As soon as she gets home, she rips the second envelope open, pulls the single piece of paper out. This note is longer.
You know why I want to come back to you, don’t you? I can’t forget that moment we had together, the weekend before I left, what happened. You felt it too, I know you did. I made a terrible mistake and I should never have abandoned you. Leaving was unforgivable, but when you know the real reason, you’ll understand. Hear me out, give me this one final chance.
Rachel can’t take her eyes from the paper. It has to be from Tom; only the two of them know about that night. She leans back against the wall, taking a deep breath.
‘Mum.’
She jumps, presses her hand to her chest. ‘Lara, you startled me.’
‘Are you OK? You look as if you’ve just seen a ghost.’
Rachel fakes a laugh. ‘Of course I’m all right.’ She scrunches the note into her pocket. ‘Where’s Deborah?’
‘Here.’ Deborah comes downstairs, drying her hands against her trousers. ‘Have fun?’ She frowns. ‘You look a bit pale.’
‘It was cold out, that’s all. Everything OK?’
‘Fine, we’ve just been watching TV.’
‘Thanks so much for coming.’
‘Any time.’
It has started to rain, and Deborah runs down the path. Lara goes upstairs and Rachel goes to the kitchen, spreading the crumpled note out on the table. Does this mean Tom is alive? After thrashing it out with Heidi, is she changing her mind again? Rain patters on the window, the wind blowing the spray towards it at an angle. The sound mesmerises her, and a beat of rage begins inside her. Tom wants to come back after abandoning her, and is just assuming he can waltz back into her life?
How dare he?
Freddie phones that evening, and she tells him about the second note, omitting the details of its contents.
‘Heidi’s had one too. She brought it with her.’
‘Did you show her yours?’
‘I showed her the envelope. I didn’t want her to see what he’d written.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he specifically said he wanted to come back to me. I didn’t want to antagonise her.’
‘Would it still matter to her?’
‘I have no idea, but given our past relationship, I didn’t want to risk it.’
‘She can be pretty volatile.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘From what Tom used to say about her, and the court hearings. Plus the way she presented herself in the press.’
‘Exactly. Given that we’ve been forced into this situation, I think it went pretty well. She suggested going to the police, but I’m not sure there’s much they could do.’
‘Did it help? Seeing her?’
‘Yes. And we managed to keep it civil.’
‘I have so much admiration for the way you’ve dealt with this.’
Rachel’s face heats with pleasure, pleasantly surprised. She’s just about muddled through the last few years.
‘Look at you, how you’ve raised two kids despite the adverse circumstances…’
‘That’s what any mother would do.’
‘Maybe. I guess I’m comparing you to myself.’
‘In what way?’
‘The business. We’re still not doing as well as I’d like.’
‘Really?’ Rachel thinks of the plush offices, the professional atmosphere of the space she visited the other day. ‘It doesn’t show.’
‘I’m good at maintaining a facade.’
‘Is it because of Tom?’
‘Yes. Aside from him taking the sums I told you about, he had let his work slide on account of his personal problems. When I delved into his records, his work was behind and we were owed money from clients that it was his job to chase. I had no idea any of this was going on. If he’d only told me, we could have addressed it together – you know what good friends we were. Or at least, I thought we were.’
‘Don’t forget he wasn’t with me for the last few months, so he mentioned nothing of this to me. I’m shocked. He’d always worked really hard, so I just assumed everything was ticking along fine. Even when we were together, he didn’t discuss how the business was doing, not after the early days. He had you for that.’ Rachel can still picture the time before Heidi as if it were yesterday: Tom arriving home after a day at work, dressed in his smart chinos and navy linen jacket, sweeping Josh up into his arms and carrying him through to the kitchen.
‘Good day?’ she always asked, but did she really listen to the answer? Mostly she was so preoccupied as a mother, she’d regale him with tales of her day and what the children had been up to, and he’d only talk about work if something memorable had happened, like he’d taken on a new client or had had a particularly successful meeting. Not talking about work didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t going well, and she took it to mean the opposite.
‘Did he continue paying for household bills and the children as well as contributing to his accommodation with Heidi?’
‘I don’t know what their arrangement was for sure, but he was definitely still paying money to me. I couldn’t have managed otherwise, and neither of us wanted to disrupt the children by selling the house. Heidi rented her flat, so I imagine he contributed. They were making plans to buy a house; he wouldn’t have done that if he was struggling to get by. The only thing the police mentioned was that he’d applied for a personal loan and his application was rejected.’
‘He might not have told Heidi about it, given that their relationship was quite new. It may have been projecting about the future that worried him, that financially he might not have been able to cope.’
‘I’d have thought he might have confided in you,’ Rachel says.
‘That all changed after he left you; he wouldn’t have wanted me to think his personal life could reflect upon his work and the business. I know he was helping you when he could.’
‘We wanted life to carry on as normal for the children – as much as it could do. Which was hard, because I was so angry with him and Heidi. I hated it when the children spent time with her. I know she was trying to take my place; Tom kept going on about how much she wanted a family. I wasn’t letting her have mine, that was for sure.’
‘Going back to your chat with her, what did she think about the note?’
‘She thinks it must be a hoax. Her theory is that Tom chose to leave and take up a new identity because he couldn’t cope with his life. I’m inclined to agree with her. In my heart, I believe he’s still alive, and that’s the conclusion the police drew. There was no evidence of foul play, plus he’d drawn out quite a bit of money before he left and then stopped using his bank account. I don’t think any of us knew what was really going on with him. But… there was something else…’ She hesitates, unsure how much to tell him about her last weekend with Tom.
‘Yes?’
Once it’s out there, she can’t undo it. She trusts Freddie, but she’d rather not have this conversation over the phone.
‘Nothing. You know, Heidi didn’t mention that there’s anyone else in her life now, but I doubt she would want him back.’
‘And would you?’
Rachel pictures Tom appearing in front of her, his face still so familiar, as if it were only yesterday that she last set eyes on him. The dust from the fallout has only recently begun to settle, and she feels a hot flash of fury. She’d never wish him dead, but that would have been easier to accept. If he were to turn up now, she would want him to want her back, to validate the belief she’d clung to that he still loved her. He’d need a bloody good reason for his absence though.
‘Not to take him back, but I’d give anything to tell him what I think of him.’