He smiles and I find myself smiling too.
Then I feel the need to retreat.
“Thanks for showing me this place and telling me about my grandmother. But it’s getting late and I think I’ll probably start heading back to London.”
“So soon? You only just arrived.”
“Afraid so. Things to do, places to be, you know how it is.” He looks as though he doesn’t and it makes me think that living here must be lonely for someone his age. What he says next confirms it.
“Do you want to get a drink before you go?” he asks.
It’s been a while since I had anything to do with the opposite sex. My relationships are all nonstick, which makes them easier to wipe from my memory. So I’m a little out of practice, but I don’t think I’m imagining it. The hot young police officer is asking me out.
15EDEN
October 30
Someone is out to get me; I’m not imagining it.
The roads are quiet at this time of night but it still takes longer than it should to drive to the place where our daughter lives now. Time seems to stretch and contract as though I can no longer tell it, and nothing about tonight feels real to me, but I know that it is. The woman in my house pretending to be me is lying. My husband is lying. I’m starting to think the police officer is lying too. But I know that I am Eden Fox, and that woman, whoever she is, is an impostor. I hope visiting my daughter will help me prove it.
I don’t stop, even when the car displays a warning light. It’s electric and isn’t fully charged, but I’m sure it has enough juice to get me where I need to go. The roads are pitch-black and all look the same to me, but I think I’m heading in the right direction. Calling them roads seems overly generous when I am rarely on anything more than a single-track lane. Blackmoor is full of them, narrow winding lanes paved with potholes and lined with a labyrinth of high hedges, so you can barely see where you have been or where you are going.
I haven’t visited Gabriella since we dropped her off six months ago. She didn’t want to live here and the whole thing was very upsetting for all concerned. But it was best for her, and for us. It wasdefinitely best for me, even if Harrison didn’t completely agree. He wasn’t the one looking after her. Ten years is a long time to take care of someone who needs that level of attention. Even someone you love.
Gabriella was only eight years old when the accident happened.
She wanted to play hide-and-seek in the house—her favorite game—but I’d said no.
I told her to go outside and get some fresh air instead, and she wasn’t happy about it. I dressed her in her coat and the matching pink bobble hat and mittens I had knitted for her that winter. She was a little madam back then; tears and tantrums were guaranteed if she didn’t get her own way, but that afternoon she did what she was told without the normal fuss. I should have known she was up to something. Gabby was always a daddy’s girl. She liked me, but sheadoredHarrison, and wanted him all to herself whenever he was at home. But I wanted to spend time with him too, alone, in a way that an eight-year-old doesn’t understand.
We weren’t always the us we are now. I think maybe this happens to all couples eventually, but some try to hold on to what they had rather than admit it’s gone. Our variety of love is like a sand timer; it was always going to run out and I think I knew that from the beginning. All varieties of love are an equation. Timepluslifemultiplied byhard timesplusheartbreakequalsloveminuslust? Maybe relationships are just a matter of math? My husband doesn’t love me the way he used to, but he does still love me, I know he does, and perhaps that is all anyone can hope for when they have been together as long as we have. Love is more important than passion anyway.
Isn’t it?
Ten years ago Harrison and I couldn’t keep our hands off each other. On the day the accident happened I thought Gabriella was playing outside like I’d told her to—it was a very safe neighborhood—so when Harri started getting a bit hands-on after lunch, I suggested heading up to the bedroom for a quickie. Back then he could neversay no, but with his job and a little girl to look after, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend with each other. So when opportunities presented themselves, we took them. I removed my clothing one piece at a time that afternoon, dropping my blouse, my skirt, then my bra on the floor as I walked up the stairs, silently seducing him, wanting him to want me. He followed, just like I knew he would, and when I dropped my knickers on the landing he bent down and picked them up, staring at me the whole time with a smile on his face. I miss that smile. By the time we reached the bedroom I was already naked. He stood in the doorway and drank down the sight of my body. Even with his suit trousers still on I could see it had the desired effect. I always wore my hair down back then; it was so long it almost covered my nipples, and hid some of the tan lines that decorated my bronzed body. Harri liked to slowly trace those whiter-than-white bits of my skin with his finger, then his tongue. But there was no time for foreplay that afternoon. I climbed onto the bed facing away from him, got on all fours, and waited. He accepted the unspoken invitation, unzipped his fly, and entered me from behind. Then I let him do whatever he wanted to me, just like always.
Afterward, he had a shower before driving back to work. I lay exhausted on the bed, not wanting to get up, and it was only when I eventually did that I knew Gabriella wasn’t where I thought she was. She’d been outside earlier, riding her bike up and down the street, just like children do. She knew not to go too far and she should have been safe. She’d begged Harrison to take the training wheels off the bike the day before, but he refused, said she wasn’t ready. When I looked out of the bedroom window after he left there was no sign of Gabby outside. The guilt I felt in that moment was huge, but the fear was overwhelming. Fear of him never forgiving me if something ever happened to her.
I did all the things people do when children disappear.
I looked for her in all her usual hiding places.
I didn’t want to worry Harrison until I had to, until I was sure, sohe was already back in his office by the time I called to say Gabriella was missing. His assistant heard the panic in my voice and put me straight through.
It was Harri who called the police. He told me to stay calm and that help was on the way. My husband has always been able to keep his head in a crisis.
The sky was dark and it was raining. I stared out of the window. Watching. Wishing. Waiting. Big fat raindrops streamed down the glass like tears, but I didn’t weep. I sat and I worried and I waited for the police to arrive. Afterward, everyone said that I wasn’t to blame. That it could have happened to anyone. That it was an accident. But I have always blamed myself for what happened to Gabriella that day. It was my job to keep her safe and I didn’t.
I heard the screaming siren of a police car in the distance.
It got louder and closer so fast.
Then I heard the sound of screeching brakes.
I ran out to the front of the house but it was almost impossible to see anything. The rain was so hard it seemed to be falling up as well as down, bouncing off the ground. The police car had stopped on the street almost right outside but at a strange angle. The siren was still wailing and its blue light continued to flash, causing a series of blue reflections on the black, rain-covered road. I saw the bike first. It had become a twisted, flattened metal shape beneath the car’s front tires. I stopped and stared, unable to process what I was seeing, my eyes searching for her. Then the tears started streaming down my face with the rain when I recognized the little pink mittens I had knitted.
I saw Gabriella lying on the road.
