My back ached and my head was pounding when I woke. I remembered that I’d drunk the best part of a bottle of wine the previous night and my tolerance for alcohol was no longer anywhere near what it had been in my twenties. Or my thirties, for that matter.
I stretched and looked around. Felt the figure in the bed beside me move, turn over and flop one arm over my stomach. I revelled in the moment. The closeness. The sheer uncomplicated nature of how I felt for this person. My beautiful Molly. My innocent baby girl.
I remembered climbing in beside her the previous night – unable to face getting into bed beside Paul. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want to talk to him. I needed space to breathe. That space had ended up being about six inches on the edge of Molly’s bed as she starfished her way through the night, but the wine had ensured that I’d dropped off to sleep with little effort.
I replayed my conversation with Michael over and over in my head when I went home. His plea to run away. I thought of the figure in the blue car, cursed my stupidity for not writing down the registration number, then cursed myself again for being paranoid. Any number of cars could park there. It didn’t have to mean anything.
I’d poured myself a large glass of wine. The registration number had started with PFZ, the same as Paul’s, but I couldn’t remember the numbers. My head throbbed. I’d sat in the living room as Beth and Paul watched their programme about a curious place called the ‘The Upside Down’ on Stranger Things and part of me wondered if I’d passed through some sort of portal myself. My life was more upside down than the poor child on the screen.
Wouldn’t it be so simple if I could just run away? If I could forget I had a family, if I could stop my heart loving my children. I could get away from this madness; from the disintegration of a relationship that had once been everything to me. From the dread every time my phone rang, or a message landed, or there was a knock on the door. More bad news. More horrific revelations.
Things would never be normal again. This wasn’t a short period of upheaval and upset after which we’d all slip back into our old routines. This was raw and pain-filled, and there was no escape for any of us.
Crying into my glass of wine, I thought about the Taylors. About Ronan and Jenny and how their marriage was struggling to cope with this unthinkable tragedy. I thought about Julie and how she seemed to be disappearing bit by bit in front of my eyes. I thought of Paul – of the Paul I once knew – of whom I’d been so very certain. It had been a long time since we’d laughed together, I realised.
I couldn’t pin all the blame on him. I was no innocent party. I’d allowed myself to start falling for another man. I’d allowed myself to sleep with another man. And I’d enjoyed every touch, every sensation, as I’d felt desired and wanted for the first time in years. Lying on the edge of Molly’s bed that Sunday morning, feeling her soft breath on my face, her mass of blonde curls tickling my cheek, I wondered what on earth would become of us all.
It felt as though Paul was watching me like a hawk all through that morning. No matter where I went, I felt his eyes on me. As I loaded the dishwasher and sorted through piles of washing, he took a seat at the kitchen island, poured himself a cup of coffee and continued his vigil.
He wasn’t reading the paper or even going through his phone, he was just sitting there, watching me as I separated the dark-coloured clothes from the lights. My head was still thumping. My stomach wasn’t feeling the best, either. I didn’t have the energy to engage him in conversation, so I just continued about my work.
‘What do you want me to do this week?’ he eventually asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said last night you wanted me to take the girls to Belfast. I said that wasn’t a good idea for a hundred different reasons, but we never actually decided what would happen. Did you speak to that policeman again? Get his advice?’
‘On what? We know what we know, Paul. My friend has been murdered. Julie and I have received cryptic notes. Some people might find that threatening. I was just thinking of the girls. Thinking how to protect them.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I think the best thing we can do for them both now is to try to keep things as normal as possible. That means keeping them here.’
‘And you will come home each night?’ I asked.
‘Well, I have a few late meetings, but if it means that much to you …’
He let it trail off as if my friend’s murder was some massive inconvenience to him. As if I was being unreasonable to ask him to commute back and forth while this hung over our heads. I suddenly felt so very tired of it all.
‘Paul, it’s not that it means so much to me. It’s that I need help. I’m grieving and I’m scared, and I don’t know how to be there for the girls and hold myself up at the same time.’ My voice broke and even though I’d been determined that I wouldn’t cry, I felt tears prick at my eyes. ‘And I know we’re broken, by the way. Whatever this is between us.’
He didn’t speak for a moment. He just looked at me, his mouth open just a little as if trying to find something to say that would prove I was wrong. As if he was trying to find the right words of reassurance, but we both knew it had gone beyond that now.
‘You’re being overly dramatic,’ he eventually said, dropping his eye contact for just a second too long.
‘My friend has been murdered and I’m being overly dramatic?’ I struggled to keep the incredulity from my voice.
‘Well no, not about that, but about us being broken. That’s ridiculous.’
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I knew starting this conversation would take us down a very dangerous road, but how could I not ask?
‘Is it? Is it really? Because I feel it. Every day. We’ve become so distant with each other. You’ve become so distant. So much so … I’ve started to wonder …’ I paused for a moment. ‘Paul, are you having an affair?’ I asked.
He stood up and looked at me, shaking his head. ‘You think what you want to think, Rachel. You always do anyway.’
At that he stormed out, lifting his keys and slamming the front door behind him.