‘You miss him,’ said Noah.
‘Yeah, of course.’
‘But that’s not what’s troubling you.’
Her fingers pulled at the label on the beer bottle. ‘I’ve a few things on my mind, that’s all.’ She tilted her head back to get the rest of the beer and when he offered her a second, she accepted.
He grabbed another two beers from the fridge, peeked in on Eva, who was fast asleep, and returned to the back porch.
‘It’s my ex,’ she confessed before taking a sip of her beer.
He should’ve known.
When she finished telling him all about Conrad’s plan to have Christmas and New Year in Ireland with Isaac, he asked, ‘And are you invited?’
‘I am, but I’m not going. I can’t for one thing, with work, but I wouldn’t want to either. It’s a way for Conrad to be in control, for him to get me to do what he wants and probably another attempt at making me see that I can’t live without him.’ She said the last part of the sentence louder and more dramatically. And then clasped a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry…’ she cringed.
Noah shook his head. ‘The smoke alarm went off when I burnt toast a couple of days ago and Eva didn’t stir; I doubt you’ll have woken her. Getting her to sleep can be a challenge but once she’s asleep, she won’t wake unless she wants to and that’s usually in the middle of the night.’
He missed her smile when it faded again. ‘I know this is going to sound crazy…’
‘Try me.’
‘Sometimes I ask myself whether Conrad had that accident so he could get me to play nursemaid and be around him more. Ridiculous, I know.’
‘It’s not ridiculous…’ He wiped the condensation his hand had gathered from the bottle onto the leg of his jeans. ‘I’m not sure how to say this…’
‘I find it’s easiest to blurt these things out.’
‘I think I saw him.’ He spoke up before he could chicken out. ‘Remember happy hour at the pub that night?’
‘Conrad wasn’t there.’
‘Not inside, no. But when I was walking back here along the path beside the river, I’m almost positive I saw him running down the alleyway.’
She didn’t say anything straight away.
‘You’re sure it was him?’ she said eventually.
‘Not totally sure, but I saw the cast on the man’s arm.’
‘Right…’ She took a couple of sips of beer in quick succession before adding, ‘You know, I shouldn’t be surprised.’
‘You’re not angry?’
Her sigh was one of defeat; if it was him and he’d been waiting on someone hand and foot, he’d be cursing out loud and heading straight round there to demand answers.
‘You must think I’m crazy to put up with all his shit,’ she said.
Totally, which told him the man was manipulating her in a way she couldn’t escape from, like the cruelty of holding onto the leg of a dragonfly and watching its body wriggle around and try to get out of your grasp, except that it never quite could.
But he didn’t want to make her feel worse. ‘Not at all.’
‘I’ve been wondering if he’d been putting it on a bit, you know.’ Shaking her head, she added, ‘At least now I won’t feel guilty when I pretend I’ve been called into work and make him get a taxi to his hospital appointment.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll enjoy that.’
‘Are you going to confront him?’
‘At the moment, I try to keep things calm.’ She filled him in a bit on the relationship between Conrad and Isaac. ‘I don’t havethe best of relationships with my own father for reasons I won’t go into and I don’t want the same for Isaac.’
