The Girl Next Door (39 page)

‘I don’t know, darling.’ She didn’t. Her mother acted like it was already over. It made her wonder if she’d ever believed in her and David – whether she’d just been pretending, all these years. You couldn’t give a second chance to a man who’d cheat, she said. Once a cheater…

Milena said the opposite. She said a family was a hell of a thing to destroy. But she said something, folding laundry one day – staying later than she was supposed to, because she knew that Rachael was drowning – something Rachael kept coming back to. She said that Rachael had to forgive him, had to really, truly forgive him, if they were going to give it another try. That was what kept her awake – wondering if she could.

‘But who has to decide? You or Daddy?’ Jacob’s question – naïve but so, so insightful, threw her.

‘I do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I have to choose for all of us. Whether we should all live together again or not.’

‘I want to choose for myself.’

‘I know, sweetie. I know. But you can’t.’

Jacob shook his head. ‘I choose that Daddy comes home. I know that’s what Noah and Mia would choose, too. You can ask them if you want, but I know. We choose that Daddy comes home.’

Her heart ached.

‘And Daddy, too. Daddy wants to come home.’

‘He told you that?’

‘No. He doesn’t talk about any of that stuff. Not to us. But I know.’

She kissed his forehead.

‘We used to be all happy, all together, all of us. Now it’s not as good. It was better when Daddy lived here, too.’

‘Sweetheart, I know that all sounds easy. But grownups are different – it’s more complicated than you know.’

‘It isn’t. It’s easy. You just have to say it’s okay for him to come home, Mommy.’

She squeezed him tight.

‘Please. Please, say it’s okay. I want my daddy to come home.’

His little shoulders heaved in a dry sob, and Rachael’s heart broke all over again.

Jason

Kim had come back. He’d arrived home from work, and they were there. He’d seen Avery’s furry pink Crocs in the hallway as soon as he’d opened the door, and he felt immediately giddy with relief. They were back.

He stood on the threshold of the living room. Avery was sitting cross‐legged on the rug, doing her favourite 50 States puzzle. As she put each state in, she said its name, although she was still too young to read them. ‘Kentucky. Georgia. North Dakota.’ She’d done that puzzle a thousand times. She knew most of them by heart. He watched her until she faltered on a piece, then he dropped down to his knees and crawled to where she was.

‘That’s Maine. Remember? Show me where it goes?’

‘Daddy!’

Avery dropped the Pine Tree State and threw her chubby arms around her father’s neck. Jason held her tightly, burying his nose into her, breathing in her familiar smell.

‘You’re tickling me, Daddy. And I… can’t… breathe…’ Avery was giggling, and trying to pull away.

‘You call that tickling?’

He laid her tiny body across his lap, and tickled under her arms and across her tummy.

Avery kicked and squealed with delight. ‘Stop it. Stop it!’

Jason kissed the bare skin exposed by the wriggling, and sat her up in front of the puzzle again. ‘Okay. I’ll stop. If you show me where Maine goes?’

She dropped it into place with a triumphant flourish.

‘Clever girl.’

‘I missed you, Daddy.’

‘I missed you, too, Avery.’

‘Can we get bikes? Mimi and Bruce have bikes. Mimi let me ride hers, but it was too big. I fell off. Look!’ She proudly showed her father a scabby knee. ‘Can we get bikes, Daddy?’

‘What did Mommy say?’

‘She said we’d ask you.’

Jason laughed. ‘She did, did she?’

‘I did.’ Kim was in the doorway, leaning against the frame, her arms folded around her. How long had she been watching? She was nibbling her lip nervously.

Jason kissed the top of Avery’s head, and stood up. Avery went back to her puzzle, absorbed by Florida and Washington.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

It was his turn to talk. He knew that. So much had spilled out of Kim, the night she’d left last week. He’d barely said a word. She’d gone to let him think, and he’d done nothing else. And now it was his turn to talk.

‘Glass of wine?’

They went into the kitchen, and he uncorked a bottle of red from the rack.

‘How was Sue?’

‘She was good. Avery had a ball with Mimi.’

‘She rode a bike.’

‘You should have seen her. She loved it. There’s no fear in her.’

He nodded.

‘She must get that from you.’ Kim shrugged.

Jason shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t say that. I’m pretty terrified right now.’

He handed her a glass. They sat at the table, on opposite sides, facing each other.

‘You said if you could go back, you’d change it all.’

‘Did I?’

He nodded. ‘I’d change lots of it. I’d change the parts that we wasted, not being good to each other. But there are lots of times I wouldn’t change a second. When you left, I lay down on our bed, and I thought about you, and I thought for all the time you were gone, about all of it, and by the end of it, those were the only parts I could think about – the times when I wouldn’t change a second. They were the moments, the days, the months and years I couldn’t get out of my head.’ He looked at her. ‘Even to a dolt like me, that said something.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That I didn’t want to lose you. Not lose this. Not lose Avery. Any of this. You. I don’t want to lose you, Kim.’

Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Jason.’

‘I’m not done. There’s a bit more I want to say.’

She nodded.

‘I was complicit in what happened. I let you get the way you got. I was afraid, and I was a coward. I should have fought you. Kept you with me. I just let you go. And then I became this sort of broken, self‐pitying idiot. Who could love that?’

‘I could. I do. I love you.’ Kim reached across the table, and took his hand.

‘And I love you. Things need to change. We both need to change. Mostly, I think, we need to get back to being good to each other. What were those vows we took? I meant them when I said them. I think you did, too. We just lost them along the way. Love, honour, cherish, respect. I want to get them back.’

‘That’s what I want, too.’ She kissed his hand with dry lips, where it lay on top of hers, and he stroked her hair.

Avery toddled in. ‘I finished the puzzle! Come see!’ She pulled at their hands, clasped on the table. It broke the moment. A single tear rolled down Kim’s cheek, and she brushed it away with her index finger, sniffing.

‘Why are you crying, Mommy?’ Avery brushed her mother’s cheek.

‘I’m happy, honey. That’s all.’

Avery snorted at Kim’s foolishness. ‘When you’re happy you laugh, Mommy. You don’t cry. Crying is when you’re sad.’

Rachael

David rang the doorbell. In his own home. The one holdall he’d left with in September had expanded over the time he’d been away, to two cases, a suit carrier and a cardboard box. He barely had time to put them down before the children flew at him.

It was an unbelievably poignant thing – his ringing the doorbell. But also, to Rachael, an indication that he understood where she was in all this. He’d heard her.

The children were a huge buffer. That wouldn’t last, she knew. The children would go – to bed and to school, and then, off into life. She didn’t think that far ahead – she couldn’t think much past today. She’d spent so long thinking that she would be with David forever, looking into a future in which he was a fixed mark. How complacent that seemed now. How arrogant, somehow. It had been hard, really hard, learning to view it differently. She hoped he would be there. But she didn’t count on it. Not any more. She knew she never would again.

She’d called him, a few nights after she’d held a sobbing Jacob in her arms, listening to him beg for his father. They’d met at a bar near the apartment. She’d needed to explain.

‘Do you want to come home, David?’

‘More than anything in the world.’

‘Will you tell me why?’

‘Because I love you. All of you. Because I miss you all more than I can even begin to express. Because nothing works without you.’

‘Me? Or the kids?’

‘I can’t separate you. You, the kids. You’re my family. My life.’

‘I can’t separate you either. You, the kids. It’s the same for me, David. If it was just me, I don’t know. I don’t honestly know if I could get past this.’

He nodded.

‘But it isn’t just me. That’s why we have to try, isn’t it? Because it isn’t just about us.’

David didn’t speak. He daren’t.

‘So, look, David. Here’s how it is. The kids are a given. They love you, they miss you, they want you home.’

‘And you?’

‘I love you. I always have. I miss you, too. Part of me wants you home so badly I can’t think straight. I’ve had a long time to figure this out. I’ve been so angry with you for most of it. Angry that you would do this. To me and to us. Leave me to pick up the pieces. Make me choose. So angry that you’d put me in that position. I’m too tired to be angry now. I have to forgive you. I’m still not sure whether I’m really ready to forgive you, or just too tired to be that mad any more.’

Again, he nodded.

‘But this forgiveness thing – I’ve figured it out – I’ve broken it down. I have to forgive you twice. The first is for what you did. I think I can do that. The second is much harder. I have to forgive you for blaming me for what you did. Those emails – all those emails. They were about why you did it. They were about your mother and me and not measuring up. Like I pushed you into the arms of someone who would make you feel good about yourself. Because I wasn’t. That’s just bullshit, David. It’s just an excuse. You’re just a guy who had an affair, because he could get away with it. Because he’d been married a few years, and he wanted to try something different. You’ve told yourself this stuff to make you feel better about what you did. And I want you to stop doing that. I want you to take the blame. You did this, David. Just you. You have to own that. This is all pointless if you can’t do that.

‘I could let you come back, but I couldn’t forgive you – for that part. And it wouldn’t work. That’s what you’ve got to work on. That’s where my trust has been most damaged. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

‘I think so.’

‘Because I don’t want to let you back in, let the kids have you back, if we aren’t going to give it a real shot. I don’t want to put any of us through that.’

She laid her hands on the table, resting her case. She was relieved to have said it.

David reached for her hand, but she pulled it away, flinching as though he’d scalded her. He had to speak first. He had to say the right thing.

When he spoke his voice trembled with emotion. ‘I swear to you, Rachael… I swear to you that if you give me a second chance, if you let me come back to you all, I will never, never, never hurt you again.’ He was crying now, and a big part of Rachael wanted to just put her arms around him, but she couldn’t. Not yet.

She put her hand back on the table, and this time, when David laid his own across it, she didn’t pull it away. She let it lie there, on hers.

Later, at home, Millie’s eyes filled with tears when she told her. Her mother would have to wait. She hugged Rachael, and told her she’d done the right thing, and told her everything would be okay. And Rachael almost believed her. She wanted to, more than anything.

Mia’s favourite book right now was
The Three Little Pigs
. She had to have it read to her every night, or she refused to get into bed. She liked the huffing and the puffing and the blowing down. That night, as she read it again (or rather, recited it, having committed it to memory a while ago), it occurred to Rachael that she had once believed she lived in a house of bricks, but actually it had been straw. Beautiful straw, perhaps, but still easily blown. Maybe everyone did, before the wolves came. Maybe the real challenge was realizing that you had to rebuild with bricks, and figuring out how.

And so here he was, her husband, the father of her children. Home.

Jacob was crying again, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘Are you staying?’ He said it twice, as though he hadn’t believed it the first time.

The four of them hugged in the hallway, and then Jacob reached out for Rachael and pulled her into the embrace. David’s arm went around her waist, so tentatively, where once it would have been possessive and knowing. She laid her head on his shoulder, with Jacob and Noah and Mia wriggling below them, Mia’s arms around her legs.

And exhaled.

Eve

For Eve, life had changed beyond all recognition. She hadn’t slept a night in her own bed since Hope was born. She hadn’t shopped for food, or cooked, or wandered around Banana Republic or had her nails done. She could barely remember a time when her world didn’t revolve around the NICU. She’d been green, at the beginning. But now she knew. She knew her way around the ward, and the quickest way to the coffee shop. She knew most of the nurses by name, and which doctors were sympathetic, which businesslike and dispassionate. She slept fitfully on the uncomfortable cot in the family unit and made tea, using teabags Violet brought in for her, from the boiling tap in the kitchen also reserved for parents. She learnt to wash her hair and body in the large sink.

All of this she learnt by osmosis. The only thing she thought about, first thing in the morning, all day and all night, last thing before she fell asleep, was Hope.

She studied the charts. She asked to have every tiny thing explained and defined to her. She knew what all of it meant. Knowledge wasn’t power here, but it was the only thing she could do. Once in a while she saw new faces. A baby would be promoted out of the NICU, and a new one would come. She couldn’t empathize. She didn’t have anything spare. She had never been so focused about anything in her life.

But Hope’s haemorrhage came later than they usually did. That had been writ large on the 72‐hour list, that dreadful first day when they’d sat with the paediatrician and been given their list of things to fear. They might have dared whisper, if you’d asked them, that they were out of those particular dark and frightening woods by then. They’d moved on to different lists. It was 16th December, in the late afternoon. Hope was three weeks old.