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“She’s seventeen!” he snaps. “What would you call it?”
“I told her to end it. I was giving her time. And we had enough trouble. Have you told Michelle?”
“Of course I’ve bloody told Michelle. She’s devastated.”
“And where’s Chloe? Is she upstairs?”
“She’s not home yet. And not answering her phone.”
“You should have bloody waited! Who knows where she is now? She won’t want to come home, that’s for sure. Or maybe that’s what you want? Something else to help flip me over the edge? Is that it?” I want to strangle him. “You knew everything! All along! And you never said.” I’m leaning forward and spitting words at him in my rage. My husband. My love. My enemy. “You lied to me. Didyou kill my mother, Robert? Did you push Phoebe? If I check our insurance policies, will I find that I’m insured to the hilt against losing my mind? Is all this because you’re tired of being a stay-at-home dad? Jealous of my work? The work that’s kept you for twenty years and now you want to blow it all on a midlife-crisis bar and are ready to kill for that?”
He stares at me for a long moment before he speaks. “Jesus Christ, Emma,” he says, and shakes his head, exasperated and so patronizing that I want to grab one of our kitchen knives and stab him in the eyes with it. “Listen to yourself. How paranoid do you sound? And you wonder why we’re all worried about you? Yesterday it was Phoebe’s turn to be the psycho and today it’s me, is that it?”
“This isn’t paranoia!” I’m shaking all over, trying to contain myself. “You knew!”
“Yes, yes I did!” he says. “And I didn’t tell you because Phoebe said you wouldn’t forgive her for it. You want to know about this big conspiracy against you? Well, this is what happened. I bumped into Phoebeby accident. I’d been for a job interview—yes, that’s right, I didn’t tell you about that either—and I saw her in a coffee-shop window. She’d been back a while by then. She didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want you to think she was worrying about your birthday. But she thought I should know the truth about your past. Just in case you started acting strangely—”
“Oh, that’s charming—”
“No, she didn’t mean losing your mind—not like this—she meant you might be odd because you were afraid. She said she’d been afraid but it would be worse for you. Always had been. And then she told me why. And yes, Phoebe did tell me everything. And then she took me to see Patricia. I went only the once, and I’ve spent the past few weeks waiting foryouto tell me about her. But no, I guess I’ve never been important enough for that. Andas for the insurance? Yes, yes, I have insured you to the hilt. And can you blame me?”
He’s pacing as he rants, the words an angry barrage of machine-gun fire. “As my attempts to get any kind of worthwhile jobs have shown, after nearly twenty years as a stay-at-home dad, I’m not exactly employable. And we have two kids. School and university to pay for. A home to maintain. Of course I wanted us protected if you got sick like she did. So yeah, if that’s my crime, I’m guilty. But as for secrets? You kept that one for our whole marriage. I didn’t keep a secret from you, Emma. All I did was find out about the one you kept from me.”
“You told Will about what she did. Made him draw those things to scare me. And you knew about the numbers and—”
“For god’s sake, Emma, stop it! You’re my wife. I love you. But this is madness.”
“What about the scratches on my car? The reviews left about my work? The note?” I look from Robert to Caroline. “What about those?”
“Are you sure you didn’t do them yourself?” Caroline asks the question softly in the silence that hangs after my question. “I know you believe someone else did it, but are you sure it wasn’t you?”
My mouth moves, but I don’t get any words out. I was so sure of everything when I got here, all my accusations ready, sosurethat Robert and Phoebe had planned all this together, and now? Now all I am is confused. Everything he says is so reasonable. It’s all so explainable. And here I am again, looking like a fool.
“I don’t think anyone’s out to get you, Emma,” Caroline says. “I really don’t.”
“So you tell us, Emma,” Robert says, his tone a lot less sympathetic than Caroline’s. “What happened to Phoebe? You werethere, weren’t you? Did you push her?” He holds up Caroline’s phone. “Because it sounds like you wanted to.”
“So I’m crazy for thinking it could be you, but it’s fine for you to think it’s me?”
“Mummy.”
The small voice startles me and makes us turn to the back door. It’s Will, my darling boy, standing there. Suddenly all my accusations and theirs are forgotten and I just want to sweep him up and cuddle him so hard and never let him go. My baby boy. My light. My life. He comes closer, if a little wary, and I smile at him, a big grin, even as I’m sure I’m about to cry. My perfect boy.
“I made you a birthday card,” he says, inching toward me. Robert won’t tell him to stay back, however much he might want to. He can never be seen as the bad parent. “For tomorrow, if you’re not here.”
“Oh, thank you,” I say softly. “I didn’t expect that.” When he’s only a couple of feet away, he brings it out from behind his back and holds it up to me. It’s not the big excited cuddle I’d love, but I’ll take a card. If he made me a card, that should show Robert I’m not all bad.
“It’syourcard,” he says.
“Thank you, Will, that—” I stop, my words sucked away from me as I stare at the card made from folded paper. He’s carefully written an uneven “Happy Birthday Mummy!” on it, but below is the drawing again. A woman, hair hanging down in front of her face, holding a pillow and leaning over a little boy’s bed.
“How did you know about this?” I drop the card, and I crouch, my hands on his upper arms. “Who told you to draw this card, Will? Who told you about this? Was it Auntie Phoebe? Was it Daddy?” He says nothing and I shake him. “Who, Will? You have to tell me.”
He wriggles to get away from me as Robert steps in, pulling him free from me.
“Enough!”
“It’s your card,” is all Will says, and then bangs at the side of his head with his palm as if trying to shake something free. “It’s your card.”