Page 17 of Hidden Daughters (Detective Lottie Parker #15)
CONNEMARA
He came up behind her as she stood at the sink, scrubbing a plate in the warm soapy water.
‘We do have a dishwasher, you know.’ His voice was soft and his words, whispered at the nape of her neck, brushed the hairs there. She felt his hands snake around her waist, the gentle squeeze, and then he turned to switch on the kettle.
‘I like the feel of the water,’ she said. ‘By using my hands I can clean better than any dishwasher can.’
‘Whatever floats your boat,’ he said with a smile in his voice. ‘You aren’t going to change now, are you?’
‘Don’t suppose so.’ She tried to add a little laugh at the end of the sentence, but the ‘so’ came out as if she’d asked a question. Too high-pitched. Too shrill. Too bloody nervous.
She found it increasingly hard to endure his touch.
He tried to be loving and gentle. Too gentle.
Too much. She couldn’t help her feelings, how she shuddered and squirmed in on herself.
She realised she was too broken. Too damaged.
She thought she’d overcome it all – that she’d ‘moved on’, as people said – but with everything resurrected again, with inquiries and podcasts and this Imelda Conroy radio documentary being made, it had bubbled back to the surface.
She feared she’d explode with the memories, the emotion, the hate.
Terrified that everything she’d locked into the darkest corner of her mind, deep in the recess of her soul, would resurface and she wouldn’t be able to control it.
If she lost control, she might destroy all she had gained. Her husband, her home, her comfort.
He made tea and left a mug for her beside the draining board in their newly renovated bright kitchen, then went into his study to work.
Work? More likely to scroll the GAA scores.
But that was fine. She loved him. As much as she was capable of loving anyone.
She supposed what she meant was that which passed for love.
With the last of the dishes piled and drying naturally, she wiped her hands with a towel.
Rubbing harshly between her fingers, right up to her wrists, before throwing the cloth into the laundry basket in the utility room.
She noticed she’d forgotten to take out a wash she’d put in earlier, so she set it to go through another cycle with fabric softener so that it wouldn’t have a fusty smell.
Back in the kitchen, she opened the wall cupboard that contained every sort of condiment on earth and took out the frosted glass bottle from the back.
Her secret stash. She rationed them because it was so hard to get her GP to prescribe them.
Narcotics, he’d said. Lifesavers, she’d countered with a nervous laugh.
They got her through the day. That was why they were addictive, he’d insisted.
But he’d lost that battle when she cried and sobbed.
Six miserable pills, he prescribed. Better than nothing.
She needed one now but couldn’t afford to waste it.
She broke one in half and swallowed it with her now cold tea.
She no longer experienced the immediate hit she used to get at the start, but she’d be able to work and then sleep tonight, even though her dreams would be nightmares.
Nightmares from the memories of what had been done.
How she’d escaped one hell and found herself in another.
That unending loop of horror that she could never forget no matter what she did or what she took.
And six miserable pills weren’t enough to take in one go to end it all.
She really should save them, get more and… Stop!
She deserved to be punished.
She had to live her waking hours with the memories and stare at the ceiling in the sleeping hours remembering the barbarity of what she’d gone through and what she’d done. Or more importantly, what she hadn’t done. Silence was sometimes worse than action.
‘I am not worthy. I am useless. I am dirt. I should be dead.’ The mantra as clear to her now as it was back then. And she smiled sadly, because she believed it all to be true.