The Younger Wife(44)

Now, Tully looked out the bedroom window, watching the boys bouncing on the trampoline that had been allowed to stay only if it was tucked in the far corner of the garden, out of sight. Tully could hear them shouting, ‘I’m going higher than you . . . No, you’re not . . . I am . . . Daddy, he said he’s going higher!’ It reminded her of herself and Rachel when they were younger, always fighting to be higher, or faster, or better.

‘You’re both going equally high,’ Sonny said.

Sonny had always been an exceptionally good dad. Determined not to be like his own unreliable, largely-absent father, he made sure to spend time with the boys every day, and hung his parenting hat on the fact that if he said he was going to do something, he did it. (Tully, on the other hand, regularly promised the kids all sorts of things she had no intention of delivering. Her children, she’d figured out, were incredibly focused and intense, but also very forgetful, so this technique worked well for her.) Unfortunately, while he was spending a lot of time with the boys, he hadn’t been spending time with Tully, not since she’d told him her secret. The other night, when she got home from Rachel’s, he hadn’t even turned around when she came to his office door to say hello. Eventually she’d taken herself to bed, stuffing the cash-filled plastic bag in her bedside table, where her stolen goods had once been kept.

Rachel, by contrast, had taken the news that her sister was a kleptomaniac surprisingly well. She’d been shocked, naturally, and had stared at Tully for several seconds. ‘You’re a . . .’

‘Kleptomaniac,’ Tully repeated. ‘It means I steal stuff. I’ve been doing it my whole life. Well, since I was eleven.’

Rachel had lots of questions, naturally, and Tully had been happy to answer them. It had been cathartic, in a way, and Tully found herself wishing that Sonny had asked those sorts of questions instead of just cutting her off emotionally. There was something about the way Rachel spoke to her, as though she was curious rather than judgemental, that was incredibly reassuring. As a result, Tully felt closer to her sister now than she’d felt in months. Years. She may never have felt this close to Rachel.

Then there was the fact that Rachel had given her that money. She got out the bag of money now and looked it.

‘Where did you get this, Mum?’ she whispered.

The boys were on the grass now, sprinting away from Sonny, who was pretending to be a hungry grizzly bear. Tully opened the window.

‘Sonny! Have you got a sec?’

For a moment, he kept on with the game, and Tully thought he was going to ignore her. But after a few seconds, he said something to the boys and, abandoning the chase, headed indoors.

‘What is it?’ he said, when he arrived in the bedroom.

She gave him the bag of money. He looked at it and then immediately thrust it back at her, aghast. ‘Tully,’ he said. ‘Please don’t tell me you stole this.’

‘Oh no . . . I didn’t,’ she said. She very nearly laughed at his assumption, even though, she realised, it was in fact the most logical one. ‘Although I guess Mum might have. Rachel found it with Mum’s things, stuffed inside a hot-water bottle.’

‘Seriously?’ He looked down at the bag again. ‘You swear you didn’t take it?’

‘I swear. You can ask Rachel.’

That seemed to be enough for Sonny. He looked inside the bag. ‘How much is there?’

‘Nearly a hundred thousand.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘A hundred grand? How did Pam come by that kind of money?’

‘We don’t know. All we know is that it was inside the hot-water bottle along with a note that had my name on it and the name Fiona Arthur. We don’t know who she is, but according to Mum, Dad hurt her in some way.’

Sonny was shaking his head. ‘This is madness.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But Dad told Rachel she could keep the money, and when I told Rachel about our financial worries, she said I could keep it. I don’t feel comfortable accepting it all, but I thought maybe half?’ She shrugged. ‘I know that wouldn’t solve all our problems, but every little bit helps, right?’

It took a minute, but finally he started to nod. ‘Yes, every little bit helps. Though I’m not sure what the bank will think when I show up with cash in a plastic bag.’

‘We might need to launder it,’ Tully said earnestly, and was delighted when Sonny laughed.

‘You think Pam has given us dirty money?’

Now Tully laughed. ‘I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to say no.’

Sonny smiled. ‘Good old Pam.’

‘Good old Mum.’

They were standing close together, staring down at the money. Their sides were skimming each other, and Tully could feel Sonny’s body move with his breath. It was the closest they’d been in over a week. Tully felt an urge to throw her arms around him, but she held back.

‘Sonny,’ she said, ‘I know you’re upset with me, and I understand. But I promise I’m going to stop stealing. I’m going to make this right.’

‘You need to have counselling, Tully,’ he said. ‘You’ve been doing this most of your life and, as you said yourself, you can’t stop.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘And I agree – I’ll have counselling. I’ll do anything. Whatever it takes.’