by Holly Seddon
Angela takes a deep breath. “Sarah asked to stay with us a couple of years after Dad died.”
“Really? Why?”
Angela ignores the question. “I was surprised but obviously delighted. Drew wasn’t keen but I stood up to him. I’d let him dictate when my children could visit too many times.” She left a pause, but Robin refused to fill it. “Anyway, she came here and we had a meal. She was staying over and we’d had a few glasses of wine, so we all went off to bed quite early. The next thing I know…” Angela paused. “Do you really want to hear this? It was a few years ago now.”
“Yes,” says Robin firmly. “And I should have heard it then too.”
Angela takes another deep breath. “Okay. Well, we must have been asleep for an hour or so, and I woke up with Sarah on top of me, hitting me. She was going crazy, like a wild thing. I’ve never been so scared. She started clawing at my eyes—”
“What?”
“I think she would have killed me if Drew hadn’t come back in. He’d been in the bathroom.”
“What a hero,” Robin spits.
“Hardly,” Angela says.
None of this made any sense to Robin, but neither did the conversation she’d had with Jim.
“She wanted to hurt him just as much as me, maybe more. She probably would have killed him if he’d been the one in the bed.”
“Why?” Robin asks, trying to keep her voice hard.
“Because she thought I knew what he’d done, Robin. And I swear to you, I didn’t. She didn’t believe me and you probably won’t either, but I didn’t know.”
What he’d done? What had he done?
“It was only after she’d been arrested and released to stay with Hilary that I got to see her. Drew begged me not to go. It didn’t make any sense. He was pleading. He should have been angry, but he was scared. So I went to the old house and I sat with Sarah and Hilary, and your sister told us everything.” Angela’s voice breaks and falters.
“What do you mean?” Robin says, louder than intended. “Everything about what?”
“That he’d seduced her—that was the word she’d used, but I’d use a different one—how he’d—” Her voice cracks. “How he’d got her pregnant.” The word sticks in Angela’s throat.
“That was his baby?” Robin gasps, an eighteen-year-old question finally put to bed in the worst way.
“My poor girl,” their mother says. “She looked at me like I was insane for asking, like I’d known it all already. I really didn’t. I felt sick to my stomach. Of course, Hilary hadn’t been that surprised, not after everything he’d done to her and Callum.”
Robin winces. She avoids ever using Callum’s name, and it had been brandished freely today. Every mention hurts.
“I’d never felt so guilty or so angry. Sarah still didn’t believe me though,” Angela adds.
“And yet you stayed with him?” Robin says quietly, her mother as low in her estimation as she’s ever been.
“Jesus Christ! Is that what you think of me? I threw Drew out that night. I threw him out and I begged Sarah to tell the police what happened in Atlanta, but she refused. Said she was eighteen at the time, that he’d confused her, got into her head, that she didn’t want to relive it. It was her decision. I had to give up in the end and she swore me to secrecy.”
“So what happened to Sarah after that? Surely you didn’t press charges against her for the attack?”
“I wanted them to drop it. Hilary and I both begged them. But I’d already given a statement, before I’d known any of this stuff. They said I couldn’t withdraw it, that it was on record. They said she’d get help if it went to court. That it would be in her best interests. I promise, Robin, I promise I didn’t know what had happened. Sarah doesn’t believe me and I understand why, but I didn’t know. I’d never have let that happen to my child.”
“And where’s Drew now?” Robin isn’t prepared to believe her mother on the strength of one phone call.
“I don’t know and I don’t care. The last I heard, he was in Scotland, bobbing from job to job, probably from naïve woman to naïve woman. I haven’t seen him since the night I threw him out.”
“That’s hardly a comeuppance for everything he did.”
“What do you want me to say, Robin? This isn’t a fairy tale. As far as he was concerned, anything less than a glowing reputation, a fancy job title and a thin wife equaled failure. I have no doubt he thinks that his life is over.”
Robin shook her head, said nothing.
“Look, the priority was Sarah,” Angela continued. “Even if she still thought I was her enemy, Hilary and I had to make sure she was looked after and that she got better, and then Hilary helped her find a new job away from here. A fresh start. And she’s still there now. She’s working as a nanny for a family in Surrey.”
“No, she’s not. She’s up here with me, and I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me any of this. I shouldn’t be finding it out now while my sister sleeps upstairs,” Robin hisses.
“What difference would it have made if I’d told you? You already hated me. Anyway, it was Sarah’s story to tell.”
Robin says nothing. Her mother is right.
FORTY-FOUR
SARAH|2013
She’s perfect, Violet. Exactly the kind of baby girl I always dreamed about having. I always knew I wanted children, for as far back as I can remember. Two children, a girl first and then a boy.
Jim, my boss, is pleasant enough, but he’s distracted right now and goes days without so much as kissing his daughter’s little head. I kiss her constantly, wrap her in cuddles. She shouldn’t suffer just because his late wife was lacking as a parent. I know Jim will re-emerge; he’s a good dad. But right now she’s all mine. My responsibility and my joy.
When I first moved here, I called Hilary once a week to check in. I have to check in with several people. I tell them that I’m working at an accountant firm, typing up letters. I don’t tell them about Violet. My mother said it wasn’t such a good idea. But Hilary knew I’d be good at this, and she was right.
I mean, I certainly don’t always get it right the first time. I’ve made some mistakes along the way, but with every day that goes by, my confidence grows and so does my bond with Violet. And that’s what she needs most right now. Someone who loves her more than anything else in the world. That’s a job I can do for the rest of my life.
ROBIN|2013
“What’s this?”
Steve holds the letter between his fingers. “Is this a joke?” He laughs briefly but frowns at the end of it.
“It’s nothing. Come back to bed.” Robin pats the rumpled white sheets on the big American hotel bed, tries to look nonchalant.
He’s still holding it. Standing naked with his hip cocked, morning erection at half-mast. “It’s literally got cut-out words from a newspaper, like they do in films.”
“It’s just some nut. Don’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I kept it because it’s funny, that’s all. I’ve got a pretty good idea who it’s from, and it’s just some little worm from back in the day trying to get to me. A crank.”
“Yeah, but cranks aren’t always funny. Sometimes they’re dangerous.”
“Not this one.”
“ ‘You’re a liar and you’ll pay for it’?” he reads. “Sounds pretty dangerous. When did you get this?”
“I don’t know, like the other day sometime. The London office forwarded it on. They didn’t realize what it was. Obviously,” she says tersely.
“So it didn’t come to you directly? They don’t know where you are? Where we are?”
“Ah, now I get it, Steve. You’re worried it’s some loony Working Wife fan, yeah? Well, don’t worry, no one ever gets obsessed with the drummer. You’re safe.” Steve appeared pained but didn’t bite. He put the letter down and started to look on the floor for his discarded clothes.
“Are you going to come back to bed and fuck me,” she said,
“or are you going to fuck off to your own room, then?”
He pulled his boxers and T-shirt on, scooped his jeans up in his hands and walked toward the door barefoot.
“I’ll see you at the studio.”
FORTY-FIVE
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY
Robin cracks open another bottle of beer, holds its cold body to her head to help her think clearly. Too much today, too many shocks to think straight. She listens out in the hall—nothing. Sarah is sound asleep. Pregnant women get very tired, Robin reasons. Robin’s tired too, but a couple of questions have just fused together in her head and she has to find out the answers before she can decide what to do next.
Robin goes to the recent-call list on Sarah’s phone and presses Jim’s name. It rings only three times.
“What now?” he says when he answers.
“I’m so sorry,” Robin says, “but there’s something else I really need to know. Then I promise I’ll leave you alone.”
“Go on,” he says, sounding a hundred years tired.
Robin takes a deep breath. “Jim, how did your wife die?”
“That’s none of your business. I don’t know you from Adam.”
“I know, but please. It’s very important,” Robin whispers. She can almost hear him thinking, deciding whether to share this private pain with a stranger on a telephone late at night.
He takes a breath, says quietly, “She fell down the stairs while she was on her own with Violet. Violet was a few months old and asleep in her cot at the time. For obvious reasons I don’t like to talk about it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Robin says, a grim stillness settling on her shoulders.
“That doesn’t help,” he replies. “I have to go now. Just keep your sister away from my family, and I won’t go to the police.”
“I will, I promise, but I just need to know one more thing. Did you sleep with Sarah?” Robin asks. Jim doesn’t reply, not even in outrage. That tells her enough. Robin says, “It was a few months ago, maybe a bit more. Yes?”
“Oh shit.”
“Oh shit’s right.”
“It was just once. We had too much wine and it got out of hand. But it was just one time, a mistake that I apologized for profusely.”
“That’s all it takes.”
“What are you saying? Are you suggesting she’s pregnant?”
“Well, yeah, what did you think I was suggesting?”
“That I’d made things worse. Which I did.” Jim paused. “But she can’t be pregnant.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t have any more children.”
“How come?” Robin had blurted it out before she could stop herself. “I mean, I’m sorry, but are you sure? One hundred percent?”
“Yes, I’m deadly sure. I’d always wanted two children but it would be impossible for me to have any more. And Violet was conceived with a lot of help.”
“Does Sarah know that?”
“Of course not, why would she? I wouldn’t tell my nanny something that private. Is she seriously claiming she’s pregnant with my child?”
“Yes,” Robin says. “That’s exactly what she’s claiming.”
“Well, I don’t care what she’s told you. That’s physically impossible. So if she’s pregnant, it’s got nothing to do with me.”
Robin rubs her hand through her hair, pulls on the curls and presses her forehead to the wall. If Jim’s not the father, who is? How many more people are holding secrets about Robin’s sister? How many more secrets is Sarah holding?
“What are you going to do now?” Jims asks. Robin wasn’t sure if it was simple curiosity, genuine concern or seeking reassurance that someone would do something to keep Sarah away from his family.
“Honestly, I don’t know. But she needs my help, especially if she’s got a baby on the way. And I really don’t believe she would ever hurt a child.”
“Believe that all you want, but if she ever comes near Violet—”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
Robin ends the call, turns to lean on the sink and splashes her face with water.
All this time apart and she’d thought she was the one in the biggest pit. Her sister, her poor fucked-up sister. Lying upstairs with God knows whose baby growing inside her. But a baby she could actually give birth to, could raise, with help. A baby she deserved to have a chance to mother, finally.
Robin didn’t know if her sister even knew she was lying anymore; that was the problem. And that bastard Drew Granger. That vile pervert. The whole thing was far worse than she’d ever realized.
Robin leaves her beer, creeps into the hall and takes off her trainers. She starts up the stairs. It’s dark, after midnight now. She would have to crawl under the other bed and try to sleep some sense into this. She reaches the first landing, still holding Sarah’s phone in her hand. As her feet feel their way onto the larger expanse of carpet, she feels Sarah’s breath on her neck.
“You called Jim,” she says.
SARAH|PRESENT DAY
I stand in the dark, shoulder to head with my sister. My interfering sister.
“I came to you for help,” I say.
“I was trying to help,” she says. All the usual bluster is gone. “I was trying to make things better for you.”
“You’ve made everything worse. Just like you always did. I don’t know why I thought you could help me.”
I can’t see her properly; it’s dark and I don’t know where the light switch is. I’ve been nervous at the top of stairs for years, but alien stairs in the dark is pretty much the worst place for me to be. I feel sick.
“Sarah.” Robin’s voice is as thin and croaky as when I first arrived this morning. “You’re pregnant. You need to calm down and come away from the top of the stairs. I’m worried about you.”
“Ah, yes,” I say spikily, before I can stop myself. “I forgot that it took a pregnancy to get your attention.”
“That’s not fair. I was interested in you before…” She pauses. “Before and after your pregnancy. I just didn’t know how to handle it. I was eighteen.”
I step back from the top of the stairs. “I was eighteen too, Robin, and I lost everything. Including you.”
She reaches out. I feel her fingertips and start to make out her shape in the dark.
“Why did you lie, Sarah?” Robin asks.
“We all lie, Robin. Everyone lies. I wanted to get what I deserved, what I’d had stolen from me. I wanted the chance to be a mum. I don’t apologize for that.”
“But did you hurt that little girl?”
The rage shoots through me. How could she even ask that? I loved Violet. I loved her from the moment I held her, when she was just a few weeks old. I loved her and I looked after her day and night while that woman lay around and talked about how tired and miserable she was. I fed Violet in the night and the day; I gave her everything she needed. And the one night I was supposed to go out on some online date I was dreading, Elaine had begged me not to go. Jim was at a work thing and the woman had clung to me, pleading. Violet was asleep in her Moses basket, softly snuffling after I’d rocked her to sleep. Elaine had grabbed both my shoulders and looked into my eyes and said, “I can’t do this. It was a mistake. I’m not cut out for this. Please.” It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t mean for it to happen, but when it did, when she lost her footing, a calmness came over me. An opportunity presented itself, a chance to be there for my new family in the way I’d always wanted.
“I would never hurt Violet,” I say to Robin. “I love her. You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to love someone like that.”
“But her father thinks you hurt her.”
“Jim doesn’t know anything. He’s a weak little man who doesn’t know anything.”
“He knows he doesn’t want you near Violet.”
“He can’t keep her from me!” I shout. It’s the first time I’ve shouted in so very long, and my throat stretches around the words. I grow with them. A new anger makes me
sway.
“Come downstairs,” Robin says. She’s using the kind of voice you’d use to coax a nervous animal. “Let’s talk about this downstairs. I just want you and the baby to be safe.”
“No,” I say. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t want to open this up. I want Violet and I want a boy baby and I want what I should have had all along, what everyone else has taken from me.
“No!” I say again, and I reach out to push at Robin, but she’s already making her way down to the hall.
She turns the light on at the bottom of the steps, and I see her looking up at me and looking nervously behind her at the front door. She’s trapped, and she knows it. She’s not going out the front unless it’s life and death; she’s told me that before. I don’t want it to be life and death for her. But what life is this? She’s a hermit, a recluse. Living here in a home built for a family. Who would know if she wasn’t here? Who would know if someone with a family moved in? Violet and me. We could be happy here. I thought we could be happy with Robin, thought she could help me get my girl, rebuild my family. But I was wrong. For all her rebel talk, Robin is the biggest snitch of all.
“Why did you attack Mum?” Robin asks, looking up at me. She thinks I don’t notice that she’s stepping into her trainers in the dark of the corner. I see everything. Just like Mum did.
“Why do you think?” I say. Really? I really have to explain this?
“Because you thought she let everything happen to you?”
“She saw it all. She’d watched the way he looked at me, the way he planned it all. She says she didn’t, but she did. The same thing he’d done to her, he did to me—how could she miss that? Only Hilary was truly there to help me afterward. She got me some help, came to visit me. Picked me up when I got out, helped me start a new life in Surrey. Helped me find a job.”
“You tried to claw Mum’s eyes out?” Robin says. That’s a huge exaggeration, but I see from the way she’s screwed up her face that she will never understand how I felt that night and for all the years that ran up to it.