Page 51 of My Husband's Wife
Forty-Two
‘You’re home early,’ Theo says as she enters the cabin. ‘Emily’s asleep.’ She glances down at her baby and wants nothing more than a snuggle, but she doesn’t want to wake Emily. Theo’s phone beeps and he slams it down. He’s grinding his teeth so she knows something in that message has upset him. Then again, she can’t imagine it was as upsetting as the message she received.
Who would send something so horrible, saying that Theo was a liar and not to marry him? Or does someone know something she doesn’t?
Theo turns his phone over. Madison also wants to ask who’s messaging him again, especially as he looks tense, but she figures he’ll say it’s something to do with his mum, or it’s a job.
‘I burnt myself.’ She places her phone on Theo’s desk and shows him her hand.
He pulls it close to his mouth and kisses it. ‘That looks sore. How did it happen?’
She shrugs. ‘I lost concentration for a second. It’s okay though. It doesn’t hurt that much.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re home. Like I said, you’re doing too much which is probably why you had an accident. All this rushing around is no good for you. Drink?’
She nods and he places a decaffeinated coffee pod into his fancy machine and leaves it to hiss and bubble. He draws her to the sofa, and the coffee machine fully growls into action. As soon as she sits, he slips her pumps off and begins massaging her feet. The sounds coming from the coffee machine are almost hypnotic. It stops spluttering. She leans her head back and closes her eyes as he rattles around stirring her drink, getting milk out of the mini fridge and then quickly tapping away on his keyboard.
‘Just got to get this quote sent then I’m all yours,’ he says.
Tiredness is winning. After the coffee, she promises herself she will have a lie-down but first she needs to speak to Theo. ‘Eva was there.’ Madison isn’t sure what he will say to her random statement, but she needs to see how he reacts so she turns to face him.
He clenches his teeth. The harsh outline of his jaw protrudes through his stubbly face. ‘Well, she does work there.’
‘I don’t know why, but I decided to look for her on Instagram and I found her. Her dead husband looks like you, that’s why she was calling you Hugo. I think she’s going through something. It’s sad really.’
He places her coffee down on the table and continues massaging her feet. It feels so good after the day she’s had. ‘It’s probably best not to get involved. It’s not like you’re friends and as for me looking a bit like her dead husband, that’s not my fault. Can we stay away from her? I don’t know what’s going on but I feel as though you haven’t been yourself since we met her. I personally think she’s a bit crazy. I can’t put my finger on it but she has this stare, it’s intense and it sets me on edge.’
She can’t disagree with him on that but she wants to keep him talking, to put her mind at ease if nothing else. ‘Theo, you put the wedding ring in the bin. It wasn’t me. I feel as though you’re trying to convince me I’m crazy.’ He lets go of her feet. Her stomach is churning as she waits for him to reply.
‘Are you seriously accusing me of gaslighting you?’
Madison looks into her lap, brow creased to match the confusion inside her head. ‘You lied about your mum being dead.’
‘I know and I’m sorry. She was dead to me and frankly, I wish I’d never decided to find her but I have and now I’m dealing with that problem. That one is on me and if I made you doubt me, I’m sorry. I love you and Emily. I would never gaslight you and I’m appalled you’d even say something like that, but I get it. I should have told you about my mum.’
His eyes look sorry as he shuffles on his knees between her legs, edging closer to her. His lips reach hers and all she wants to do is kiss him back, but she can’t, not before mentioning the message she received. With her eyes beginning to well up, she can’t hold the tears back.
‘What is it, love? I’m worried about you.’
‘I…’ she chokes out that one word and her nose fills up. She was going to tell him she went looking for Eva earlier, to tell her about Zach cheating on her, but she remembers that she told Theo that she saw Zach at the grocer’s. Saying too much will make her look crazy, but then again, she wouldn’t have been spying on Eva had she not seen her Instagram page open on Theo’s iPad. Instead, she talks about the thing that’s upsetting her the most. ‘I got this horrible message from a withheld number. It said, he’s a liar. Don’t marry him, you can’t trust him.’
He pulls back a little, lifts his glasses up enough for him to rub his eyes. ‘Bloody hell.’ He pauses and lets his glasses perch back on the bridge of his nose. ‘Who would send something so mean. Can I see?’
‘It’s withheld but yes.’ She nods and gets her phone from the other side of the room. By some miracle, Emily sleeps through her sobbing. She scrolls and scrolls but there is no message. ‘It’s gone.’
He takes the phone off her and looks. ‘You have a message from Camille, apologising for cutting the call off last night. But that was the last one.’
‘It was there; I saw it.’
The look in his eyes and his lips pressed together tells her all she needs to know. He doesn’t believe her. There was a message and now it’s gone. After she’d stood on the bridge, she went back to the salon to say bye. She left her phone and bag there while she popped to the loo. Someone must have come into that room to delete her message, but how? Her phone had been locked – unless they knew the code.
Forty-Three
It’s as if Emily can sense that the air is thick with tension because she hasn’t settled once this evening. Madison yawns, that seems to be her go-to move these days. The baby blanket catches her thin papery skin where she burnt herself earlier and she winces.
She paces through the house and turns on the light to the spare bedroom, also known as yet another junk room. It has even more of Theo’s clutter in it. An old pushbike hangs on the wall. The desk she brought with her sits in the middle of the room, just begging to be used once again. This room was meant to be her home office but that never happened. Instead she’s been doing the bookkeeping for the salon in the kitchenette there. She bounces Emily but Emily fidgets uncomfortably in her arms, her little legs kicking out of her blanket. Eventually, Emily dozes in her arms so Madison places her in her cot before returning to the spare bedroom. It’s dark outside and she has that feeling, the same one as earlier when she’d been standing on the bridge at the Sea Horse. Her skin prickles and she shivers. She hates it here. It’s creepy and remote. She thinks of that amazing house in Loch Ness and imagines herself being a part of a community, meeting other parents of young children and dropping in on neighbours for coffee.
Theo barges in, interrupting her thoughts. He’s barely spoken to her since they left the cabin earlier. ‘I’ve been thinking.’
