Page 18 of My Husband's Wife
‘Erm, no. Just congratulations on securing the Clifton House Hotel for your wedding. It’s a beautiful venue.’
‘It is.’
She disrobes me. Not once did she mention the missing hair at the nape of my neck. She’s the soul of discretion. I know she must have wondered why I’ve been pulling my own hair out and creating scabs on my head.
‘I know someone who can help.’
I frown.
‘With your trichotillomania. Don’t worry. It’s common. We see it all the time. We all live such stressful lives, these days. I grind my back teeth.’ She pulls a card from a drawer and I see that it’s for a local therapist. ‘She helped me. I barely grind at all these days and my dentist is grateful for that.’
I want to scream, I’m only stressed because my husband, the man you’re marrying, seems to have come back to life from the dead.
A part of me assumed she’d mention it so I don’t know why I feel this overwhelmed. Maybe it’s because someone else can see me falling apart, just like Mum can. ‘Damn, I’m running late. I have to go.’ I pull a twenty-pound note from my purse, hoping that we don’t have to discuss my head any longer. The price on the board for the cut is a tiny bit less. ‘Keep the change.’
Madison runs after me and stands at the salon door as I get into my car. ‘Eva, please wait. Have I upset you?’
I turn the engine on and edge out of the tiny space as tears fill my eyes. As I drive off up the hill, I see her in my rearview mirror getting smaller as I get further away, then she’s gone.
A car horn blares as it’s coming at me at speed. I swerve out of the way to avoid the collision and abruptly mount the kerb before hitting a flimsy fence.
The man gets out of his car and runs over. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
Was he driving at me?
‘Hugo,’ I say. It’s him. It’s really him.
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.’
