Page 9 of My Husband’s Wife

Eight

I can barely move. It’s as if my shoes have been filled with concrete and the effect is spreading up my ankles and past my knees. All I can do is stare. Where is the shock in his face? I can barely contain mine but the man standing in front of me seems emotionless.

‘Eva, are you okay? Are you ill?’ Madison hurries over and leads me to my seat.

‘I, err…’ I don’t know what to say. If I blurt out that the man she’s about to marry is my dead husband, Hugo, she’ll think I’m insane.

Does she know? Is all this some sort of set-up?

I take a breath and remind myself that I’m new here.

Hugo wouldn’t have thought for one minute that I could be his wedding planner, so this can’t be a set-up.

I stare at Hugo again, looking for the slightest hint of recognition, but he isn’t giving anything away from behind those fake round glasses he’s wearing.

All he does is bob from foot to foot, trying to comfort their baby who is starting to whimper.

A lump sticks in my throat. He’s not only alive, but also he has a baby and he’s about to marry someone else.

Were Caiden and I so easy to discard? How did he do it?

‘Can I get you some water?’

I should be looking after Madison and all her wedding needs and desires; she shouldn’t be looking after me.

‘No, no. I just felt a little dizzy, that’s all.

I skipped lunch.’ Now I feel guilty for saying that.

I don’t find lying easy. I despise lies but I can’t exactly tell them what I’m thinking – I mean seeing.

My head feels as though it’s stuffed with cotton wool.

From the way he’s parted his hair to the black jagged mole on his neck, all I see in the man in front of me is Hugo.

His nose is the same as our son’s nose. My hands keep jittering away and there’s nothing I can do to control that.

The baby starts crying. ‘Should we come back another time, when you’re feeling better?’ The tone of Theo’s voice matches Hugo’s. Hugo never had an accent and Theo doesn’t either. I barely come across an accentless person. That man is my husband. He didn’t die.

I frown, not even trying to mask my confusion. There was a DNA test on Hugo’s body. DNA doesn’t lie. It can’t be him. That’s what science and logic say, but he’s here. How?

‘Eva, I think Theo might be right. We should do this another time.’ Madison bends over and picks up a part of my broken cup, placing it gently on the desk.

I don’t want to jeopardise this job. Since buying the house, we’ve ploughed every penny into it.

If I’m fired, we’ll lose our home too. Hallie will be waiting for me to tell her how the meeting went and I don’t want to let her or my employer down.

Maybe this is all a bizarre coincidence.

I’ve been ill in the past. That’s it. It’s just an episode of something I have no control over and I need to get a grip.

‘I’m feeling better. So sorry about that.

I don’t know what came over me.’ I grab a fudge sweet from my drawer and quickly eat it.

‘I just need some sugar and I’ll be right as rain.

’ After chewing on it, I struggle to swallow but I do. ‘Right, where were we?’

The baby’s cries turn into red-faced bawls. ‘I think I’ll just take her for a walk, try to get her off to sleep.’ Theo pulls a pram from the other side of my room, places the wriggling baby into it and quickly leaves.

‘Sorry, I guess it’s just us now,’ Madison says.

I need to know more because right now, I don’t trust my own mind. ‘So, how long have you been together?’

She scrunches her brow and returns my smile.

‘We met three years ago. Theo does computer repairs and a friend of mine recommended him. I thought I’d lost all my spreadsheets but Theo managed to rescue them.

When I dropped it off at his house, I almost wanted to turn back.

This little house in the middle of nowhere was overgrown and then a bearded man opened up and looked like some sort of hermit who hadn’t seen daylight for weeks.

’ She let out a laugh. ‘I’m not selling him well, am I? ’

Hugo had never been unkempt. Although he had graduated in computer science before falling into a job selling agricultural machinery for a living.

His fitted suits and tidy hair were such an entrenched part of his identity.

He’d always insisted on being cleanshaven even though the general trend for men his age was to have some facial hair.

He hated anything fussy, whether it was an awkward watch strap, a stray hair or a jagged fingernail.

‘It sounds like a charming meeting,’ I force myself to say.

I lean in a little, prompting her to continue.

‘It wasn’t an instant spark. I had to take that dratted laptop back three more times, then he admitted he’d done something to it because he wanted me to come back.

That sounds odd, doesn’t it? All I can say is, he didn’t come across as creepy or controlling.

It was his only way of ever seeing me again.

It wasn’t as if he’d ever bump into me at the pub with him not leaving the cottage.

We talked, we dated – by dated, he cooked for me at his place.

Over a few months, I fell in love with him.

Life has been hard because of his agoraphobia but he’s a lot better now since he started therapy.

He came here today; he comes to the salon I own and we’re getting married.

He’s come a long way from working in his house and only having food delivered, to planning a wedding.

Fingers crossed; we’ve been discussing a honeymoon. ’

‘Wow, that’s an amazing story.’ I’m guessing he didn’t want his past identity exposed which is why he never left the house. The word DNA flashes through my mind again. Theo can’t be Hugo. I’m seriously losing it and I need to do my job. ‘How many guests are you looking at inviting?’

‘On my side, friends and family – about fifty. As for Theo’s side, I’d say about ten. He has no family. There will be sixty guests at the most.’

‘No family?’ I think of Hugo’s mum and sister, who live in Birmingham.

‘I know, it’s all so sad. He lost his family in a house fire.

Ours won’t be the biggest of weddings and, because of that, I was talking to Theo and I think we might go for the silver package.

I think we’d like a more generous menu and drinks package.

Oh, and can we have a garden ceremony? Theo doesn’t like to be confined when there’s a crowd.

But it still needs to be intimate and contained, not too overwhelming for him, if you get what I mean. ’

I realise there is a tinge of blood underneath my fingernail.

I move my hands from my head and drop a strand of hair on the floor.

Pulling hair out in front of a client isn’t a good look and when I’m anxious, I don’t know I’m doing it.

I point out of my window, hoping she’ll look at the lovely view instead of my ruffled mane.

‘Of course, when we go over the bridge, there is a stunning pergola. I can also arrange for your flowers to be woven through an arch and yes, I totally get what you mean. We have all kinds of moveable trellises to create that intimate setting.’

She smiles, happy that I can accommodate Theo’s needs.

Hugo was never worried about crowds or open spaces, and he’d never have survived as a loner.

He needed people, craved them even. Have I got this wrong?

Theo has a mole in the exact same place as Hugo’s and I see my son in him.

I feel sick so I take a deep breath and exhale to the count of five.

Madison continues. ‘This might sound like a strange request, but can you recommend a falconer? He loves birds. We listen to the owls hooting where we live in that once overgrown cottage that is now our home. He’s a real nature geek.

We have a handful of children attending the wedding and we thought it might be nice to maybe have an owl ringbearer. ’

I shiver at the mention of birds. I bought Hugo that raven toy for his car, twice, because he was such a bird geek. He used to stand in our garden with Caiden and they’d listen out for the owls together. My heart is humming and my hands are shaky so I place my pen down.

‘That’s a beautiful idea. We do have a falconer that I can contact for you.

’ I’d read in my pack about the birds of prey and their handlers.

I know we have a falconer who takes the birds to events to raise money for the sanctuary they work at.

‘I think you’d be looking at about four hundred pounds.

’ I let out a breath slowly, unsure of how I’m keeping myself together right now.

‘That’s fine. Please book them and invoice me. It’ll make Theo’s day and anything that puts him at ease will be worth it.’ I can tell that Madison adores Theo. She’ll do anything for him.

I adored Hugo.

I check the system to see if Hallie took their full address when she made the appointment and she has. ‘Have you walked around the grounds yet? Maybe we could do that next and I’ll show you exactly where the ceremony will take place?’

‘We’ve already had the full tour when we came here for the wedding fair.’ She shakes out her curls, and I catch sight of her beautiful French manicure. I wonder how she can look so perfect so soon after giving birth. She’s thin, maybe worryingly thin, and looks delicate in every way.

Throughout the turbulent first year after giving birth to Caiden, I struggled to remember to shower, let alone consider a manicure.

I reach up the back of my scalp again, thinking back to how I pulled such a large clump of hair out, how I picked the scabs and kept pulling them up until they joined to form one big scab.

Zach has never seen that side of me. Hugo did and during my darkest periods, like when I first had Caiden, Hugo had to do everything for our son because as soon as our son cried, I cried with him.

That’s when I started to think he was trying to get Caiden taken from me.

He called our doctor behind my back and then he called my mother.

Mum turned up and I did something I will never forgive myself for.

No, I can’t ruminate over that night. It’s too painful.

Is Hugo outside, soothing his new baby while thinking about what I did that day?

I thought my secret had died with him. Self-hatred fills me.

‘Eva, is that sorted? Can I leave the falconer with you?’

I flinch and come back into the present.

‘Yes. So, we’re going for the falconer, an outdoor ceremony and the silver package?

Is that correct?’ I run through all the details with her and we arrange for them to return to enjoy a taste of the food, before making a final decision on the menu.

‘We work closely with a baker who specialises in wedding cakes.’

‘It’s okay. I have that sorted.’

‘Great. I’ll err…I’ll see you in two weeks for the food tasting.’

‘I can’t wait.’ She pulls a card from her bag and passes it to me. It’s headed up, Madison, AveNew Hair and Beauty Salon . I read the sentence under the salon name. When you leave, you find the new you in AveNew .

‘I have a salon on the outskirts of Ilfracombe. Can’t blame a girl for trying to get more business, especially now I’ve upgraded our wedding; everyone has to have their hair cut at some point.’

I place the card down on my desk, my hands still trembling.

‘Thank you. I haven’t been here long and I think I will need a cut soon.

’ I really like Madison. I feel she is the type of person I could be friends with, if I didn’t think she was trying to marry my so-called dead husband.

A part of me wants to kick myself. I could have this all wrong.

I’ve got things like this wrong before and I am stressed.

Maybe I saw Hugo’s face in Theo because I wanted to or because I’m aware that I’ve left his memory back in Malvern, or is it the guilt I can’t let go of?

The one person I want to tell all this to is Mum, but I know she’d worry. She’d have every right to.

‘Well, I might see you at the salon soon, then.’ She stands. I shake her hand. She holds onto me and places her other hand warmly over mine. ‘Thank you so much for making this easy. I really feel I can trust you, Eva. Our wedding is in good hands.’

I wonder if she can trust her husband-to-be.

After leading her back through reception and out to the car park, we watch as Theo sings, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’, to their baby while gently rocking her in his arms. Hugo used to do the exact same thing with Caiden.

I want to run over to him, shake him and ask him how he did it?

Instead, I wait for Madison to take the sleeping baby from him before placing her in the car seat.

As she’s leaning into the car, clipping the little one in, Theo glances in my direction before swiftly turning his back to me.

Something strikes me: Theo has brown eyes whereas Hugo had blue eyes.

‘Hugo?’ I say, just loud enough for him to hear.

He doesn’t even attempt to turn around, then he gets into the car leaving Madison to say their goodbyes. It strikes me as odd that he didn’t even turn around to correct me.

Madison thanks me again, ‘And I’m so excited about the owl. I can’t thank you enough.’

Maybe I have this all wrong. If Theo is Hugo, how could he stand there and not acknowledge that I’m his wife?

‘You’re welcome,’ is all I can say as I wave them off.

As Theo starts the car, his stare is fixed on mine in the wing mirror.

I want to turn away but it’s as if I’m hypnotised by him, and he can’t break our eye contact either.

I’m looking into the eyes of the man I love with all my heart but can’t explain the coldness spreading deep within my core.

The intensity of his gaze is wild and creepy. I’m scared of him.