Before I Let You Go(116)

I get it, I really do. If there were warning signs and I missed them, that makes this my fault. It’s a lot easier to blame me than it is to blame a dead man. If there were warning signs, that means that this whole situation was entirely preventable – and that means people can stop it happening to them. All they have to do is be a little more vigilant than I was – poor, foolish Olivia . . . so blind to what was happening right there in her own husband’s mind.

I want to talk about it, but I don’t want to talk about bloody ‘warning signs’. I just want to say his name. I want to scream it in anger, and I want to wail it in grief. Mostly, I just want to hear myself say the words aloud – without feeling like I’m making whoever is in the room with me unbearably uncomfortable.

My husband’s name was David Wyatt Gillespie. When he died, he was thirty-seven years old. He was on the town council and one day he was going to run for mayor. He was the captain of our town cricket team for ten years, and when he was at university, he played representative football. He always said he might have gone pro if he hadn’t been so focused on his business degree. Here in Milton Falls, David ran a full-service car dealership – the only one in our small town. You might not think that a tiny Australian village would be the right place for a prestige dealership like that, but David found a way. He was so good at what he did that people came from miles around to buy their new cars from his team, and they usually returned for their servicing too.

David was just over six feet tall and in recent years, a little overweight. He had thick black hair that stubbornly held onto its colour, but it had just begun to recede in the year before he died. David was charming and effortlessly persuasive; a salesman through and through. He could take on an irate customer and, with a flash of that smooth grin and some well-placed words of consolation, turn them back into a devotee. He was that guy at high school – the one all the girls wanted, the one all the boys wanted to be. Out of my league – for sure – or so I thought, until we met again at university. The night we got together, our eyes locked across a crowded room and it was as if we were seeing each other for the very first time. I felt like I was a character in a romance novel or a princess in a Disney movie, somehow brought to life.

It’s funny how even the memory of that first night is no longer pure; it’s tinged with guilt and uncertainty. Did I feel that overwhelming tug of attraction because of genuine chemistry with David, or because I wanted to be swept off my feet? I was no passive participant; this was no case of ‘falling’ in love, it was entirely ‘jumping’ into love with both feet; well before checking that it was safe to do so. I wanted to live a fairy tale, and I told myself that’s what I was doing, even long after it became apparent there would be no happy ending.

Even now, when I think of him, I’m scared. He’s dead and I’m safe, but I’m still scared. Perhaps the strangest thing about all of this is that there’s no denying that I loved him too, at least at one point. Sometimes I actually miss him, but then in the very next breath I find that I hate him so much that I hope there is a hell, just so that he can be suffering like he left me here to suffer.

David’s parents live seven houses away from me. His father, Wyatt, usually walks past my house just after 6 a.m. each morning with their small brood of Pomeranians. David’s mother, Ivy, generally walks past again with the dogs just after 6 p.m. If I am on the front lawn, they throw a stiff ‘hello’ in my direction and walk a little faster. If I’m not, they glance at the house but they don’t stop. I know this, because I watch the time and even if I do happen to be outside at either edge of the day, I rush inside when they are due to pass. I usually watch from behind the curtains in the living room to make doubly sure they don’t stop.

That’s exactly what I’m doing now, actually. I’m standing in the living room with my daughter Zoe in my arms, and I’m peering out at the street as Ivy approaches. She dresses well and she looks after herself, and as a result, she looks much younger than she actually is. She used to hint at me sometimes that I could pay more attention to how I looked. I glance down at my yoga paints and the stained T-shirt I’m wearing. When I brought Zoe home from the hospital, I pulled this shirt on and took it right off again because it was uncomfortably tight, but now it is miles too big. I can’t remember the last time I washed my hair – it’s in my now-standard messy bun. Ivy would be mortified if she happened to see me tonight.

I see her reach the letterbox and in addition to her regular glance at our house, she pauses. That’s unusual enough that my heart starts to race and I feel the pounding of my pulse all through my body until I can hear it in my ears. I bounce a little, rocking Zoe gently in my arms, and when I see Ivy look towards the windows where I am hiding, I step back to make sure she doesn’t see me.

This means I don’t see her walk down through the garden, and when the doorbell rings after a few moments, it is a burst of too-loud sound in my too-silent house and it startles me into an adrenaline rush. I consider ignoring her and pretending I’m not home – but the lights are on, and besides which . . . I’m pretty sure she still has keys. Would she have the keys to the new lock, the one David installed just before he died? Probably not. I’m probably safe. I could probably ignore her.

I won’t, though. I’m as ambiguous about Ivy as I am about her late son. I miss her, and I love her but . . . I’m not entirely sure that I trust her. Ivy wasn’t ever able to see David’s flaws, even when they were right under her nose. I know I can safely assume she believes that what happened was entirely my fault.