A Window Breaks

by C. M. Ewan

  He was standing outside the triage room. Square-jawed, clean shaven, pushing six foot three with a muscular physique beneath the Kevlar stab vest and police uniform he had on. In his hand was a clear plastic bag with a Stanley knife inside it.

  I stared at the bag. Felt myself sway.

  ‘Mr Sullivan? Why don’t we sit over here?’ He guided me towards some plastic chairs set against a scuffed beige wall. ‘You recognize this knife? One of the kitchen staff saw the man who attacked you drop it at the end of the alley.’

  I nodded, hunched up, my leg jiggling with nerves, then gave him my statement, telling him about the alley, the darkness, the flashes of memory I had from after the man had appeared. Baker scribbled notes, nodding all the while. I didn’t mention how terrified I’d been. I didn’t say that the fear and adrenaline were still fizzing in my veins like battery acid.

  When we’d finished, we both stood and I gave him my contact details, but then I lingered, wanting to ask him something, unsure if I should. He was fully a head taller than me. Probably weighed more than fourteen stone.

  ‘What would you have done differently?’ I blurted out. ‘If you’d been in that alley instead of me, I mean?’

  Baker frowned. ‘Nothing. Look, maybe you don’t want to hear this, but you were unlucky, Mr Sullivan. You gave that man your things as soon as he asked for them. I wouldn’t have done anything differently at all.’

  I didn’t know whether he meant it or if he was simply telling me what I wanted to hear, and I was still wrestling with that conundrum when I returned to Holly’s cubicle to find Lionel talking with Rachel in hushed tones.

  They stopped speaking when I entered. Lionel’s collar and bow tie were undone. One shirt tail was untucked. Standing there, looking rumpled, he seemed strangely reduced. Oddly mortal.

  ‘Tom.’ He embraced me – scents of sandalwood and cigars – then pushed me back to scan my face. His eyes were red-rimmed, the skin around them deeply lined, and I realized – with a start – that he’d been crying. ‘I hate that this happened to your family. I hate that I sent you into that alley.’

  I told him that was nonsense. There was no way he could possibly have known what would happen. And I meant it too, because if Michael’s death had taught me anything, it was that life can throw the worst, most random experiences at you out of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever. I was pretty sure Jennifer’s death had taught him the same thing.

  I went over to Holly. She was trembling in her sleep. I laid one hand on her hip, another on the crown of her head. It’s something I’ve done a lot over the years. As an infant, it had soothed her.

  And that’s when Lionel started talking again about the restorative powers of his Scottish lodge. He waxed lyrical about getting back to basics, connecting with the landscape. I could tell he’d already mentioned it to Rachel. His voice grew husky as he spoke about the trauma we’d been through as a family during the past year and how, as a doctor, Rachel would understand that the best way of getting over a trauma is to rest. He said he was insisting that I took time off work. He wanted me to take Rachel and Holly away from London, to a safer place where we could heal. That his lodge would be perfect for us because—

  I raised my hand and cut him off. I told him how much we appreciated his offer but that right now . . . And then my own words faded into silence as Rachel reached out to grip my hand, her face a mess of tears.

  ‘Please, Tom,’ she whispered. ‘I want us to try it. Please. For Holly, if not for me.’

  And so now here we were. Together. Sort of.

  I swirled my beer and glanced away from Brodie into the lodge. Buster was lying with his head hanging off the end of one of the modular couches, watching us. There was no sign of Rachel and Holly. The last time I’d seen them, Holly had been bugging Rachel to change into her swimsuit so they could try the pool. I guessed they must have shut Buster out. Otherwise, he would have been splashing around with them in there.

  ‘See this, Tom?’

  Brodie stamped his heel on a puddled area of decking, then squatted, hooked his finger through an inset steel ring and heaved a concealed hatch out of the way with a fine spray of rainwater.

  ‘Fire pit. Already laid. The wood is good and dry. If you get a chance, you should come out and light it with Rachel and Holly. It can really be something at night.’

  I nodded absently. ‘Thanks. We might just do that.’

  ‘If you take my advice you’ll get to it this evening. It might be a touch wet but the forecast is set to get worse the rest of the week. Out here, the storms can be wild, believe me.’ He dropped the hatch back into position and wiped his hand on the seat of his jeans. ‘Well, that’s everything, I think. I should probably get out of here, Tom. Leave you to your family time.’

  Those words ‘family’ and ‘time’. These days they fitted together about as well as two shattered Lego bricks.

  ‘I’ll just go and say goodbye to Rachel and Holly then, shall I?’

  ‘No,’ I told him, a little too sharply. ‘I mean, there’s really no need. I can do it for you.’

  He looked a bit offended, and I suppose he had every right to be, especially after he’d tried to connect with me about his sister, but I didn’t back down.

  ‘Aye, OK.’ He toed the ground with his foot. ‘Well, if there’s anything you need, Tom, my number is programmed into the landline phone in the kitchen. Just hit hash one. I’m based about a half-hour drive away. But if I don’t hear from you, I’ll be back on Saturday to see you off.’

  I nodded and we shook hands again, then I watched as he strode off quickly around the side of the lodge and disappeared from view. I waited until I heard the crunch and grind of his Land Cruiser starting up and pulling away. Then I exhaled and turned to the wall of tinted glass in front of me, staring at my reflection, alone by the sea.

  5

  The pool room was in a glassed-in side extension to the main lodge. I walked across the deck to it and peeked inside. The interior was done out like a spa in a boutique hotel. In the middle of the space was a long, thin lap pool, surrounded by sleek tiling, Scandi-style wooden recliners, piles of fluffy white towels and plastic shower clogs. To the right of the room I could see two doors with glass portholes. One was marked SAUNA. The other read STEAM ROOM. A door on the left connected, I guessed, with the rest of the lodge.

  Rachel was swimming lengths, the water frothing and churning around her, swamping the drains at the sides. Holly waved to me from the other side of the glass. She was lying on a recliner, her legs bent at the knee, watching something on her mobile. A white cotton towel was wrapped around her torso, over her swimsuit. Her hair hung about her in wet curls.

  The moment she saw me, I clapped my hand to my heart and staggered backwards, feigning shock and surprise. Holly shook her head and mouthed the word ‘Dork’ to me, but she was smiling as she returned her attention to her phone and I felt a small buzz of warmth spread through my chest.

  It faded when I studied her face. Rachel had warned me the swelling would get worse before it got better but right now I was scared to think how much worse it could get.

  My heart sank. I wanted to cradle Holly in my arms like I had when she was a little girl but instead here I was, standing outside and separated from my daughter and my wife by a sheet of double glazing. I supposed it was the kind of image a marriage therapist would get a lot of mileage out of, but recognizing that didn’t make me feel anything except cheap and sad.

  There was a swell of water to my right and I watched as Rachel completed a length and hooked her arm over the side. She saw me and puffed out an exaggerated breath, then swept her hair back from her face, pushed out of the pool, grabbed a towel and padded towards me. Her swimsuit was cut high around her thighs, water sluicing off her trim shoulders and over her breasts.

  And there it was again. That old familiar desire; the hormonal stirring that just a glimpse of Rachel’s body could trigger in me. Even if I wanted to deny it to myself, there would
be no point. I’d loved Rachel too hard over too many years.

  Ask me when I fell in love with Rachel and I can pinpoint the precise second. It was two weeks after we’d met, dawn light leaking in through the window of my university dorm room. I’d been leaning on my elbow, watching Rachel sleep, and then – eyes still closed – she’d smiled at me, called me a ‘perv’ and pulled me in for a kiss. And bam. That was it. I knew right then that this was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Corny, I know, but absolutely true.

  But ask me to tell you when things fell apart and that’s where things get hazy. Was it the night of Michael’s accident? The gruelling months that came afterwards? Was it when we started arguing? When we stopped? Was it six weeks ago, when I packed a bag and moved out of our family home? Or was it four days ago, when I failed to prevent a stranger from attacking our daughter?

  She looked at me now, dabbing her face with the towel and pressing it to her chest, then she leaned forwards and exhaled against the glass, tracing her finger through the condensation, scrawling the word ‘Hi’.

  I raised my hand, fingers spread, feeling awkward and uncertain. Rachel contemplated me with a slight, serious frown.

  And I wondered: What did she see in me?

  What could I see in her?

  There are things I know for certain about my wife. Intimate things I’ve learned over the years about how she feels, how she thinks. Confidences she’s shared. And then there are the things I’m afraid to know.

  Like the spa hotel. Three weeks ago now.

  It had been my weekend looking after Holly and Rachel had told me that she’d booked herself a spa break with some girlfriends. On the Sunday morning, I’d needed to speak to Rachel about what time I could bring Holly home so that I could get into the office for a work matter I had to clear from my desk before Monday morning, but Rachel didn’t respond to my texts and when I dialled her phone it was switched off. I tried the hotel instead and the woman I spoke with on reception said she had no record of Rachel staying with them. I asked the woman to check for the names of Rachel’s friends and, again, I hit a blank.

  And OK, I knew it was possible that her plans had changed, but then a new, more dizzying thought had struck me. Maybe she was with another man.

  I didn’t know if that was the case or not because I hadn’t tackled Rachel on it. I hadn’t wanted to come across as paranoid or make things worse for Holly. And I hadn’t – truth be told – wanted to confront the fallout if my suspicions turned out to be right.

  You could call it cowardice. Or denial. Either way, it was a combination that had worked pretty well for me until Brodie had mentioned the spa here – until that word had hung in the air between us, and I’d felt my breath snag in my throat as I’d looked at Rachel for a tell.

  But there’d been nothing. No hint of guilt or awkwardness. Just my own toxic, lingering suspicions and maybe a phoney story about a weekend away with the girls, and who knew what other secrets besides?

  I blinked. Rachel was wafting her hand slowly in front of me, mouthing my name, snapping me out of my daze. Once she had my attention, she pointed from me to the pool, then mimed swimming breaststroke as her face framed a question.

  ‘Later,’ I mouthed.

  I wasn’t going to tell her I’d forgotten to pack my trunks. It was the kind of detail Rachel used to remind me of.

  She made a performance out of stroking her chin and staring at me with a deep, contemplative frown. Then she glanced towards the woods and her face brightened with an idea. She carried out another mime, this time taking the fingers of one hand for a walk along her palm and then pointing to all three of us.

  I shrugged, Sure. Why not? And Rachel turned to tell Holly what was happening. I saw Holly throw back her head in exaggerated despair and start to whinge, but by then I was already backing away across the deck to wait for them at the edge of the woods to the south.

  It was so quiet here. So green and eerily still. The only noise was the faint breeze through the pines, the chatter of birdsong, the hush of waves against the shore.

  Michael had died in a place not too unlike this. A wooded strip of land bordering a quiet back road. I’d seen photographs of the crash taken by the road traffic collision unit. All kinds of angles. Unforgiving shots. They’d been projected on a television screen during the coroner’s hearing. I’d seen how my Audi had deformed and crumpled in the middle; how the windscreen glass had shattered and imploded; how the tree Michael had hit had been half felled by the force of the impact.

  Confession time: I don’t just blame Michael. I also blame myself.

  Why? Well, for starters, I was the one who’d taken Michael for occasional Sunday driving lessons in an old disused car park close to our home, beginning almost a year before he could learn legally, circling round and round in my car.

  I was the one who’d encouraged his relationship with Fiona, even though Rachel had wanted me to talk to Michael about how maybe they should cool it until after his exams were over.

  I was the one who’d come home late from work on days when Michael had been sullen and rude to Rachel, when he’d bickered with Holly, when he’d gone out with his free-running friends to local rec grounds and car parks after we’d told him not to. The one who said I’d talk to him in the morning. The one who rarely did.

  I’d given Michael a whole lot of latitude. Too much for a reckless sixteen-year-old to handle. Too much to take back now.

  All the signs had been there. I just hadn’t wanted to see them.

  He’d stolen my car. He’d driven it fast. Trying to impress Fiona. Thumbing his nose at laws and rules and common sense.

  It had cost him his life. Robbed Fiona of hers. It had ruined his reputation. Exposed Rachel and I as bad parents. Blown our marriage apart.

  And even still, Rachel couldn’t accept the truth for what it was. She wanted there to be a bigger reason for Michael’s death. A deeper explanation that could somehow make sense of what he’d done. A cause for the effect.

  There’d been times after the crash when I’d found her in Michael’s room, searching through his things. As if a random scribble in the margins of a book, or a scrap of paper folded in the pocket of a coat, might somehow help her to understand Michael’s actions.

  But, of course, she never found anything.

  Sometimes terrible things just . . . happen. A stranger breaks into your house and brutally slays your wife. Your daughter gets hurt during a mugging. Your son is killed in a car crash. These things happen all the time, all over the world. You know that and you hope it’ll never happen to you.

  And sometimes it still does.

  A few weeks before I’d left home, sleepless in the dead of night, Rachel had stirred and whispered something to me, out of nowhere, in the dark.

  ‘I still can’t believe he did it. It wasn’t like him. He just wouldn’t, Tom.’

  But he had.

  The tree looms in Michael’s vision. It is enormously tall and the trunk is many metres wide. Like one of the giant redwoods he’s studied in geography class. An epic tree. Mythic.

  The bark, starkly lit by the brilliant glare of the headlamps, is as gnarled and tough as stone.

  Michael has mere seconds until he hits it. Less than seconds. Time enough, maybe, to turn the steering wheel.

  But turning the wheel would be futile now.

  The car vaults forwards. Thumping over a drainage gully. Airborne.

  Michael is sitting in the driving seat but he knows he’s nothing more than a passenger. The car is locked on course to the tree, just as Michael is locked on to the tree.

  Fiona’s hand reaches over and grips his arm. Her fingers clenching and tugging. The tree speeding towards them. Fiona’s scream in his ears.

  6

  The noise of paws scrabbling on timber snapped me out of my thoughts and then Buster streaked by me in a haze of woodland debris. A stick was on the ground between us and Buster nudged it closer to me. I picked it up and thr
ew it away between the trees, watching him tear after it in a brown blur, bounding through ferns, until he was lost among the tall pines creaking overhead.

  ‘Mum said to tell you she’s on her way.’

  Holly had stopped a short distance back from me, picking at the crusted bark of a pine trunk. She was dressed in a long-sleeved pink top over hot-pink tracksuit bottoms and spotted wellington boots. She hadn’t bothered to dry her hair.

  She looked sad and sullen, and something about her attitude made me uneasy.

  ‘Has Brodie gone?’ she asked me.

  I nodded. ‘How are you feeling, sweetheart?’

  ‘Mum’s given me more painkillers.’

  Not exactly an answer.

  ‘Listen, Holly, I’m here if you want to talk about what happened, OK?’

  My daughter pulled a face like I’d farted. ‘Dad, you do get that I’m a teenager now, right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Because – speaking as a teenager – it’s kind of my duty to point out that telling me you’re here now sort of only emphasizes how you weren’t here, you know, before? When you walked out on me and Mum?’

  Oof.

  Holly’s gaze was unsparing, even through the bruising to her eyes. I felt a flash of panic, like she’d tossed a stick of dynamite down next to my feet, the fuse burning rapidly away.

  Holly has always been clever for her age. Even as a young kid she’d had an advanced vocabulary. Normally, that was a good thing. But it also meant her tongue could be sharp enough to wound.