He doesn’t answer.
‘Jason?’ Goosebumps prickle my skin and I pray again that he’s all right. That he hasn’t been injured or done anything awful. I have no reason to imagine he would, but there’s this hard knot of fear in my chest that just won’t go away.
Taking a breath, I squeak the door open, my gaze going immediately to his desk. Seeing no sign of him, I step inside and then start as I realise where he is. Slumped in the leather club chair to the side of the door is my husband. Arms crossed over his chest, a bottle nestled in the crook of his elbow, Jason appears to be fast asleep. Close to unconsciousness possibly. My heart skitters against my ribcage as I crouch beside him and realise the bottle is empty. He chose to come here, not answering his phone, drinking himself into a stupor, rather than go home.
Oh, Jason…Moving closer, I check to make sure he’s breathing. His eyelids flicker as I study his face, tracing my fingers lightly over his high cheekbones and strong jawline. He’s in need of a shave, not that I’ve ever minded his unshaven chin grazing my skin. Dearly, I wish I hadn’t been so quick to judge him without establishing the facts. I’ve hurt him. I’d do anything now to undo it. To be home with him lying next to me, safe and sober. Then I would show him how much I love him. That I could never contemplate a life without him.
I press my lips lightly to his. ‘Jason,’ I whisper. He doesn’t stir and panic grips me afresh. I have no idea what to do. Should I call an ambulance? Try to get him home? But how? Easing myself to my feet, I pull out my phone, hoping to enlist the security guard’s help with getting Jason into my car. But… should I let him sleep it off for a while?
Uncertain, I decide to call my mum before moving him. My body feels heavy, weary with the weight of too much worry. I walk to Jason’s desk and sink into his chair.
My eyes fall on a Post-it note next to his laptop. I don’t really register what’s written there at first, and then a single word leaps out at me: ‘FlirtEasy’.My breath dies in my throat, my mind reeling as I read what’s beneath it: ‘Password – Megaidiot1’.Jason’s handwriting. My eyes confirm this, but my head refuses to believe it. My gaze shoots to the laptop and I reach towards it as if it might bite me.
Tentatively, I stroke a finger over the mouse, and the screen comes to life. I stare, stupefied, at it for a second. And then my heart lurches violently. He’s signed out, but it’s quite obvious which site he was signed into. Feeling sick to my stomach, I place my phone down and type in the password. Apart from the tears sliding down my cheeks, I am quite still as I read the profiles of the women who have responded to Jason almost blindly. There are several.
It’s Jason’s response to a message, though, that I can’t tear my gaze away from.Are you feeling lonely?
Bloody lonely, Jason answered.
Mega idiot. That would be me. My heart folds up inside me.
He was right. The raw ache in my chest turns to a hard kernel of anger. My father was right. I laugh, disbelieving.
But he’s a liar!Sarah shoots back.
He was right! The evidence is right there before my eyes. I heave out a gasp, feeling as if my lungs are turning inside out. Is this what he wants? These women, desperate for a man? Trembling with rage, I study the profile photographs – women as far from me as it’s possible to get. Fake faces caked in make-up, fake hair, fake photographs. False personas.
I can do fake. I can do false. I’m a fucking actress! An anguished moan escapes me.
I can do desperate.
I am desperate.
Twenty-Two
KARLA
‘You’ve decided to come home then?’ Working to keep any facetiousness from my voice, to stay in control while the cement that holds the foundations of my life together is crumbling to dust, I turn from the sink as Jason walks quietly from the front door to the kitchen.
Two days he’s been gone. Two whole days without even a word. Does he really care so little about me? Disillusioned, utterly, I simply stare at him. I know I will need to call upon all of my acting skills in order to detach from the crushing pain where my heart should be and carry on; to pretend I don’t know that he’s been doing what he so vehemently denied. I am so furious that he could do this, not just to me, but to our children, I have to force myself not to walk across the kitchen and punch him. Part of me is filled with hatred for him. There is part of me, though, the part that’s not bleeding inside, that still loves him, that truly is desperate to keep him, whatever it takes.
I have no idea how my legs are still holding me. They threatened to buckle beneath me when I saw him standing so uncertainly in the doorway: my husband, the man I gave everything to and imagined I would be spending the rest of my life with. I want to give in to it, to drop to the floor right here and weep like a baby, but I won’t. I don’t want his sympathy. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. I want him to love me. But I want the impossible, because if he’s doing this, then in his heart, he has already left me.
Jason looks towards me. His expression is apprehensive. ‘I needed some time,’ he offers. A lame explanation. He knows it.
Looking him over, I nod. He looks dreadful. He’s still wearing the clothes he had on when I left him deep in inebriated sleep in his office. He hasn’t shaved, and the dark shadows under his eyes, growing ever darker, indicate he hasn’t slept.Welcome to the club, I feel like saying. The dreams that have haunted me all my life have been relentless these last two nights, snatching me from fitful sleep whenever I manage to doze off. As I look at my husband, who I sense is leaving me as surely as my sister did, I feel it all over again: the empty loneliness of losing someone who is a fundamental part of you.
And then I am back there, living my nightmare, standing over the slim body that lies so still and cold. And I am inside, looking out. Silently, I ask myself, why did you lie for him? No breath escapes her blue-tinged lips, yet she breathes. Inside me, she breathes. We were independent, but one, inseparable. My father took her away from me, and I allowed him to. I allowed him to get away with the horrendous thing he’d done.
Jason and I are individuals. But wewereone: a couple, a unit, a family. Now broken. I can’t allow the person who chipped relentlessly away at our marriage, who mercilessly destroyed two more lives, to escape the consequences. Not this time. When Sarah died, I was too frightened of our father to tell.
I lied for him. I lied to myself. I tried to convince myself that our father would never do such a thing. But he did. I tried to convince myself Jason would never cheat. But he has. The life I lived after she was gone was a lie. My marriage is a lie. Should I feel guilty, then, for continuing the lies, for pretending to be a person I’m not in order to open my husband’s eyes? Jason did love me – that is a truth I am sure of. He could still. If only he remembered all the pieces of me that make the whole. I can’t lose him.
‘You’ve cut your hair,’ Jason says, breaking the silence that hangs heavy between us.
Instinctively, my hand goes to my bare neck. I sense disbelief in his voice, rather than disapproval. I couldn’t believe it either, as I’d stared into the mirror, watching the hair Jason always claimed he loved fall to the floor. Little pieces of me. I won’t miss them.
‘It’s nice,’ he says. ‘Suits you.’
