The Family Game(69)

He leans in and kisses my forehead. ‘Ah, annoying. Sorry, honey. That sucks. Still, at least it was just research, right? Love this retro tech though. Very analogue, very ’90s. Dad would love it. Heck, I love it,’ he chuckles, reaching back to the chair to grab it. ‘Is this for the book research too?’

A shiver runs up my spine at the meta nature of the conversation we are now having.

‘Er, yeah,’ I answer. ‘It’s a split timescale. The next book. Present day and the ’90s. Lots of fun period stuff in there.’ I smile, gently taking the Olympus recorder back from him. ‘I just need to get the edits back and have a reshuffle before I start talking about it.’

As I look down at the cassette window of the recorder in my hands, I suddenly realize that all might not be lost. Only one side will be wiped. While Side A is lost, Side B should be untouched.

‘Sounds great. Can’t wait to read it,’ he tells me, getting to his feet and offering me a hand up. I rise like a hobbled Bambi.

I watch Edward’s back as he leads me through to the kitchen, and our champagne, then I steal another fleeting look down at the Olympus in my hands. A question re-emerges. Why was Edward in my office in the first place? And a doubt slowly forms. Did I accidentally wipe the tape, or did he?

When I look back up, he’s looking directly at me.





35 Road Trip




Friday 23 December

Bags packed and ready to go in the trunk of the car beneath Mount Sinai Hospital, we wait on the bleach-scented ward for our names to be called.

I try to think only one step ahead, of seeing the face of my baby, of finding out if I have a daughter or a son. My due date is 7 July next year. Hard to process that I have been pregnant for three months already without anyone but us knowing. I try not to speculate on what will come after that. I do not want the baby to feel my fear.

Edward looks up from his phone as a couple exits the scanning room. I watch his profile and wonder how long he was alone with that tape player in my office. Ten minutes? Fifteen? Twenty? I sat paralysed by rumination in our bedroom for long enough.

Later that night I checked the recording I tried to make on my iPhone and it turns out it was my fault; I did accidentally wipe one side of the tape. There was an hour-long recording of an empty office on my iPhone with only five minutes of Edward and I talking at the end.

But I can’t prise my thoughts from the image of the mini cassette out of the player and in Edward’s hand. He had enough time to turn it over and listen to what was on the other side. There’s no way I can be sure he didn’t hear his father’s voice.

A nurse rounds the corner and gives us a smile that asks if we’re ready.

Moments later in the darkness of the sonography room, we are asked if we want to know the sex of our child from my blood results, and as the nurse tells us, something beautiful bursts open inside me.



* * *



The drive to The Hydes is long. After two hours of freeway and an hour of forest-flanked highway, we stop at a local gas station. It’s the only sign of civilization we’ve seen for miles and it looks unmanned. Edward jumps out to fill us up and I catch sight of an attendant in the cramped kiosk across the forecourt.

The GPS says we have another forty-five minutes before we arrive at The Hydes, and I still haven’t had a chance to listen to the rest of the tape. I plunge a hand into my bag in the footwell and check it’s still there, the dry foam of the headphones brushing reassuringly against my wrist. The tape is stored in a separate zip pocket. I feel safer with the two apart. The rest of Side B is waiting for me and the sooner I can listen the better. I haven’t had a second away from Edward since last night though.

I look out at the gas station hoping for signs of a restroom. I could listen to it now, lock myself away in a grotty toilet for as long as I need and refuse to come out. But even as I think it I know it’s a terrible idea. What would Edward think? I watch as he ambles back to the car and slips in beside me, blissfully unaware of the thoughts and fears racing through me. He’s certainly not acting as if he heard anything on the tape. He would have said something, surely, and we certainly wouldn’t be on our way to his childhood home to meet his family if he’d heard what was on it.

He restarts the engine, handing me a chilled bottle of water and a gas station snack with a smile. ‘This’ll keep you going,’ he says, and I think how great a husband he’s going to be; a great father, if we ever get that far.

We roll out of the station and I let my gaze skim the landscape rushing past, mile after mile of thickly packed forest still standing between us and them.

As we drive, Edward tells me more about The Hydes and I try to picture it.

‘John Livingston Holbeck bought the land back in 1886, but the house wasn’t there then. He demolished the original building, razed it to the ground and rebuilt something bigger, grander. Something with more history.’

‘He built something with more history? What the hell does that mean? How would a new building have more history?’ I interject, my European sensibilities ruffled.

‘Because it wasn’t a new building. He bought a stone mansion from somewhere in the hills outside Budapest. A castle. He had it taken apart and shipped over here to the US. They rebuilt, stone by stone, and it became The Hydes. Alma, John’s wife, had remarked on it from a carriage on their honeymoon. The building had fallen into disrepair, so the story goes, and it had made her sad.’