by Kylie Kaden
‘Jesus, hon, everyone’s not out to get us. We are the victims here. The system will see this through, okay? They’ll get to the truth.’
God, I hope not. Will was one of those people who still believed things worked out fairly. That you should trust that justice will be served through the courts. But Abbi knew otherwise. She’d seen plenty of unfair calls, living and breathing the ins and outs of court cases of the foster siblings that churned through her childhood home.
Will was quiet. She reached for him, her panic easing as she tucked herself under his arm.
He rested his chin on her head. ‘Your feet. They’re all muddy.’
‘I walked down near the water for a bit, needed to clear my mind.’
‘Down the lake end?’
‘Yep.’
He stroked her hair. ‘She’ll be okay, hon. We can make sure of it.’
She snuggled in, the safe feeling threatening her resolve to stick to the plan. She felt her composure crumble as she was bursting to tell him the truth, but at the same time wondered if he had any inkling of what he’d done. He was acting normally, consistent with the circumstances, but so was she. She looked up, her eyes falling over his features. She couldn’t reconcile it with the scene she just left. But at the same time, she felt no fear, and no less love for him.
He caught her staring. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
There they sat, glaring at the blank TV screen, exhausted yet unable to still their minds. It might have been seconds, or minutes.
‘He looked so normal,’ Abbi said finally. A burst of adrenalin fuelled her muscles, and she leaped from the couch. She had to check on Eadie. ‘I’m sleeping in her bed tonight.’ She got up, walked towards Eadie’s room.
Will refused to let go of her hand as she pulled away. ‘Don’t worry, hon. The bastard will pay for this.’
Abbi flinched as he said it, so genuine, so hopeful.
Will didn’t realise what he’d done. He couldn’t have and been so sincere. Will was incapable of maintaining a lie.
But Abbi knew that Adler had already paid for his crime. The real question was, would she?
* * *
There was a moment – a millisecond after she woke the next morning, when life was still as it had always been. A moment when Abbi recognised it was a school day. That there were lunches to pack, breakfast to prepare, a job to go to. She got as far as mentally picturing the contents of the freezer for what to defrost for dinner before it hit her. What she’d done.
She rose from the sheets and inhaled sharply, but the air felt like needles in her throat. Her heart pulsed and swelled, as if trying to break free from the jail her ribcage had become. The walls wobbled, distorted – like her life. She got up, reached for the wall, off balance as if she was standing on a moving platform that could give way at any moment. Nausea swelled in a great green wave. She ran to the ensuite, heaved into the bowl, but felt no relief.
There was no undoing the done.
She reached to flush, mesmerised by the water as it swirled and sucked away, cleansed, renewed. But for her there was no reprieve. A stain on her life like permanent ink. It could never wash clean.
Abbi wiped her face dry, checked the mirror and saw lies.
She looked identical. Her reflection appeared as if she was the same person she had been yesterday – a little drawn, puffy-eyed, but no worse than after a night sinking too many reds. But the truth of it was, an imposter had replaced the self she knew.
Her husband’s bulk blocked the door, his brow furrowed. ‘You okay, hon?’
Her mind retraced the acts committed in the past twelve hours. She had no idea what this new self was capable of. But Abbi nodded and smiled.
The first of a thousand masks.
* * *
Abbi composed herself, and checked to see Eadie was still sound asleep, then made tea and wandered out to the deck. A marooned lantern rattled in the cluster of narrow-leaved wattles buffering the house from the beach. Resting her tea on the wide wooden arm of the Cape Cod chair as if to observe any ordinary sunrise, Abbi watched the lantern convulse, persisting tirelessly to escape the tangled nest of branches. Seagulls lined the shores. Walkers dappled footprints on the seamless sand. The world kept turning.
She heard a hammering as she stepped downstairs and found the sliding doors to the deck wide open. Abbi noticed the picnic rug, shiny with dew, sprawled on the back lawn, still set with three ant-ridden plates. Will’s head popped up from near the gap in the fence – the panel pushed out, palings missing like rotten teeth. He had re-attached the support beam he’d wrenched down the night before to get to Trevor’s, and was now hammering new palings in – shiny and clean. She suspected they would forever remind her of why they were there, what could have been prevented if only she had been a better mother, if only she had fixed it earlier.
Before the day the lies began.
* * *
Abbi spent the best part of every day for the month that followed qualifying her actions to herself. Deceiving Blake in a moment of madness so he’d cover for her, omitting to tell Will of the sins she’d committed when she snuck back into that evil man’s lair – she convinced herself that these acts of duplicity weren’t betrayal at all, but instead were well intended, planned measures to protect their family. Misguided perhaps, but ultimately acts of love. She faced a dilemma that she knew had an obvious ‘right or wrong’ reply. But in her mind, in the context of her life, the right response felt entirely wrong. People would judge, would flinch at the idea of doing something so ghastly, but Abbi told herself that no one knew what they were truly capable of until they had to do it.
Then you knew. Then you knew the true limits to what you would or wouldn’t do for the ones you loved.
Only time would tell if somehow, someone would trip over her lies, like land mines laid early and forgotten, and rip her family to shreds.
Chapter 20
35 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL
His wife’s arms hung by her side, her face blank and wet from crying. ‘I’m telling you the truth now,’ Abbi pleaded. ‘He was dead when I got there.’
Ever since Will found help at the scene of a car crash as a child, he’d considered himself capable of staying calm under pressure. The gravity of the situation focused his mind. But right now, listening to Abbi recount the harrowing night of the festival, he couldn’t comprehend any of it. His vision distorted at the thought of his wife wielding a weapon, moving a body, concealing a crime.
‘Why should I believe you now?’ Will shook his head in disbelief. ‘You just told me you killed him in self-defence. So, you’re either a liar or a killer. Which is it?’ Will wasn’t sure which option he despised more. He pressed the heel of his hand on his eye sockets as if it would ease the tension.
‘It’s not true!’ Abbi shook her head, before her eyes fell. ‘Well, the liar part is.’
‘You both just looked me straight in the eye and rattled off specific details. He saw you standing over Adler with a plank.’
‘He did. I wanted Blake to think I had, but I didn’t.’
‘So, if not by your hand, how did he die? You think it was self-inflicted? Was he hanging by a noose? What?’ Exasperated. Terrified. Will didn’t know what he felt but it wasn’t good.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She stepped towards him, touched his face, as if he needed consoling. He didn’t. He just wanted answers and his frustration only grew.
‘You were the last one with him, and … I know it must have been an accident and I don’t blame you, Will. I knew that if Blake thought it was me who did it, he’d help me.’ Abbi’s voice was soft, remorseful. ‘I wish I had been the one who ended his life. I’d find it easier to live with than you will.’ She swallowed.
Understanding shone in his eyes – he realised what she couldn’t say – and then he lurched back, horror in his eyes. ‘You think I did this?’
Her chin quivered. ‘Whether you realised it or not, you must hav
e.’ Her voice was shaky. ‘I’m not judging you, Will. But I saw how hard you hit him. You had him by the throat. I left you alone with him and found him dead less than an hour later.’ She exhaled a long, slow breath. ‘He wasn’t hanging by a noose. There was no bullet wound or a garage full of carbon monoxide. There’s no other explanation.’ She reached for him, and for the first time in his life, he pushed her away.
Will refused to entertain the idea that he’d killed anyone. ‘Jesus, he was alive! I can still see him, full of self-pity, muttering something as I left, about how he’d tried to change. I warned him to never come near us again. To clear out, which is why I wasn’t surprised when he did. Or so I thought.’ Trevor’s left, got a job down south, he heard Blake telling him, but that was all bullshit. Will grimaced as he sifted out the lies he’d been fed, and contemplated the facts.
Abbi persisted. ‘Perhaps he stumbled trying to get up, and hit his head, had a brain bleed from the blow.’
‘All of which we could have ruled out, if you’d just called the police and let them do their job. If you hadn’t left him to wash into the river. My God, who are you?’
‘Who am I?’ She exhaled. ‘I did this for you. To protect you.’
Will ran his hand over his lips. ‘I belted him, at least twice. I’ve never denied it. But he was alive.’ Will stood up, paced the room. ‘I wanted to go back. You stopped me. I was worried I’d broken his jaw. I never thought …’
Abbi’s eyes fell. ‘He was already dead. I saw how hard you laid into him. One punch can kill. There was nothing anyone could do for him then or now.’
He sat down, pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Abbi approached him again, curled her arm around him, nuzzled into his shoulder. He stared ahead, statue still, ignoring her.
Will had seen people killed sliding off a chair, while others survived plane crashes without a mark. Human life was fickle. There was no motive for her to make this up. It was too crazy. He looked down to gaze at his wife. Despite the shock of realising she’d been lying for weeks, now, looking into her eyes, he believed her. For Abbi, loyalty trumped truth, so he believed she’d do anything to cover for him. Was this possible? He retraced the night in his mind, the time gap, the flimsy evidence. He had to concede that it was. ‘How can you accept this? Accept me, if this is true?’ He asked.
Hurt flooded her eyes. ‘You wouldn’t forgive if it were me?’
He couldn’t answer her. He didn’t know. What he did know was that it was the deceit, the cover-up as much as the crime, that disturbed him.
Will had been responsible for ending lives before. In his profession, it was inevitable. Failing to diagnose meningitis in a baby in his intern days ended tragically; countless lives in his care had been lost in Haiti due to lack of resources; even recently, a farmer with melanoma refused treatment and slipped through the gaps of the system. With the thousands of patients, the rate was low, but it was there. His record wasn’t spotless, but he’d saved more lives than he’d lost. Could the good he’d done ever counteract the bad? All of the tragedies were accidental. All potentially preventable, but ultimately, deaths attributable to his mistakes. Was this debacle that dissimilar?
The difference was, for a fleeting moment, that he had wanted to punch the life out of Trevor Adler. And as it turned out, he most likely had. It was the first time he could remember acting without thinking, and on some level that felt liberating. He’d felt alive – while killing him.
What does that make me?
Until that moment, he’d maintained his composure – as if covering up his scheming wife’s homicide was still in the realms of possibility. The thread keeping him together sprung loose, leaving him untethered to any semblance of reality.
The facts were simple: he lost control, and a man lost his life.
As if that wasn’t enough to live with, Will resented the lack of trust and the loss of control over what now appeared to be his problem. Now he felt like he was centre stage but without any choice, any idea how this drama would end. How could he continue as a doctor without feeling like a hypocrite? Knowing he had sucked the life out of someone with his bare hands. First, do no harm. His family, his career, all that he’d worked hard to build was at stake. And he hadn’t even been given a vote on how to play this. ‘Why didn’t you just tell me? Let me clean up my own mess?’
Abbi touched his face, curled his hair off his forehead the way he usually loved but now it irked him. ‘Because you would have turned yourself in.’
Will leaned forward, his hands covering his face.
She finally backed off. ‘Tell me you wouldn’t have.’
He shook his head. ‘I never meant to kill him,’ he said, his gaze clear and direct. She was questioning his words, he could see it in her face. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
She met his eyes, and he saw doubt. ‘I wouldn’t think any less of you if you did.’
Will’s eyes never wavered. ‘You should.’
Abbi shook her head and sniffed. ‘I might have done it myself if you hadn’t already.’ Her eyes were cold, determined. ‘He preyed on the innocent. The bastard got what he deserved.’
Will’s eyes told a different story. ‘Beaten to death and left to die, alone? Even that mongrel didn’t deserve that.’
Chapter 21
36 DAYS AFTER THE MOON FESTIVAL
Almost June, a sharp crispness snuck into the air at dusk and dawn, yet the days were still bright with sunshine and clear skies. Much to Molly’s surprise, Hannah kept turning up at home for dinner despite cohabiting with Blake, and she was reluctant to admit her older sister wasn’t that awful to be around – even helpful with her mounting assignments.
But today was Tuesday. And Tuesdays were Gwen days.
Molly’s school uniform was damp and cool on her skin, her hair a frizzy nest, but she didn’t care. It was like being at home at the old lady’s place. She could just be. A comfortable silence lay between them, as the rain dappled the casement windows like a stone-chipped windscreen.
They were unlikely friends, she and Gwen (the thirty-eight-year age gap didn’t help). At first, she enjoyed her company so much – her subtle, non-judgemental advice, her unexpected humour – that she feared she’d have to invent a reason to visit when her community-service hours were finally up.
They worked their way through a punnet of cherries in Gwen’s sunroom. ‘Can I ask you something? Your husband – Jake reckons he was a famous writer. Is he why you hate books?’
Gwen’s eyes widened, then softened, before she looked down and fiddled with the silky hem of the blanket around her knees. ‘Ex-husband.’
‘He cheated?’
Gwen gave a half smile. ‘Only once … per book tour.’ She shrugged, nonchalant.
Molly spat a cherry seed in the cup with the others. ‘I think you should give them another chance.’
‘Who? My husbands?’
How many were there? ‘Books.’
Gwen looked shocked, but it quickly faded. ‘Maybe I will.’
The lady started sorting her medicine dosages for the next day, a rainbow of coloured supplements and oil capsules in little piles on her walnut side table.
‘You know they can do that for you at the chemist.’ She had been getting her dad’s meds organised by the pharmacist ever since he forgot his Sertraline for a week, and started getting dizzy.
‘Never trust someone with that sort of power,’ Gwen said down her nose.
Gwen shot a sideways glance at Molly, pretending not to notice she was cavorting with the enemy – fiction. ‘What have you got there?’ she said with a tone that made Molly feel disloyal towards her for the simple act of reading.
‘Macbeth.’
Gwen lurched back a little. ‘God, it’s been forty years since I read that. Too many witches and beheadings for my liking.’
‘That’s pretty much it. Why don’t you do my essay on symbolism? Hannah was no help with this one.’
‘Nor am I. Why do they do
that? Ruin books with all that hooha.’ Molly stretched, suddenly uninterested in murderous kings. ‘How is it having your sister home? See much of her?’
‘Yep. Dinner twice a week. It’s okay. It feels more like a family with three.’ She’d left her wet boots at the door after walking through one too many puddles after school, but her socks were drenched too and made sweat marks on the wooden floor. Without thinking, she peeled them off.
Gwen saw, and horror played on her face before she had a chance to pretend.
Molly quickly pulled her socks back on, her ankles, and the scars of her past, covered. Molly knew they were off-putting; like tiny white worms crawling up her ankle.
‘Molly, my poor girl.’ Gwen’s face fell, like the sun had failed to rise. It was a little like the first time her father had seen them. But he, at least, understood emotional extremes. Now he just didn’t feel at all.
‘They’re old. I don’t do that anymore. Not for ages.’
Gwen seemed marginally happier. ‘But, so many.’ She held her hand to her mouth.
Molly never took her shoes off in front of anyone but her dad. She wagged every school swimming event, or said she had her period. Even at home, she hated reminding her dad of that time in their lives. When everything good had come to an end. ‘I started after Mum … but that wasn’t the only reason.’
Gwen’s lips twitched in that way she got when she was itching to ask but too polite to form the words.
Instead of pushing the memory down, Molly recalled it, in all its pain and confusion, and didn’t feel a chill, like she used to. ‘You remember the other reason?’
A chin wobble. ‘Oh, love, how could I forget?’
Molly shrugged.
Gwen muttered to herself, hesitated. ‘But, Molly, why cut? Did it provide relief? Physical pain to distract from emotional pain – is that it?’
Molly shrugged. People who hadn’t known real despair never really understood. Even some as old as Gwen, who’d survived divorce – which had to suck – still lived in the shiny land of normal, where things could be reasoned. Where bad things only happened to bad people. Molly knew the truth. Life was unfair. If you had low expectations, nothing could disappoint. The sooner you learned that, the better.