Page 53 of I Would Die for You

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CALIFORNIA, 2011

The tires screech as I turn the car into the driveway and hit the brakes just as the hood touches the garage door. The house is in darkness, save for the soft glow of the hall lamp, and there’s a part of me that hopes Brad isn’t home. But then I pull myself up, because if he isn’t, I can’t bear to think about where else he might be.

A tremor of panic ripples through me when I call his name and there’s no answer. What if he’s left? What if tonight was orchestrated by him, as his final revenge for living a lifetime of secrets? Would he go that far?

An ice-cold shiver makes me shudder as I stand paralyzed, looking up the stairs.Would he?My instinct is to race to Hannah’s room, such is my sudden desperation to see that she’s there, but I calm my breathing, forcing my overactive mind into submission. Still, every tread feels like a mountain, and I grip hold of the banister for support.

The bedside lamp that Hannah is too scared to turn off casts a glow through the crack in the door, which she likes to have open,though ironically its muted light casts sinister shadows on the walls. I stifle the sob that tries to escape as I gently touch the Hannah-shaped mound under the quilt. Her copper-red hair fans across the pillow, and I brush it away from her face, unable to imagine a world where I’ll never see it again.

I desperately want to climb in beside her and wrap my arms around her tiny body, vowing to keep her safe from harm. But I can’t make a promise I might not be able to keep, and the realization of what I stand to lose makes tears spring to my eyes.

“I love you,” I whisper, leaning down to give her the lightest of kisses.

I pause by the closed door of the spare room, my feelings of resentment and anger matched only by the abject sadness and grief of what Brad and I have lost. I wonder if he’s lying in that single bed, thinking of the woman who seems intent on ruining my life. Because hedoesknow her—of that there’s no doubt.

Is the conscience, which he must surely have battled with, eased now that he knows I’ve betrayed his trust as much as he has mine? Has he spent the past however long mired in self-loathing for what he was doing to our happy family, only to be glad to be given a get-out clause by the secrets of my past?

As I look out of the landing window, I’m blindsided by the thought of Brad parked up outside the house every other Saturday, waiting for Hannah to bound down the path with her Rapunzel backpack over her shoulder; the classic broken family, fractured by lies, crushed by deceit, and who, like everyone else, thought it couldn’t possibly happen tothem.

“Where did you think I might have taken her?” asks a voice as I descend the stairs.

“Jesus!” I yelp, scanning the darkened kitchen like a startled animal before I manage to hit the light switch. My fright turns to fury when I see Brad sitting in a chair, nursing a beer.

We stare at each other, jaws fixed, weighing up who’s going tomake the next move. I chance my arm, hoping it will give me the upper hand. “Why don’t you put us both out of our misery and just tell me who the fuck she is and what she wants?”

His head tilts and he looks at me as if genuinely perplexed.

“She was intent on ruining me out there tonight,” I hiss, forcing myself to stay calm, more for Hannah’s benefit than Brad’s. If we were on our own, I’d be hurling saucepans at his head around about now.

I look at him, wanting to see something,anything, that might offer an explanation, but his face is like stone, giving nothing away. “Whatever it is that’s going on between you two, why wouldn’t you want to do it behind closed doors? Use discretion, like most people, instead of having your sordid secret being played out in front of the whole city. At least for Hannah’s sake, if not mine.”

He tsks condescendingly and I ready myself, frightened that he’s going to tell me what I already know. That this is some kind of payback for the secrets I’ve held on to for all these years, for never allowing him a glimpse into my past for fear that he’ll see that I’m not the person he thought I was.

But that doesn’t make sense, because Brad didn’t know who I really was until Zoe told him in the bar the other night. Whatever’s going on must have startedbeforeZoe turned up—well before he’d been given a window into my truth—and that’s an even more bitter pill to swallow.

“So that’s the way you’re going to play this?” he says, his mouth pulling into a tight line as if to stop everything he wants to say from spilling out all at once. “You think making thismyproblem means you don’t have to account foryouractions.”

“I would never hurt you,” I manage.

“You already have!” he says.

I smart at the rawness of his voice. All I want to do is run, knowing that no good can ever come from this confrontation, but I force myself to stand tall and relinquish the baton.

“It happened long before I met you,” I offer. “You can’t possibly believe it givesyoucause to destroy everything we’ve built since? Our home, our family, Hannah… our whole lives.”

“So,youforget to mention that you were implicated in one of the most controversial trials of the century… and somehowI’mthe bad guy?”

“I’m not the one who’s broken our marriage vows.”

He laughs hollowly. “Do you honestly think I’m having an affair?”

If I could believe he was as aggrieved as his expression belies, I’d say it was almost impossible, but I’m not going to allow myself to be fooled so easily.

“Well, isn’t that what you were about to tell me last night? Why else would a woman take another’s child, knowing that it would strike the fear of god into any mother? And why else would she turn up tonight, taking a wrecking ball to my reputation?”

He gets up and goes to the fridge, painfully slowly, as if he’s enjoying my unease, even though it should behimwho’s feeling the heat searing through his veins. I bat away the same oppressive sensation and chew the inside of my cheek as I wait for him to get another beer, open it, and sit back down again. His calmness unnerves me—it’s as if he’s waiting to reveal the ace up his sleeve.

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