A Window Breaks

by C. M. Ewan

  ‘I get that. But sometimes it feels like you and Mum are watching me for signs that I might do something like Michael did. And I’m not going to do that. I would never do that.’

  ‘You think Mum and me worry about that?’

  She nodded. I could see tiny flames from the firelight reflected in the damp glimmer of her eyes, even through the bruising to her face.

  ‘Holly, the depth and width of what your mum and I worry about when it comes to you.’ I shook my head, lost for a moment. ‘It’s bigger than that ocean. But that’s our problem. Not yours.’

  ‘But it is my problem, Dad. It is, because I don’t want to let you down.’

  I felt a pinching in my heart. ‘You won’t, Holly.’

  ‘I might. He took that from me. Michael did. Because I’m not allowed to screw up now, am I? He died, so I have to stay safe. Everything I do has to be safe. That’s why you and Mum freaked out so much about what happened in that alley. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’

  I looked into the fire some more, feeling sad and desperately sorry for Holly, but at the same time enjoying the sensation of being close to her again. And yes, I did know what she meant. And no, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t rational. But in so many ways she was living for the two of them now. Her future would always – in some ways – be Michael’s future too. The paths she followed. The decisions she made. I would weigh them against choices her brother might have taken if he’d lived. I knew Rachel would do the same. It was inevitable. Unavoidable.

  ‘We want to protect you, Holly. I’m sorry but that’s just how it is. And it would have been the same if your brother was still alive.’

  ‘But not as intense.’

  ‘No, not as intense.’

  I reached inside my jacket for my cigarette packet and made a show out of crushing it and adding it to the flames.

  ‘Neat gesture, Dad. It would be a lot neater if I hadn’t seen where you’ve stashed another packet in the car.’

  ‘Oh, Holly.’ I pulled her into me, feeling a sudden, inexplicable compulsion never to let her go. Across the deck, I could see Buster ambling back to us from the trees.

  ‘Are you and Mum getting back together again?’

  I stilled. How best to phrase this? ‘It’s complicated, Hols. You know that.’

  ‘She wants to, you know.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you that.’

  ‘Duh. She doesn’t have to, Dad. It’s pretty obvious. You just have to try not to, you know, screw it up?’

  11

  Maybe it was obvious to Holly. It didn’t seem so obvious to me.

  Holly kept me company for another ten minutes before hugging me goodnight and heading up to bed, with Buster following close behind. I stayed outside for a while longer, thinking about Rachel, remembering, among other things, how we’d first met. It was in the bar of our student union. Rachel was weaving drunkenly on a table, dressed in blue scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck. She was holding a plastic syringe in one hand that she was using to squirt shots of vodka into the mouths of the medically needy below. I was the guy she accidentally squirted in the eye. It stung – though maybe not quite as much as I made out – and Rachel leaped down to check I was OK. She had a pretty unique diagnostic method. It involved tilting my face to the light, grabbing my backside and sticking her tongue down my throat.

  The kiss was wonderfully spontaneous and overwhelming. I can still taste the cherry vodka on her tongue. When we eventually – breathlessly – pulled apart, sparks of electricity fizzed in her eyes. And then had come that giddy, cascading laugh – something I knew right away I wanted to hear again and again.

  Where had that dazzling, funny girl gone? What had we done to each other?

  I went inside, locked the sliding door behind me, hung my coat and stashed my boots in the laundry room, then walked the ground floor of the lodge in my socks, checking the windows in the kitchen, heading down the corridor towards the pool. A series of wall sconces glowed dimly in the cinema room and I flipped them off, then ducked down a short, dog-legged corridor opposite that had a tall, thin window at the end. A tight left turn took me down a couple of steps into a small library – a book-lined nook with wall-to-wall fitted shelving. Nothing much else to see.

  In the pool room, the stink of chlorine brought tears to my eyes. The pool was lit acid green by a series of submerged bulbs and wave patterns shimmered across the walls and the night-time glass, making it feel like I was trapped inside an aquarium. I rattled the handle of the patio door on the far side of the room. It was locked, same as everywhere else.

  Good to go.

  I left my reflection behind me in the glass and walked back along the corridor, through the living room, up the floating staircase. The door to Holly’s room was ajar and light was shining around the rim.

  I stuck my head inside. Holly was tucked up under the duvet, her eyes closed, her mouth hanging open, the light from the en suite washing across her bruised face. I wobbled when I saw her sleeping that way. Holly hasn’t slept with a light on in her room since she was seven years old.

  Buster was curled up in a tight ball at the bottom of her duvet, trying to make himself as small and as still as possible. I made a tsk-tsk noise in my throat and shook my head. Buster knew the rules. He knew he should have been in his own bed. But he also probably knew I wasn’t about to tell him that tonight.

  Feeling a lingering sense of dismay about Holly, I left the door slightly ajar, tiptoed back along the mezzanine and turned into the corridor that separated Rachel’s room from my own. Her bedroom door was partway open. A light was on in there too.

  I hesitated.

  ‘You can come in, Tom.’ Something in her voice. ‘I’m awake.’

  The light was from a bedside lamp. Next to it was Rachel’s wine glass and the nearly empty bottle of white wine from the fridge, as well as her phone. I stared at her phone. Then I became aware that I was staring at it. Not a good move.

  Rachel sniffed and wiped a hand across her eyes and suddenly I saw that she’d been crying, sitting there with her bare legs clutched to her chest, wearing an old, laundry-faded T-shirt from a family holiday to San Diego taken years ago.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She peered up at me, shaking her head, her cheeks swollen and blotchy. ‘Aren’t you tired of all this, Tom? I’m so tired of it. I just want it to stop. I want everything to go back to how it used to be. And I want Michael back. I want him back so much.’

  Her shoulders heaved and I went to her, bringing her into my arms. She felt too light. Too fragile. I had the feeling that if I squeezed her I might break something.

  ‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I know. I wish that too.’

  ‘I’ve tried to be strong for Holly and I just haven’t been. I don’t know how to connect with her any more. With you. I’ve messed up so badly.’

  ‘Hey,’ I told her. ‘Hey, enough. I shouldn’t have moved out, Rachel. That was wrong. I was wrong. I just wanted—’

  ‘I know.’ She pressed her head against my chest. ‘I disappeared,’ she said, in a choked voice. ‘But it’s been so hard not to, Tom. And now I’m exhausted. From all of it. All of the time.’

  I lifted her chin, wiped the tears from her face with my thumbs. Outside, rain fell against the skylight in the sloping ceiling above us. The wind hummed and whooped.

  ‘Buster’s on Holly’s bed with her,’ I said softly. ‘He’s watching her for us.’

  Rachel nodded and backed away from me a little. ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about. Something important.’

  Uh oh. Have you ever heard something good that started that way? I thought of the spa hotel. The passcode to Rachel’s phone. I’ve messed up so badly. Everything seemed to rush in at me at once, like the walls of the room were collapsing around me. I didn’t want to hear it. Not now.

  You just have to try not to, you know, screw it up?

  ‘Rachel, why don’t we wait until morning, OK?’

 
‘But, Tom, I—’

  ‘Please, Rachel. Let’s just wait, can we? I really think that would be best.’

  She smiled slowly, reluctantly, then lifted her shoulders. ‘Maybe you’re right. Maybe right now I’m just too . . .’ She shook her head, as if she couldn’t find the words.

  ‘Tipsy?’

  ‘Nooo.’ She smiled a little as she pressed her forehead against mine and cupped her hands to the back of my neck. ‘But I do want to be thinking clearly,’ she whispered. ‘I have so much I need to say to you, Tom.’

  I swallowed hard. ‘So tomorrow, then?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ She nodded, like she was underlining the decision, and rubbed the back of my neck. ‘You could get in,’ she whispered. ‘You could stay. I don’t mind.’

  I didn’t say anything to that and after a few moments Rachel sighed and let go of me, leaning back.

  ‘You don’t think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘I’d like to, if that helps,’ I said, carefully. ‘But maybe we shouldn’t rush things?’

  And maybe I should hear what you have to say to me tomorrow first.

  ‘Eighteen years of marriage and you don’t want to rush things.’

  ‘Rachel, come on, I—’

  ‘No. No, it’s OK, Tom. You’re probably right. I’m not sure I can trust my own judgement right now. Maybe it’s better if I trust yours.’

  I paused and found myself looking down at her phone for too long again before I snapped out of it. ‘Are you going to be OK in here?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘Then I should probably say goodnight now.’

  ‘Probably.’

  She gazed at me with a kind of sadness I couldn’t quite interpret and I sat there awkwardly for a few seconds, almost changing my mind and staying.

  ‘Well. Goodnight, Rachel.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  I stood and crossed the hallway to my bedroom, where I used the en suite and shed my clothes until I was wearing just my boxers, then flipped off the light, peeled back the covers and climbed into my usual side of the bed.

  I lay there, listening to the rain and the wind building outside, replaying my conversation with Rachel over and over, wondering where I’d gone wrong, where I’d gone right, wondering if I should get out of my bed and go to her room. And then, some time later – I don’t know how long, exactly, though I’m guessing something like forty-five minutes had passed because I’d rolled onto my side and was nearly asleep – the springs of my mattress compressed and deflected as Rachel eased into my bed. She scooted towards me under the duvet until she was spooning me and I could feel the heat coming off her body.

  ‘Don’t think,’ she whispered. ‘Just go with this, OK?’

  Would you be surprised if I told you that, when her hand snaked round my waist and slipped down under the waistband of my boxers, I did?

  I turned to her and knotted my hand in her hair. I pulled her lips to my mouth.

  Rachel. Her tongue didn’t taste of cherry vodka but kissing her still gave me chills. I ran my hands over the familiar-yet-new-again contours of her body. I tugged at her T-shirt.

  Like I told you before, I love my wife. Despite everything that had happened – the ways I’d hurt Rachel and Rachel had hurt me – that had never gone away.

  I wanted her. That would never go away, either.

  I eased her onto her back and looked down at her in the dark.

  ‘I love you, Tom Sullivan,’ she told me, her eyelashes flickering against my cheeks.

  ‘I love you too,’ I said.

  Her breath mingled with my breath. Her heart beat against my heart. Lost in the moment – caught up in Rachel – it was almost possible to believe that everything really would be OK.

  ‘Michael, watch out.’

  Fiona’s last words.

  But it’s much too late already. The road has swung left on a tight curve at the end of a long straight and the car has not swung with it.

  Eyes wide, Michael saws at the wheel. The Audi lists and yaws, its tyres scrabbling on the slickened blacktop.

  The suspension compresses then unloads. Momentum tips the chassis. Michael can feel the passenger side lift up until Fiona is above him, her long hair floating around her. He’s suddenly sure now that the car is about to topple. Any slight touch of the brake would flip it. He turns the wheel the other way, into the skid.

  A squeal. A brief rubber yip.

  The car slams down and shimmies, then straightens.

  Michael, watch out.

  For what?

  For the woods that are hurtling towards them through the black?

  For the basic laws of physics?

  He brakes, but there’s not enough time. Not enough distance.

  The reflective surface of a turn sign pulses in his vision. They smash through it and the bonnet lurches up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Michael says.

  Sorry that this is happening. Sorry that you’re here with me. Sorry that I messed up. Sorry for everything.

  12

  ‘Tom?’

  Rachel shook my shoulder.

  ‘Tom, wake up.’ She whispered, close to my ear: ‘I think I heard something.’

  I groaned and mashed my face into my pillow.

  ‘Tom, it sounded like a window breaking. I think there’s someone downstairs.’

  I groaned some more. Rachel is a light sleeper. She hears bumps in the night. And I’m the one she’s turned to – again and again – to get out of bed and creep downstairs to investigate.

  ‘Tom?’

  It was warm and fuggy under the covers – my legs were tangled in Rachel’s legs – and I could so easily drift off again. I could hear the hitch of fear in Rachel’s voice but it wasn’t quite enough to tug me back to full consciousness.

  Then a vague distant noise made me stir. It could have been the sound of glass crunching underfoot.

  My heart clenched as Rachel yanked on my upper arm.

  ‘Tom? Wake up. Please.’

  Eyes open, listening hard.

  The room was black. The only light was the faint glow of my wristwatch. It was just after 2 a.m.

  Another slight crunching sound.

  Oh God.

  I blinked and stared into the pulsing darkness as a great sucking fear invaded my chest. In my mind I was watching a kind of home movie rendered in fuzzy greyscale. I was picturing a long, uninterrupted tracking shot – the visual equivalent of the auditory hunt I was carrying out with my ears. The camera in my mind’s eye went snuffling across the carpet and out of the bedroom door. It sped low along the unlit hallway, sweeping left and right in small, tight arcs, like a bloodhound following a scent. When the camera reached the mezzanine it pitched up and then down over the polished steel banister rail overlooking the vaulted space below. It dropped on a wire, spinning and sweeping, sniffing out the source of the gritty crunching I had heard.

  ‘I’m scared, Tom.’

  ‘Shh.’

  Was that the whisper of the sliding glass door on to the deck being pulled back? And now the dull thud of the door hitting the rubber buffer?

  Rachel clutched my arm again. I didn’t have any clothes on under the covers. And all right, it shouldn’t have been a big deal right then, but it’s amazing how being naked can make you feel more vulnerable.

  Silence.

  I waited.

  My heart jackhammered in my chest, pushing me up off the mattress. Rachel’s fingers dug into my flesh.

  The silence persisted, but this was no natural hush. It felt loaded. Felt forced. Like somebody was holding their breath downstairs.

  I was listening so intensely it was as if I could hear the throbbing of the very air itself – the sound of millions of tiny molecules rubbing and vibrating against one another. It was a sound like no other. The sound of pure fear in the middle of the night.

  And before Rachel had woken me, had I heard something else? I could dimly remember a noise from the deep recesses of my dreams. A kee
ning, buzzing whine like a tumble dryer thrashing around on a fast spin. Like a chainsaw felling a tree.

  Real or imagined?

  Intruder or not?

  ‘Footsteps,’ Rachel whispered.

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Yes. Downstairs. And voices, I think.’

  Cold sweat sluiced across my forehead, down my neck.

  But there was nothing now. Nothing other than images of an empty room transmitting back from the imaginary camera feed in my head. All I could hear were the muffled night noises of a house at rest. The bluster and whoop of the wind outside. The drumming and lashing of rain on the roof.

  And the hammering of the blood in my ears.

  OK, think.

  Think.

  Maybe I hadn’t locked the sliding door quite right. That was possible, wasn’t it? It was my first time locking the door and I could have made a mistake. I’d been preoccupied. I’d been drinking. So maybe I hadn’t locked the door right and the wind had buffeted and sucked at it. Or maybe a fallen branch had cracked a glass pane.

  I waited.

  Hard to know what was worse. Part of me craved confirmation, however bad that might be. Parted of me absolutely dreaded it.

  My mouth was dry. My chest very tight. My mind still caught in the gummy bind of sleep.

  But my instincts were alive to the threat. I could feel the hairs on the backs of my arms standing to attention.

  Rachel flinched and spun towards the doorway, the mattress springs creaking too loud. Had she heard something? She was clenching my hand very tight now. It reminded me of the way she’d held it when she was in labour with Michael and Holly.

  Holly.

  ‘Could it be Holly?’ I whispered.

  ‘Why would she go outside?’

  So Rachel had heard the sliding door too. Or thought that she had. A deep, penetrating chill engulfed my heart.

  ‘Maybe she can’t sleep.’

  Or maybe she was sneaking out onto the deck, down by the fire. Maybe she had a cigarette she wanted to smoke. She’d told me she’d seen my stash in the car. I guessed it was possible she could have taken one earlier. Unlikely, but possible.

  But no, that didn’t add up. Holly had a door from her bedroom that opened on to the balcony connecting her room to Rachel’s. If she wanted to smoke one of my cigarettes, it would be easier for her to go out there. But why go outside in this weather?