hurt, but she’s unreadable: everything about her is closed off.
‘Who? Who did you sleep with? Do I know her?’ Her accent is the only clue to her feelings: it always becomes stronger when she’s upset. Even though she has never been the kind of woman to scream or act out, Zach would welcome a torrent of abuse or even a slap across the face. He deserves it.
‘No. She was from Melbourne. I’ve never seen her since. I’m so sorry.’
‘And you think the person who sent this note – Robbie – knows about this affair?’
It was a one-night stand, hardly an affair, but correcting her would not serve any purpose. ‘I honestly don’t think so ... But I’ve wanted to tell you since the moment it happened. The secret has been eating away at me. This might seem a strange time to tell you but I want full disclosure, no more secrets, so I never have to disappoint you like this again.’
He needs her. With her by his side, he is a good man, a compassionate man, a loving man. Without her, he can be cruel, selfish, ugly. She knows this. She knows that she has been transformative for him.
‘You will take this note and its ...’ She pauses while she searches for the correct word. ‘Its ... threats ... to the police tomorrow?’
‘Yes. I will.’
Zach has no idea what the police will make of it. Maybe it needs to be combined with the other messages to see the full picture. He has phoned Katy to let her know. He should call Annabel too.
‘I need time to think about this.’ Izzy turns around and throws a pillow at him. ‘You can sleep on the sofa tonight.’
Tears blur his eyes. As a young man, he never cried. It was Izzy who taught him it was okay.
‘I’m so ashamed of myself. I’m not worthy of you.’
She replies by turning off the bedside lamp.