‘I know,’ she says softly.
It’s cool in the kitchen and Simone could close her eyes and pretend the shade is England’s sun.
And even though he is still talking, Simone is no longer listening. He is here. She lets the worry ebb away. She sometimes has to remind herself that good things in life do not come with a price, that she won’t have to pay for happiness with disaster, and maybe this is one such time. Even just for now. He is here. It is no longer only on her.
She looks at Damien standing there and feels a rush of something. The unsaid. That awful row they had. The separation. The voicemail she left him. The risksshetook, with their daughter. It’s at this point that she notices that Damien is avoiding eye contact with her; in spite of their joy, their relationship has been changed by what’s been said. She can tell.
She tries to forget it. Their marriage, their family, is in front of them once more, where previously their future had been amputated by Lucy’s kidnapper. She doesn’t know what it looks like yet, but they have survived this far. Something unexpectedly delicious rises up through Simone, something she hasn’t felt for days and days: optimism.
Part III
THREE FUGITIVES
CHAPTER 53
Tomorrow, at four o’clock in the morning, when she inevitably wakes, Simone and Damien will be in bed together. She wonders if shewon’twake, or have nightmares, if she will sleep through the night for the first time since. At the pink house, two has become three, and Simone’s shoulders have dropped, her body feeling relaxed and limber. She is aware in some part of her that this might be a false victory, but as she cooks a whole chicken in Moody’s kitchen, she finds she doesn’t care.
Lucy tells Damien about the kidnap while Simone makes stuffing. She tells him everything, painful, small details she hasn’t told Simone. That she lay down on the little camp bed, awake, for eight hours straight overnight. That she tried to design a routine to stay sane in case she was held there for weeks.
Lucy goes for a bath – she takes two cups of tea in there with her, saying she will be two hours – and Simone and Damien risk sitting out back, looking at Moody’s trees while the chicken roasts, slumping in the two padded chairs that overlook the desert but are well hidden within the huge porch.
It’s the first time they have been alone. Parents are used to waiting to have significant conversations once their offspring are out of the way and, in some ways, this is no different.
The desert beyond their porch is spindly, decrepit, but attractive, too, the way weeds can be if you didn’t know what they were. In the distance, a couple of horses and their ridersamble up one of the hills. Otherwise, there’s nobody around at all. It’s the only time they’ve been away together since Dishes opened.
Damien is chewing gum, and the air is intermittently scented with sugar and mint as he speaks.
‘So,’ he says. He left most of his things at the hotel he stayed at when the police interviewed him, then travelled light. He has only himself.
But Simone finds she doesn’t want to talk; she just wants to be, right here, in the moment. They have so many problems. It’s impossible to solve them all.
She looks out to the horizon, the sky swallowing up the gobstopper of the sun for another day, and thinks that it’s a sort of strange and beautiful way to live. A mindfulness not accessible at home.
‘So,’ she replies reluctantly.
Damien looks down at his glass. It’s lemonade, ice cubes that bob and clink the only noise. ‘We have some things to say.’
Simone wants desperately to avoid it, but can’t.
‘Yeah,’ she says instead. He will have to extract it out of her. The truth is, she isn’t sorry. She got their daughter back alive. She did mean what she said, even though she both wishes she didn’t and wishes she hadn’t felt the need to say it. It’s windy again today in the desert, and it ruffles Damien’s hair back from his forehead. The bathroom is at the back of the house, too, and through the open window, Simone hears the sloshing of water. She reaches up to close it. ‘I’m amazed it worked,’ Simone says. ‘Beyond amazed. You’re here.’
‘Can we talk about our row?’
‘I am sorry I said such an ugly thing to you.’
‘Did you mean it?’ he asks, his tone mild.
‘I shouldn’t have said it.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘Maybe we love her differently,’ Simone answers.
A soft laugh. ‘So you did mean it.’
Simone turns her mouth down. ‘A taboo exploded out of me at the wrong time, but …’
‘Yes.’
