Her Perfect Family(42)

CHAPTER 27


THE MOTHER


‘I still don’t believe it.’ I feel giddy. ‘You’ve been married before and you didn’t tell me?’

We’re in the nurses’ small office at the entrance to the ward. I hate that we’ve had to leave Gemma with a nurse in the cubicle. I feel real physical distress to be out in this other world, away from our girl. What if we miss something? What if this is the very time that Gemma opens her eyes?

I feel light-headed, my arms tingling. ‘I’m sorry. I feel faint again.’

‘Sit on the floor. I’ll fetch a nurse.’

‘No. I don’t want a nurse.’

‘Well – put your head forward. I’ll get some tea with sugar.’

‘I want you to go.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rachel. We need to talk. And I can’t leave you like this.’

He doesn’t move and so I lower myself to the floor and put my head forward. Ed just watches and we wait a few moments in silence. I’m thinking of my mother sitting on the floor of the kitchen crying all those years ago. I still feel giddy but I don’t think I’m going to faint after all. I just need to wait a while and I need Ed not to be here.

‘I’m fine. I’m going to be fine. Just go. Please.’

At last Ed leaves the room and I’m relieved to be alone, words spinning around my head. Laura. Canada. Some ridiculous syndrome I’ve never heard of. That he probably made up to try to make his lies look better. I can hardly believe it. Ed married before. I find that I’m not only disorientated but jealous. What was she like – this first wife? This first choice? I have my eyes closed and am trying to work out what to do next when I hear the door again and Ed reappears, holding out a cup of tea.

‘Sip it. Please, Rachel. It’s got extra sugar.’

I don’t want the tea and I don’t want him back in the room either, but I also don’t want to speak so I just reach out for the cup. Resigned. It’s too hot but he tells me again to try sipping it. I do as I’m told. Tiny sips. It’s horribly sweet, the punch of it hitting the back of my throat, and I’m sorry to find it’s almost instantly waking me back up, sucking me back into this room. This new nightmare. I keep sipping, not because I want this new awareness but because it’s buying time. He’s quiet at last. Watching. And I’m trying to work out what to say to make him go; to leave so that I can return to Gemma and pretend this isn’t happening.

By the time I’ve drunk maybe a third of the tea, he’s repeating the bizarre story. The muddle of words, filling the room again. Laura. Canada. Psychotic episode. Capgras . . .

I try to shrink in on myself but the sugar’s preventing the retreat. A mistake. I reach out to put the remains of the tea on the nearest desk.

‘I should have told you. I wish that I had, Rachel. I’m so very sorry but I was so thrown when we met. So confused. And ashamed too. And I couldn’t believe it when you didn’t push me about my past. When you didn’t ask questions.’

I look up at him. This new Ed. This liar Ed. And there’s this part of me that always knew something like this was lurking. Waiting. And he’s right, actually. I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know. It was like a pact. I didn’t ask questions; he didn’t ask questions. Why did he have to spoil it? Why did the secret have to be this big?

‘I can’t do this, Ed. You need to go.’

‘No, Rachel. I’m sorry that this is hurting you so much. I never wanted this. To hurt you – or Gemma. But I can’t let you shut me down this time. We have to talk about this. The police say Laura’s here. In the UK. She flew here a few weeks ago. I’m sure they’ll sort it all out. That it’s some kind of terrible misunderstanding. But until they do—’

And now I feel my eyes widening. My mind opening. My thoughts are expanding like a bird stretching its wings and in this new expanse of air and pictures and puzzles, there’s the sudden realisation that Ed is not just confessing something bizarre about the past. Something over. Historic.

‘Oh my God, so is she dangerous? Violent? Is that what you’re really saying? This Laura. This first wife I knew nothing about. Are you seriously telling me that she may be involved in all of this?’ I glance to the door on to the ward and am thinking about Gemma in her coma with the frame over her horrible stump, the confusion and the shock all at once changing to a new emotion. Real anger.

I glare at Ed and am shocked to find I want to hit him. I feel this terrible bubbling up inside as if all the years of pressing things down, all the pictures and the confusion from the past, from my childhood, are suddenly in the room with us. All the shouting and the secrets and the lies and the pretending. All suddenly too much.

‘Are you saying that your first wife may have shot our daughter?’ I pull myself up, using one hand on the desk, to sit back on the chair by the wall, unsure if I’m steady enough yet to stand.

‘No, I’m not saying that. I don’t believe that for one minute. She wasn’t violent, Rachel, she was unwell. I would have said something right at the beginning if I ever thought that.’

‘So why are you speaking up now? Why are the police suddenly in a panic about all this now?’

My eyes dart wildly around the room as I start to think of DI Sanders, remembering why I need to talk to her too.