His & Hers(92)
I wanted Catherine to kill herself, because then I knew everyone would blame her for the murders. She had the best motive, after what those girls did to her. I hid beneath the bed and waited, with my knife in my hand just in case I might need it. I could hear everything she did—arranging the chair, removing her shoes before climbing onto it, crying—but I could not see. It took a long time for her to put the noose around her neck, but it wasn’t until afterward I discovered she had changed the knot. Something her father taught her how to do when they went sailing, apparently.
As far as I knew then, everything was going according to plan. I heard her step off the chair and the sound of the ceiling beam creaking as she swung from it. But then Cat’s husband arrived unexpectedly—the greasy cameraman—so I had to kill him too. He screamed like a girl when he saw Cat swinging from the ceiling. So I stabbed him before he had a chance to turn and see me. Then I smashed his skull with a cast-iron paperweight I’d seen on the dresser. He wasn’t supposed to be there. Neither was Anna. I had to hide again when she came upstairs. The only reason I canceled their hotel rooms was because I thought she would come home to me. That was all I ever wanted. For her to come home.
I stared up at Cat after I killed her husband. The noose was still around her neck, her eyes were closed, and I was convinced she was dead too. But I guess she was a good actress. Willing to do whatever it took to save her children, just like me. She must have seen my face without me realizing, because she recognized me a little later.
I’ll admit that I was scared when I ran into her in the woods. Cat could have told Anna and the police what I had done. Instead, she started screaming like a madwoman, demanding to know where her little girls were. She stabbed me with my own knife when I wouldn’t say. Her daughters were fine, of course. Just a little drugged and sleeping it off in the shed; the police found them not long after. I’d never hurt a child; I’m not a monster.
Sometimes I think Anna knows that I killed those women as well as her father. I can think of no other reason why she picked up the knife Catherine dropped in the woods and hid it in her handbag. I think she must have recognized it. I borrowed it from Jack’s house, after all, from a set I gave them as a wedding gift.
* * *
“What are you making?”
Olivia comes into my bedroom and I realize that I had been daydreaming. My mind does wander when it wants to, but not because I have dementia, just because I am old. I don’t take the drugs the doctors give me; I plant them in the soil instead, like seeds. When my time comes I will go gracefully, but not before. Priya Patel coming to ask me questions is nothing to do with kindness. Nor is it a coincidence; there is no such thing. Loose threads should always be dealt with; they can make things untidy.
The child walks over, then climbs up to sit on my lap. She stares at the friendship bracelet I’ve been making.
It’s almost finished.
I make a fist around the red-and-white cotton strands to hide them from view, surprised as always by the age spots and paper-like quality of my skin. Then I slip the bracelet inside the old wooden jewelry box that used to belong to Anna. I am aware that Olivia saw it. Children always see far more than we’d like or know.
“That was pretty,” she says.
“It was, wasn’t it?” I reply.
“Is it a present for me?” she asks with a cheeky grin.
“Oh no, it’s for someone else next time they come to visit.”
Olivia looks sad.
“Don’t worry, I have something for you too.”
I take the bumblebee costume out of the closet and she squeals with delight. Anna and Jack also look pleased as the child hurtles out of my bedroom, through the living room, and into the garden, running around in circles. I made it myself in the textiles class they have here. I’m rather good with a needle and thread.
“I miss my busy bees,” I tell Olivia, watching her from the doorway.
She laughs and dances and sings the same sentence over and over.
“I’m a busy bee! I’m a busy bee! I’m a busy bee!”
Her words translate into something else entirely inside my ears.
Happy family. Happy family. Happy family.
I smile at them all then, because I’ve finally got what I always wanted.
Acknowledgments
Books are a bit like children for authors; you’re not really allowed to have a favorite, but I am rather fond of this one. I wouldn’t have been able to write it without the following amazing people in my life.
Forever thank you to my agent, Jonny Geller, for taking a chance on me and always knowing the right thing to say. Agenting is a funny business, and far more complex than I ever imagined. It requires one person to perform many roles: reader, editor, manager, therapist, surrogate parent, boss, and friend. Thank you for being so good at all of them.
Amazing agents are rare, so I feel incredibly lucky to have more than one. If Mary Poppins had decided to become a literary agent, she would be Kari Stuart at ICM. Thank you to Kari for being (actually, not practically) perfect in every way. Thank you to Kate Cooper and Nadia Mokdad for selling my books around the world. Thanks to these two brilliant women, stories written in my little shed have been translated into more than twenty languages. It is nothing less than magic, and I’m so grateful. Thank you to everyone else at Curtis Brown, the best agency in town, with special thanks to Ciara Finan.