Second to Cry (29 page)

Aiden walked over and sat opposite her, shooting her a bemused glance.

‘What’s this all about?’ he asked her in confusion.

Before Deena could answer, a waitress appeared to take their drinks order. When she was gone he tried again to get Deena to explain herself. ‘I thought everything was sorted,’ he continued.

Deena gave an exasperated sigh. ‘It was, it is,’ she began, running a hand through her long blonde hair which hung loosely down her back.

‘Samuel…he knows, and he forgave me,’ she explained.

‘He forgave you?’ Aiden straightened in shock. ‘Well, that’s great news,’ he offered as an afterthought. ‘You must be pleased?’

‘I am pleased.’

‘You don’t look pleased,’ Aiden noted. Deena looked agitated. She constantly fidgeted as though she were sat upon hot coals. As they spoke, she struggled to stay still as if she was full of dormant energy which was threatening to burst out at any given moment.

‘My issue is how he found out,’ Deena declared and her voice was sharp and suddenly hostile.

Aiden recoiled slightly and scrutinized Deena’s face. She looked both harassed and hurt.

‘How
did
he find out?’ he asked the question, keeping his tone calm and non-confrontational. He could tell that all Deena needed was the tiniest spark to ignite and he wasn’t going to be responsible for any sort of outburst.

Deena pinched her lips together and regarded Aiden with a long, steady gaze. He saw anger in her eyes but there was something else there too. It took him a moment to realize that it was pity.

‘I don’t like having to tell you this,’ she began. ‘You’ve been so good to me throughout everything…’ Deena trailed off, looking around them nervously.

‘Deena, what did you bring me here to tell me?’ Aiden asked, urging her to continue.

‘I need to talk to you about your wife,’ Deena’s energy seemed to dissipate at this and she shook her head sadly.

‘I need to tell you about what she did.’

Chapter Twelve

What’s Left of Us

Aiden sat in his car on the driveway to his house. He’d been sat there for ten minutes, unable to move and enter his own home. He didn’t want to go in and face what was in there but knew he had to eventually.

The curtains in the kitchen twitched incessantly, a sign that Isla had already spotted him outside. The fact that she didn’t come out to greet him only further cemented her guilt.

Finally, he opened the car door, the soft smell of a southern evening drifting in to the car. Cicadas hummed all around, usually Aiden found their sound comforting but tonight it seemed to drone, endless and monotonous.

Taking a moment to brace himself, Aiden opened the kitchen door. Isla was standing by kitchen table, behind Meegan in her high chair, as though she was using the toddler for cover.

‘We need to talk,’ Aiden told her, the words snapping sharply from his mouth like breaking twigs.

‘But dinner is almost ready,’ Isla answered, smiling nervously. ‘Isn’t it, Meegs?’ she asked the little girl who nodded eagerly.

‘Mac and cheese!’ Meegan declared proudly, tapping her spoon impatiently.

‘Does your cowardice know no bounds?’ he asked his wife, his face contorted with disgust.

‘Aid,’ Isla pleaded with her eyes for him to stop, remaining behind Meegan.

‘Give Meegan her dinner in the lounge,’ Aiden instructed.

‘But we always eat in here,’ Isla protested, her eyes watering.

‘Now!’

Aiden was in no mood to play happy families over dinner. It was taking every ounce of resolve that he had just to remain in the house.

Isla obeyed and nervously picked up Meegan and carried her through to the lounge as instructed.

‘You can eat in here for a change, it will be fun,’ she whispered to the little girl, trying to sound upbeat.

While Isla was distracted, Aiden found his chance to head upstairs and begin packing a suitcase. He flung his black pull-along onto the bed and began filling it with a variety of clothing items he thought he might need. Most importantly, he retrieved his passport from his bedside table and shoved it into his jacket pocket.

There was no method to the packing; socks, shirts and underwear were thrown in haphazardly but Aiden didn’t care. He was going for speed not precision.

‘Aid,’ Isla’s pained voice came from the bedroom door. He hadn’t been quick enough. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, glancing in disbelief from Aiden to the almost-full suitcase on their marital bed.

‘Get out!’ he told her sternly, continuing to fling various items into the suitcase.

‘Won’t you at least talk to me?’ Isla begged.

Aiden paused, a pile of T-shirts in his arms. He hugged them to his chest and turned to face his wife.

‘How could you do it?’ he asked her, his voice cold.

‘Look, don’t get mad at me for this, I just thought that—’

‘You could have destroyed their family.’ Aiden was struggling to conceal his rage yet managed to keep his voice calm and level.

‘Yes, I know but—’

‘But what? What right did you have to go and talk to Samuel Fern? What right did you have to try and ruin their son’s life?’ Aiden was now shouting and he threw his T-shirts onto the pile of clothes accumulated in his suitcase, needing to release some of his fury.

‘Please, I had tell Samuel Fern the truth!’

‘No you didn’t!’ Aiden almost spat the words at her. ‘You hoped that if you told him, the story would break and then Brandy would have to deal all the negative publicity. You risked an entire family just to hurt her. You truly are that pathetic.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Isla said, her bottom lip trembling.

‘And, besides that, you risked my professional reputation. Your little stunt could have cost me my career!’

‘My little stunt saved this family! I offered Samuel the truth in exchange for our family’s protection. Maybe you weren’t concerned about those goddamn notes but I was! I’ve no idea what Buck Fern is capable of! He wants us gone, Aid, doesn’t that scare you?’

‘No, Buck Fern is just a belligerent old man trying to scare you! You should never have risen to his bait!’ Aiden screamed at her, the sound of his voice echoing downstairs and causing Meegan to start bawling.

Aiden felt a brief pang of guilt over distressing his daughter but it paled in comparison to the pure rage which was coursing through his veins, filling his body with a fiery potency.

‘What, what’s going to happen?’ Isla asked, glancing meekly over her hands to look at Aiden. He refused to even look at her. Instead he commenced zipping up his suitcase, satisfied that he now had everything he needed.

‘Aid,’ she pleaded again, her whole body shaking in despair.

‘You’ll be disappointed to know that Samuel Fern has chosen to forgive his wife and won’t be pursuing the paternity case further.’ Aiden addressed her as though she were a stranger.

‘That is, unless you’d like to sell the true story to the press, at least then you’d be making some cash out of other people’s misery,’ he added sarcastically.

‘Aid, don’t be like this!’ Isla begged. ‘I did what I had to do to protect this family. To protect our daughter. I’m not afraid of getting my hands dirty when it comes to looking after us. You can’t hold that against me!’

Aiden grabbed his suitcase and began to leave the room, pausing briefly to look down at his wife who had now curled in to a ball on the floor. When he looked at her there was no love in his eyes, not even anger, only indifference. It sent a shiver down Isla’s spine to see him look at her that way. In all the years she had known him, he’d never looked at her like that, as though he could look through her, as though she didn’t even matter anymore.

‘Where are you going?’ She scrambled to her feet and followed her husband down the stairs like a lost lamb.

Meegan was still wailing in her high chair, her dinner of macaroni and cheese long since discarded and now all over the lounge carpet.

‘Shouldn’t you deal with that?’ Aiden gestured briefly towards Meegan.

‘Don’t take this out on her,’ Isla begged.

Something about the accusation that Aiden was directing some of his vitriol towards his daughter made the anger within him thaw for a moment. He placed his suitcase down and went and picked Meegan up, not caring for the sticky cheese she was covered in.

‘Sssh, sweetpea, it’s okay,’ he comforted her, his voice soft and soothing.

‘You shouted,’ Meegan sniffed, her sobs starting to subside.

‘I know, I’m sorry, I was just angry.’ Aiden bounced her in his arms.

‘Why?’ Meegan asked plaintively.

‘I’ve had a bad day.’

‘Why?’

‘Because sometimes people do bad things to others,’ Aiden answered, feeling Isla’s eyes upon him as she spoke but refusing to acknowledge her.

‘Are you going?’ Meegan asked, noticing his suitcase from her vantage point by his shoulder.

‘Yes, for a few days,’ Aiden replied regretfully, not wanting to leave his young daughter again but knowing that he had no choice.

Upon hearing this, Meegan’s sobs began to intensify once more. Aiden could feel the pulsations within her little chest as her emotions engulfed her.

‘Don’t cry, I’ll be back soon,’ he whispered gently to her, still bouncing her up and down. Meegan had always loved to be bounced. As a baby the only time she slept was when she was being bounced up and down.

‘And I’ll bring presents,’ Aiden added. Meegan abruptly ceased crying at the prospect of presents.

‘A football?’ She tested the waters of gift potential. It frightened Aiden sometimes just how much Meegan could be like her mother.

‘Sure, a football,’ Aiden smiled. ‘Whatever you want.’

‘Aid, where are you going?’ Isla stepped forward, her eyes anxious. Aiden ignored her, continuing to bounce Meegan in his arms, the little girl now giggling excitably at the motion.

‘Aiden, please, talk to me!’ Isla begged.

Placing Meegan down in her play pen, Aiden turned to face his wife though he was unable to look her in the eye. All he felt towards her was animosity.

‘I never thought you’d be capable of something like this,’ he admitted to her.

Isla seemed to visibly wilt at his words. Her curled hair was wild and untamed around her head; her usual beauty regime had clearly fallen away that day.

Aiden noted just how much like Medusa she appeared, with her wild dark curls and her cruel ways. It pained him that he had been blind to his wife’s true nature for so long.

‘You’ve always been selfish,’ Aiden continued. ‘But it’s never been at the expense of others before, not like this.’

He looked out in to the kitchen and at Avalon beyond through the small window. A sick feeling of guilt curdled in his stomach as he replayed his conversation with Deena. When she delivered the news to him it was as if someone had kicked him in the abdomen. The worst part of it all was that he instantly believed her, it never occurred to him to question if his wife would be capable of such a malicious act. That saddened Aiden more than anything else, that he remained married to someone who he knew had the potential to be a monster.

‘Aid, I’m sorry,’ Isla gasped, her voice catching on a sob in her throat. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’

From her playpen Meegan ceased piling together building blocks to look anxiously at her mother.

‘Keep it together,’ Aiden hissed at his wife, shooting a warning glance towards Meegan.

‘Can you at least manage to be a mother or is that too much to ask?’ he asked Isla, realizing just how much he now despised her, and wondering if the feeling had always been there and was only now rising up to the surface.

‘You’re being unfair,’ Isla whispered.

‘I don’t think you know what fair is,’ Aiden scoffed. ‘And to have involved our daughter in your plan of deception with Deena is just,’ he shook his head to himself, ‘beyond words.’

‘Aid, I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, I wasn’t thinking, I just wanted those awful notes to stop. I was tired of feeling scared in my own home,’ Isla tried to explain herself but Aiden was immune to her words.

‘I don’t want to hear it,’ he waved a dismissive hand and picked up his suitcase. He leant down in to the playpen and planted a kiss upon Meegan’s warm forehead.

‘See you in a few days pumpkin, be good,’ he told her fondly.

‘Football!’ Meegan cheekily reminded him. Aiden couldn’t help but admire the toddler’s tenacity.

‘Where are you going?’ Isla followed Aiden into the kitchen and he paused at the front door, his hand upon the handle, ready to leave.

‘Does it matter?’ Aiden asked her.

‘Yes, of course it does,’ Isla responded, hurt.

‘I’m going to Chicago,’ Aiden told her, his voice empty of emotion, as though she were a ticket collector asking his destination.

Isla’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in shock. She went to speak and then couldn’t.

Aiden moved to open the door but Isla pushed against it.

‘Chicago?’ she uttered, suddenly finding her voice.

‘Yes,’ Aiden confirmed.

‘To see her?’ Isla’s cheeks reddened as she said the words.

‘Yes, to see Brandy.’

‘What? Why?’ Isla blurted, still resting some of her weight against the front door, desperate to stop her husband leaving.

‘Because she deserves to know what’s happened.’ Aiden told her earnestly. ‘And I fear you may still sell the story to the press so she needs to be forewarned.’

‘Aid, I won’t, I swear.’

‘I don’t trust you.’ Aiden sighed sadly.

‘Please don’t go to her,’ Isla trembled as she spoke, looking up at her husband with desperation in her eyes.

‘Why not?’ Aiden challenged.

‘We made vows. We have a daughter.’ Isla pushed herself against him, wrapping her arms around him.

‘If Samuel Fern can forgive his wife for having another man’s baby then why can’t we get past this?’ she asked.

It sickened Aiden that she would use the situation with the Fern family for her own gain when the wounds over the paternity issue were still raw. He pushed her aside and headed out through the door, to his car. Using his hands-free kit he called a local airline company as he drove.