The Perfect Family

I smell cigarette smoke. And whiskey. The acrid combination teases its way through my nostrils, catching sharply at the back of my throat. I open my eyes to look around me, but there is only blackness. I lie rigid as I feel a hand stroking my hair. I try not to move; I try not to breathe.

Am I going to wake up and this will all be a dream?

I remember the first time Dom visited me in the hospital. I dreamed then of someone smothering me, a rough palm gagging my mouth. Am I having the same nightmare? Or did Dom really try to—

“Morning, sleepy head. It’s a beautiful day. Such a shame you won’t get to see it.”

The overhead light snaps on and I blink in the weak, grainy glow. Everything comes flooding back to me. Max’s house, Dom locking me up in this room before returning home to the twins . . . my children who still think I’m asleep in the hospital.

“Annabel . . .”

“Missing the kids, are you?” I hear Dom’s slow, labored breaths next to my ear.

He’s just arrived—he’s out of breath from running up the stairs—I’ve been here all night—another night away from my children . . . He’s close to me; I can feel the heat of his presence. There are tiny specks of blood on his white shirt collar, and I can smell his citrus aftershave; it mingles with whiskey fumes evaporating from his skin, and I want to shift away. But I cannot move. Why can’t I move?

“You know I am.” The words are razor blades tearing my throat to shreds.

“That’s such a shame. They’re not missing you at all. Lucy has taken them swimming, and then they’re all going out for pizza with Jasper. We might go and see a film later this afternoon. Plenty of quality weekend time together while lazy Mummy carries on sleeping.”

I shake my head from side to side, wondering why the rest of my body feels trapped, immobile. Have I had some kind of physical relapse?

Dom tuts loudly and in the gloom it sounds like acid on metal. “You really shouldn’t fight it, you know. You can’t win.” I can hear the smile in his voice.

I let my body go slack; he’s right, there’s no point fighting any more. Dom clearly hasn’t finished with me yet, and he isn’t going to release me until he’s said his piece, completed whatever agenda he’s working through. I just hope he makes it quick. I will myself to lie still and appear compliant, biding my time.

“When did you get to be so cruel? Why do you hate me so much? We still had a chance. We could have made everything right again,” I say persuasively. “There were good times, weren’t there? Don’t you remember? Surely they haven’t all been wiped out by one stupid decision I didn’t even go through with.”

“Is that what you think this is all about? Plotting to run away with Max? Is that really your only crime?” I could get splinters from his voice.

“I have no idea what you mean,” I say, my mind whirling as Dom switches track yet again, constantly trying to destabilize and confuse me. I have to stay resolute; if I give him an inch, I know he’ll take a mile.

“Oh, come off it. Think. All those years together—what did you call them? The good times? Me out there working all hours to build up my business, you sitting around at home with the kids, Max popping in for afternoon tea and cake, all of you having fun without me, enjoying the home I paid for.” He paces up and down the room as he delivers his bitter lecture.

“Is that how you saw it, Dom?” I’m genuinely shocked. “That I was some kind of freeloader? Not that I was trying to run a happy family home, supporting and looking after you, raising our children—”

“Our children.” He grates out the words, his eyes petrol blue, flashing fire.

“Yes, our babies, Dom,” I say huskily, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice, trying to appeal to the strong paternal instinct I know he has. “They wouldn’t want you to treat me like this, Dom. They love you, I know they do, but they love me too. We brought them into this world and—”

“You brought them into the world, Madeleine.” He leans over the bed, spitting my name at me, tiny pinpricks of saliva hitting my face.

“Well, if you want to be strictly technical about it, yes,” I say, trying to grasp where he’s going with this, old habits kicking in as I try to second-guess him so that I can anticipate his complaints and mollify them. “But we made them. Both of us. And they need both of us. Please, don’t keep them from me any longer.” My resolve cracks and I plead with him even though I know from experience that, once I’ve started begging, his cruelty will increase, fueled by his sense of power over me. “They need me too.”

They don’t even know I’m awake . . .

A wave of helpless fury surges through me and I wiggle and twist my body, more defiantly this time, desperately trying to sit up, move, do anything other than lie here like a lamb to the slaughter while he torments me.

“You can’t keep my children from me. I won’t let you!” I say fiercely, but no matter how much I wriggle and writhe about, I can’t sit up.

He tied me up while I slept.

A cold sweat breaks out on my skin as I realize my hands and feet are bound. My threats are empty, and Dom knows it.

“Oh, you won’t? That’s very interesting. So tell me, what exactly do you plan to do about it?” He reaches out to stroke my hair, his fingers trailing down my cheek, across my lips, pressing inside them to probe the soft flesh inside my mouth. I feel sick at his touch; I taste cigarettes on his finger and it makes me want to vomit.

I wrench my head to one side and he chuckles as he withdraws his hand and straightens up. “I hate you for this, Dom. If you’ve hurt them, I will kill you! Just stay away from them. They’re mine!” So this is what murderous rage feels like, I think, my fists clenching with a will of their own. I squeeze them so tightly I almost think they might snap the cords I can now feel around my wrists. I didn’t know I was capable of such fury. Maybe I did know about Max’s gun, after all. Maybe I—

“You’re absolutely right.” His voice is light, almost playful now. He looks down at me, his hands resting casually on his hips.

“Sorry?” I stop writhing, shocked at his capitulation and the low, nasty undercurrent in his voice.

“Oh, don’t apologize. That’s quite all right,” he says politely, and then he crawls on to the bed, lying down next to my rigid body so that we are side by side in Max’s bed, a parody of a happily married couple chatting together before bedtime. We’re not touching but he’s near enough that every nerve ending in my body screams at his closeness. “After all, it’s true.”

He turns to roll his big, heavy body on top of mine, his mouth so close to my ear that his breath fills it, half deafening me so I have to strain to hear his biting words: “The children are yours, Maddie. But they’re not mine, are they?”