Page 26 of My Husband’s Wife

Twenty-Five

After three uneventful workdays and a day off, I’m back in work today, then I’m off until next week.

Over the past few days, I’ve struggled to sleep, spending hours staring at the ceiling and pacing around Zach’s office, reading those horrible articles.

I can’t get Justin’s murder out of my mind, and I can’t stop thinking about Madison and Theo’s wedding.

The playground fills up with parents. Sonia pushes a frail lady in a wheelchair, who looks to be in her nineties.

She stops next to me on the playground. Amelia runs over to Caiden to play with the children.

‘This is Nan. I thought we’d get some fresh air because the weather is glorious today. It’s lovely, isn’t it, Nan?’

The woman ignores her and stares at the children with a smile on her face.

Christie runs towards us, looking flustered as she chases behind Iris. ‘See you later,’ she calls to her daughter. The bell rings and we wave our children off. I had hoped to see Nicole but she isn’t here. I still haven’t managed to contact her and she’s ignoring my calls.

‘I hate being late,’ Christie says. ‘That’ll teach me for pressing the snooze button one too many times.’

‘Have either of you seen Nicole? I’m worried about her.’ Maybe she’s met up with one of them or even better confided in them.

Christie steps closer to me. ‘I spoke to her dad. He seemed to think she went to see her ex-husband.’

Sonia piped up. ‘I looked after Aaron last week for a few hours and she didn’t seem herself.’

I nodded. ‘Mum and I looked after Aaron over the weekend. She came to collect him while I was in the shower and I haven’t heard from her since.

I went to her house on Sunday looking for her and I had no idea she lived with her dad.

She’s not speaking to me and I don’t know why.

’ I know it sounds like I’m gossiping and they’ve known Nicole for longer than me, but I’m hoping they can tell me something I don’t know.

‘I wouldn’t take it personally,’ Sonia says as she pulls the fallen blanket back over her nan’s knees. ‘Nicole has a lot going on – most of it is her own doing.’

‘Her dad said a few things. Are you talking about her ex?’

Sonia continues. ‘Yes, my mother is friends with her father. Nicole treated Will quite badly from what Mum told me. She left him and he was devastated at the time.’

‘I thought he left her and Aaron.’ This is all news to me.

Sonia shrugs. ‘It was definitely the other way around. Then she was in a new relationship with a lovely guy but that ended too. Nicole told me she’d been sending Facebook messages to a man and her new partner thought she was having an affair and, in return, she accused him of being possessive.

She told me she had been speaking to someone online and she wouldn’t tell me much about it.

Only that she had to do what was right. Of course, I was really curious.

When we went out for drinks, I tried to get her to talk but she wouldn’t open up about the mystery man.

’ Sonia looked down and shook her head. ‘She needs to end the lie.’

‘The lie?’ I have no idea where this is going.

‘When Nicole and her ex were having a heated argument about who was going to have Aaron last Christmas, she told him he wasn’t Aaron’s father. The man was distraught after taking a DNA test; he still is.’

‘Did he abandon Aaron?’

‘No, he was just trying to come to terms with the news. Reading between the lines, he’s been really depressed and still needs time to wrap his head around it all.

He had a bit of a breakdown. He loves Aaron and I know Aaron loves him, but Nicole often turns up at his in a state, and I don’t know what that’s doing to him. ’

I’m silently seething. Nicole was right, I can’t trust her. She is a liar and all I wanted to do was be a good friend to her. I cared for her son; I looked after her hamster and my son adores Aaron, and now she’s totally ditched me as a friend at a time when I could do with someone.

‘Are you okay, Eva? I know all this is a lot to take in.’

I shrug. ‘She’s just not who I thought she was. She called me up the other night, drunk, saying that I can’t trust her and that I can’t trust him.’

‘Him, who?’ Sonia scrunches her brows.

‘I don’t know but because of all this I all but accused my husband of having a thing with her.’ I reach for the back of my head and dig my nails under my hairpiece and begin pulling and picking. ‘I can’t help thinking that he’s the man from her past.’

‘I didn’t want to be the one to tell you this but I like you and I hate to see a friend of mine lied to in this way.’ Sonia steps back from her nan and speaks in a hushed voice. ‘Before you moved here, I remember seeing her looking all cosy at the pub with Zach.’