Page 14 of My Husband’s Wife

Thirteen

The man stares in the same way Hugo used to stare at me when he was worried. Did I imagine him driving at me or were my eyes blurred by my tears?

‘Hugo, why…how?’ The only differences are the glasses and those brown eyes.

‘Sorry, I don’t know who Hugo is. It’s me: Theo.

Madison and I saw you the other week about our wedding.

We had our baby with us. Are you okay? Do you feel concussed?

Shall I call an ambulance?’ His questions fly at me, then he grabs his phone.

‘I should call an ambulance. You nearly hit me head-on, and you’ve crashed into a fence. ’ He goes to make the call.

‘Stop, I mean I’m okay. I don’t need an ambulance.

’ I wasn’t looking at the road. I was looking in my rearview mirror for far too long and not concentrating.

My neck is stiff but I manage to glance back.

Madison must have gone back into the salon.

‘I lost concentration for a second.’ Am I in trouble?

I keep half expecting a police car to come speeding onto the scene.

‘I don’t know what to do. Is my car okay? ’

Theo circles my car. ‘There’s no damage at all. Looks like you’ve been lucky. All you’ve done is knocked down a bit of this old rotten fence. If you’re sure you don’t need an ambulance, I best get on.’

I frown and stare into his eyes, the same eyes that used to look at me with such love, such passion and sometimes frustration and anger.

They’re brown, Hugo’s were blue, but it’s him.

I’m so confused. I look at his mole again with its slightly ragged edge.

I took a photo of it at the same time every year back then, to make sure it hadn’t changed because his doctor said to monitor it. ‘Hugo, why are you doing this to me?’

Madison’s shoes clack on the pavement as she catches us up. ‘My goodness. Someone came into the salon and said there had been a crash.’

She runs over to Theo and gives him the once-over. ‘Has anyone been hurt?’

‘No,’ he replies as he lifts their sleeping infant from the car seat.

Madison looks a little red and flustered as she snatches the little one and holds her closely. ‘I panicked.’ She then looks over at me. ‘Eva, are you okay?’

‘She’s fine. I just stopped to see if she needed an ambulance but I think she’s okay. It was just a little accident.’ He looks back at me. ‘I am worried about you though, Eva. You seem to think I’m someone else. You might have a concussion and not know it.’

‘No, no, no. I haven’t even hit my head.

’ No one is taking me anywhere today. A memory floods through my mind.

The night the crying wouldn’t stop when Caiden was a newborn, and I felt my whole world had collapsed.

I sat on the wall next to our house, the very wall Hugo had driven through to his death.

As Caiden bawled, all I could do was think of ending it.

I’d told myself repeatedly that I was a bad mother, that it was unsafe for Caiden to be around me and my only option was to let myself go; after all, he’d have been better off without a mum like me.

My mind kept courting that same thought.

If I leaned forward, all those dark worries would have gone away forever, along with the crying and the noise in my head.

‘Okay, let’s get your car backed out of this fence.’ Theo checks the road and nods that it’s okay for me to go.

I insert the key into the ignition and start my car up again. Selecting reverse gear, I slowly back out, leaving the small piece of rotten fence behind and I park up properly. The baby starts crying and Madison bobs her up and down while trying to comfort her.

‘Theo, I’m going to take her to the salon and feed her. Eva, I’m glad you’re okay.’

I watch her walk down the hill, kissing her little one’s head and speaking softly.

Grabbing a bit of notepaper and a pen from my bag, I quickly write my name, an apology for the fence damage along with my contact details and post it through the letterbox of the house next to the fence.

That’ll be an expense I could do without.

I accidentally drop my keys but snatch them up quickly.

As I turn back, Theo is crouching and picking something up off the pavement.

I hold my car keys up. The photo keyring of Caiden must have broken away when I dropped them.

That’s when I see Theo holding it in its little circular plastic casing. He stares at the photo.

‘That’s Caiden,’ I say, hoping for a reaction.

He thrusts the keyring back at me.

‘Wait,’ I call as he gets into his car. He might not want me to know who he is, and I have no idea why he would go to all this trouble to fake a death and pretend to be someone else, but he is still a father, one who loved his son to bits, and I know that hurt look so well.

It’s the look of a father who dearly misses his son.

‘Why are you doing this to us? How could you do this to Caiden? I know who you are,’ I yell.

He leaves me broken and confused.

Several people have stopped to stare. A man shakes his head and a woman rolls her eyes. I get in my car, hands trembling as I drive off. They were all looking at me like I’ve lost my mind and I know only too well how that feels.