Her One Mistake(91)

Harriet nods. “Because of what you said to the police?”

“That’s part of it.”

“Do you think you did the wrong thing?” Harriet’s gaze drifts away as she prods a slice of cake with a small fork, sending tiny crumbs flying across the plate.

Charlotte sighs. “I never thought I was capable of what I did. It makes me feel guilty. And afraid. I’m afraid that one day it will all catch up with me.”

“That can’t happen now,” Harriet says.

“No, maybe not, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

“What do you mean? You’re still the same person.”

“No,” Charlotte replies flatly. “I’m not the same person at all. I do things now that are so out of character.” Tom wouldn’t believe her if she told him how she’d almost interfered in that couple’s argument. “I’m so far from that person and it scares me, because I liked the old me.”

“But what’s actually changed?” Harriet asks. “Your life’s still the same. You have the same group of friends and live in your lovely house with your amazing kids. What’s so different?”

Charlotte lays her hands flat on the table and fiddles with the corner of a napkin. She imagines Harriet buying them especially for her visit and feels a flash of pity for such an effort. “Everything is different, Harriet. None of it is real. It feels like everything I do is a lie and I can’t talk to anyone about it. My best friend doesn’t even know what I’ve done.” She doesn’t mean to, but she finds herself emphasizing the words “best friend.”

“You want to tell Audrey. Is that what this is about?” Harriet drops her gaze to her plate.

“Yes, I’d love to tell Audrey, but that’s not what this is about. It’s about me feeling so angry all the time. I have this rage inside me that has nowhere to go,” she says, holding a hand against her stomach. “Can you imagine how that feels?”

“Of course I can. I felt exactly the same when I was told my dad was dead. I felt that way for most of my marriage.”

Charlotte looks down. She knows how upset Harriet was about her father, but that wasn’t why she’s come here and she refuses to be pulled into Harriet’s world today. “I’m sorry about your dad,” she says. “But you need to tell me what to do with this anger.” She can feel the heat bubbling inside her. “I’m angry with you, Harriet,” she says bluntly. “I’m angry that you seemed to have moved on and set up such a nice life for yourself.”

Harriet glances around the room with its tiny window and minimal cabinets, the gas stove with its rings that look dirty no matter how much she scrubs them.

“You have the life you always wanted,” Charlotte says.

“The life I always wanted? What do you imagine my life is?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte admits. “But you’ve started again and I’m left—” She isn’t sure how to finish the sentence.

“You’re left what?” Harriet asks.

Charlotte sighs. “I don’t know. Dealing with it all.”

“You think I’m not?” Harriet says. “Every day I expect to see Brian turn up on the doorstep. I open the door and imagine him standing there, that look in his eyes, his head cocked to one side, and I can hear him clear as day: ‘Hello, Harriet. Surprise.’?”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“His body was never found,” Harriet says. “So it might be unlikely, but it’s not impossible. The years of dreading him coming home, fearing I’d done something wrong or said the wrong thing. Wondering what I was going to be quizzed about next—none of that leaves me. I don’t know if it ever will.”

“Are you telling me that after everything that’s happened, it’s no better?” Charlotte asks.

“Of course it’s better. But it doesn’t turn magically wonderful. I’m happy once I’ve reassured myself he’s not going to walk in the door any moment. Then I breathe again and I go back to living my life with the children. But I’m still dealing with it. And I doubt I have the kind of life you think I do.” Harriet smiles sadly. “I don’t do much with it but it’s fine. It’s what we need right now and that’s what matters. Alice needs to feel safe. They both do.”

Harriet places her fork carefully on the plate. “There’s not a day that passes that I don’t look back and wish I could change what happened. But at the time I was so desperate, I didn’t know what else to do. I was living in a trap that Brian created, and honestly, I couldn’t see any way of escaping him.”

“But why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“It took me a long time to realize what he was doing,” Harriet says. “By then I felt like he’d convinced everyone around us that I was crazy. When I started writing in my notebook, I was already wondering myself if I was. I didn’t—” Harriet stops.

“You didn’t trust me?”

“No, maybe not,” she admits. “But only because I was so frightened. I didn’t trust anyone. I believed him when he said he’d take Alice from me, and I thought that if I’d fallen for it for years, then how could I expect you not to. Can you honestly say you would have taken my word over his?”