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‘Erin …’ Joseph clenches his teeth. ‘I don’t knowwhathe knows.’
‘Did you use some kind of tracker? Hack my phone? Follow me to the hotel?Lookat me, Joe.’
‘Iamlooking at you!’ he shouts, his voice cracking. ‘I didn’t know any of this!’ He shakes his head in stunned disbelief. ‘Still, what a way to tell me, eh? You park outside thepolicestation for this conversation? What was the plan? Test me out with the truth, and if you got a bad reaction lean on the horn and wait for the cavalry? What did you think – that I’d hit you? Start slapping you around? Have I ever –ever– given you any reason to suspect I might behave like that? In the entire time we’ve known each other, I think this is the first time I’ve even raised my voice to you – and based on what I just learned, you might say I had good reason.’
Not once, during his response, has Erin taken her eyes off him. Now, reaching out, she lays her hand on his. Her fingers are hot, almost like she has a fever.
‘You really didn’t know,’ she says; and Joseph sees, fromher expression, that she must have glimpsed the truth of that in his face, or in his reaction, or both.
He snatches away his hand. ‘Did it occur to you that maybe,just maybe, if I’d suspected an affair I’d have come straight out and asked you?’ Again, he shakes his head. ‘Do you love him?’
Erin grimaces. ‘No. God, no. Absolutely not. It isn’t like that at all. Wasn’t like that. It was a horrible, devastating mistake. One that I was in the process of correcting – or at least ending. He was just …’
She pauses, and Joseph can tell that she’s trying to order her thoughts – that she isn’t trying to deceive him, or paint her actions in a more positive light. ‘He was just present, you know? In a way you haven’t been. We used to be so close, me and you. And then … I could never figure out why things changed. I know how selfish it sounds, how awful, but I guess it was just a relief to be away from that for a while. To feel …wantedagain.’
Joseph lets that sink in. ‘How long has it been going on?’
‘Not too long.’
‘Weeks? Months?’
‘No more than a few months.’
Erin takes a tissue from her bag. She blots away the mascara running down her cheeks. Her chin trembles, her neck blotchy and red. He’s never seen her so distraught. Abruptly, she starts the car, checks her mirror and pulls out into traffic. ‘And now, suddenly, he’s missing,’ she says. ‘And Drew is missing, too.’
Joseph watches, bewildered, as Crompton’s police station slides past on his right. So – test passed? Is that it? Had she thought her admission of infidelity might wring from him an explanation of Angus Roth’s disappearance? How ironic that his ignorance of Erin’s affair might have affirmed his innocence in her mind of any wrongdoing.
In the pit of his stomach, a flame of anger ignites. The longer he sits beside his wife, the hotter the fire grows.
Is Erin the key? Suddenly, it seems she must be. He thinks of Max’s claim that he’d hit the dead man by accident; the lack of visible damage to the car; the boy’s subsequent claim that he’d ended the dead man’s life out of mercy. (It was a kindness, what I did.)
Did Max discover the affair and act to protect his father? Is that what this has been about all along? He recalls his son’s words in the kitchen Friday night, when asked why he hadn’t woken Joseph and sought help.
Because you’ve already been through so much. Because, on top of everything else, you really didn’t deserve this.
In hindsight, perhaps the boy hadn’t been referring to the supposed car accident but to Erin’s affair.
The fire in Joseph’s stomach erupts with fresh fury. It feels like liquid flame is beginning to run through his arteries. His hands make fists. His knuckles crack like gunshots.
He replays once again what Max had said at Claire’s graveside.
I’m not trying to make you feel bad. It’s just … if things keep going the way they are, you’re going to lose her. The only reason I’m telling you is because I don’t want you to end up alone …
I just want you to think about the future and how that looks. Because if Erin is part of it, you need to commit to her, Dad. If she isn’t, you really need to decide now while you still can, while there’s still time to start afresh.
Suddenly, it’s heartbreakingly obvious what his son, in whatever damaged capacity, had been trying to communicate.
Joseph had sought to rebuild his family, had hoped to heal Max of past wounds. And all he’s achieved is this – this monstrous and horrific calamity.
Fire in his arteries, in his head. It feels like he’s burning up, the heat threatening to flash over at any moment. Hisrage isn’t directed at Erin. He loves this woman, regardless of what she might have done; and love – in his experience, at least – doesn’t come with an off switch. Instead, his fury is directed inwards, because what Erin said just now was true. Hehasn’tbeen present, for any of them. He’s allowed his fear of losing another loved one to hijack him, threatening the very consequences he’s so desperately tried to avoid.
They’re heading east, Joseph realizes. Out of Crompton. To the north, he can see the green curtain of Jack-O’-Lantern Woods.
It’s growing increasingly obvious where his wife is taking him. Erin slows the car, takes a left. And then they’re gliding around the gentle curve of his mother’s street.
Just like yesterday, Joseph prepares to see a line of police cars, perhaps a white geometric tent pitched on his mother’s front lawn.
‘You know what I think?’ Erin asks. ‘You won’t like it, but I’m worried it might be true.’