Page 67 of The Wives of Hawthorne Lane
Ms. Patterson:I certainly can. I’m the head of the PTA. I know pretty much everyone in this town. It was most of the people who live up on Hawthorne Lane: Libby and Bill Corbin, Audrey and Seth Warrington, Georgina and Colin Pembrook, and there were some others there as well. The new neighbors, I think. I don’t know their names yet. There was a pretty large crowd gathered by then. It was hard to tell who was actually involved.
Detective Olsen:Thank you. Ms. Patterson, do you recall anything else that occurred during this altercation?
Ms. Patterson:All I know for sure is that when the fight broke out, someone yelled, “I’m going to fucking kill you”—excuse my language—and then I got as far away from those crazy people as possible.
Six Hours
Earlier
40
Audrey
Hawthorne Lane
Audrey looks at her reflection in the full-length mirror that hangs on her bedroom wall, fastening the backs of her diamond stud earrings. It’s been only two days since Colin waltzed into their basement with his threats and his swaggering bravado, but Audrey feels like she’s become a different person since then. Her hair, which she usually pampers with regular trips to the salon, is dull and lanky, and there are purple circles under her eyes that look like two pressed bruises.
“Are you sure you want to go to this thing?” she asks Seth, who lies on the bed behind her, scrolling through his phone.
“Audrey, the fall festival is going on right outside our house. Of course we have to go. How would we look if we were the only house on the block not handing out candy?”
“Does it matter how we look?” She watches Seth in the mirror as he puts down his phone, looks quizzically at the back of her head.
“Who are you and what have you done with my wife?”
Audrey knows he meant the question in jest, but the truth is that she doesn’t know who she is anymore. She once prided herself on her confidence, her self-assurance. But now? Now she’s the type of pathetic, insecure woman who carries on an affair with the man next door just because she was feeling a bit neglected. The type of woman who’s gotten herself in so deep with a dangerous man that she’s afraid all the time, even in her own home. She can’t sleep; she can’t eat. The guilt, the regret, the fear…it’s all chipping away ather. And she hardly recognizes the shell of the woman it’s left behind.
“I’m just saying…” Audrey continues. “We could skip it if you wanted to.”
“Doyouwant to skip it?” Seth’s eyes narrow as he watches his wife appraisingly. Audrey should’ve known he’d see right through her. “Is there a reason you don’t want to go, Audrey?”
Thereisa reason. And his name is Colin Pembrook. He’s undoubtedly going to be there, with his smug face and his piercingblue eyes, standing next to his perfect wife, handing out candy apples to children as if he’s not some kind of monster in disguise.
Audrey looks at herself in the mirror one last time before turning to face her husband. She knows what she has to do. She’s known for some time now. But that doesn’t make it any easier.
Telling Seth the truth is the only way for Audrey to free herself from the hold Colin has on her. If she tells Seth everything, Colin will no longer be able to dangle the threat over her head. It’s only a matter of time until he makes good on it anyway. Audrey knows that. He’s just a cat toying with its prey before it goes in for the kill.
Audrey had wanted to spare Seth the pain of learning the details of her affair. Of finding out that it was with Colin, of all people. He might have his suspicions about Audrey’s infidelity, but she knows that everything will change the moment he finds out the truth. There will be no more pretending, no more hiding from it after that, and it’s only going to bring him more pain. These past months haven’t been easy on Seth. Coping with the loss of his career has nearly broken him, and the last thing Audrey wants to do is shatter him beyond repair. But now that it seems inevitable that he will find out, isn’t it better, kinder, for it to come from her lips, from a place of love and remorse rather than revenge?
“Seth,” she says, swallowing back the bile that rises in her throat. “We need to talk.”
She walks toward him, perches on the edge of the bed. She tries to take his hand but he pulls it away.
“Just tell me.” His words are steely, as though he’s already armoring himself against what he knows is coming.
Audrey lets out a sigh, her head hung low in shame. “I had an affair.” Speaking the words aloud feels like releasing shackles from her wrists. But she knows she has no right to feel relief in relinquishing this burden as she shoves the weight of it onto her husband.
“I’m so sorry,” she tells him. “More than I can ever put into words. It was a mistake, and it’s over now.”
“Why?” Seth asks, the single question ringing out into the silence of their bedroom. “Why? Have I not given you everything? The life you always said you wanted?” His arms spread wide, gesturing to the beautiful home they share.
“You did. You do. It wasn’t about that, Seth. It wasn’t about the things, the cars, the house. It was about how I felt. How lonely I was. You were gone all the time, and—”
Seth holds up a stony palm. “Don’t you dare blame this on me.”
“I’m not. I promise you I’m not. But you asked why I did it, why I made the choices that I did, and I’m trying to tell you how I felt. It isn’t an excuse, it isn’t a justification for what I did, but it’s the truth. I felt like I’d lost you. That you’d moved on from me, from us. God, there were times when I felt like you didn’t even see me anymore. Like if one day I were to quietly disappear, you wouldn’t even notice.”
Seth is silent, waiting for her to continue, but Audrey can see the anger simmering to a boil behind his eyes.
