Her One Mistake(55)
Was Brian home already?
I imagined his face when he’d walk in and find me gone. For a while he’d presume I had popped out, but how long until he realized I should have been back? How long before he alerted Angela to the fact I’d disappeared? Until he urged them to believe I was as unhinged as he’d been making out and they should track me down immediately?
I put my handbag on the passenger seat and started the engine. I couldn’t waste any more time—I needed to get as far as I could as quickly as possible.
? ? ?
AS SOON AS I saw the flashing lights of the police car parked outside my house the day of the fair, I knew my plan had been carried through and Alice was gone. Brian had already been told that his daughter had disappeared and soon they would tell me. I couldn’t back out now, I kept thinking as I watched from inside my car.
Brian had dragged me out of the car and up the sidewalk, his fishing rods clanking like boats in the wind. For a very short moment my heart went out to him. Despite all he had done, I wondered if he deserved to think his daughter had been taken.
“Alice is missing.” His words screamed out into the still air. My legs were pulled from under me as I fell onto the ground as if my body had been taken along with her. That’s when it really smacked me that in that precise moment, I had no clue where my daughter was. I could pinpoint on a map where she should have been, but even as I imagined it, every road and motorway between us stretched interminably until I feared I might have lost her forever.
Had I made a mistake? What if someone else took her at the fair? How would I know if she was in a car accident? I screamed out Alice’s name, clawing my fingernails into the concrete until I was taken inside and forced to endure her last known whereabouts.
When Angela suggested it would be good to talk to Charlotte, I knew she’d be my downfall—I’d want to tell her everything. As adamantly as I refused, Brian was insistent, and eventually I caved. But as soon as my friend stepped inside my living room, I couldn’t bear to look at her. I wanted to freeze time around us so I could crawl across the floor and whisper in her ear, “I know where Alice is. This isn’t your fault. I’m sorry for what I’m putting you through, but I’m doing this for her.” As fear and guilt dripped from Charlotte’s words, I realized how stupid I’d been to convince myself she would one day understand why I’d done what I did.
Before that moment, I’d told myself it was only a matter of time before my daughter reappeared and Charlotte could move on with her life. Her abundance of friends would get her through the short term and no one would blame her. In fact, I’d not only thought they wouldn’t blame Charlotte, I believed they’d feel sorry for her. How dreadful she must feel, they would say. Their hearts would go out to her. It could have happened to anyone.
What I didn’t anticipate was that Charlotte would be posting on Facebook the moment my daughter was taken. That a journalist would pick that up and twist it until she looked like nothing more than a careless and inattentive mother who was ultimately as responsible as whoever had taken my daughter. To make it worse, every news report on Alice attracted comments from strangers lashing out at her, blaming her. Everyone was focused on Charlotte’s failings, and I couldn’t imagine how she was coping. Yet still I continued to reassure myself that as soon as Alice was back, everyone would forgive and forget.
But deep down I knew what I’d done. Because seeing Charlotte in my living room, trying to piece together how she could have lost my daughter, fractured my broken heart into more shreds. She would never get over it.
Later Brian paced the living room, loading every ounce of blame onto Charlotte, skillfully dodging it himself, as always. Of course, he could justifiably wipe his hands clean on this one, though it never stopped him when he couldn’t. This is your doing, Brian, I thought, watching him prowl, smacking a fist into the palm of his other hand when Angela wasn’t watching. If you hadn’t made it so impossible for me to leave, I would never have resorted to this.
It was ironic that the reason I’d never confided in Charlotte about my husband was because I didn’t want to lose her, when I knew now that I would anyway. When she came to the house that night, it was clear there was already too much separating us to be able to find our way back.
I’d had another friend once. After Jane and Christie and before Charlotte, I’d worked with a receptionist named Tina at my school in Kent.
Sometimes Tina and I would slip out and have lunch at the local bakery. She was in her early thirties and lived alone in a one-bed, purpose-built flat with two cats she wasn’t supposed to own. She was always intrigued by married life and how it didn’t seem to make people as happy as they should be.
“I’m happy,” I’d told her during one lunch.
Tina had snorted, wiping a napkin roughly across her nose, making me wonder how it didn’t catch the tiny stud that sparkled when she moved. She took a large bite of her sandwich. “No you’re not,” she’d said as sauce dripped onto her plate.
“Of course I am.” I’d been married a year and had a husband who was forever telling me he loved me and how beautiful I was, how I was the only thing in his life worth living for. We had just enough money to get by and I enjoyed my part-time job at the school, even if I wasn’t making the best use of my education. How could I not be happy?
“Really?” She opened her eyes wide. “Can you hand on heart say everything’s great?”