The Family Next Door(41)
“But we haven’t really … done it … much lately.”
It was true. Clearly he’d been too busy being with Josie to have sex with his wife. “It only takes once,” she said.
Lucas looked so miserable Ange almost felt sorry for him. But she knew he wouldn’t leave his pregnant wife. He’d work through it, for her sake and for Will’s, and for the sake of the unborn child. By the time the baby was born, Ange would have built up their marriage sufficiently that he’d never need to look elsewhere again. This would blow over, she told herself.
But life, of course, had laughed at her.
Lucas had done the right thing, as Ange knew he would. Josie had disappeared from their lives with an unlikely ease. Lucas had been surprised by Ange’s libido during the month that followed. She remembered him saying as much, when she woke him early one morning, right on the heels of a late evening of lovemaking.
“Intimacy is important,” she told him, “to get our relationship back on track.”
Of course he didn’t protest too much. But with a ticking clock at her heels, Ange couldn’t afford to be blasé. She’d remembered hearing women saying things like “I ovulate early” or “I have a long cycle”—things that sounded important to know when you needed to get pregnant in a hurry. But Ange had no idea about her cycle. When she’d been trying to get pregnant the first time around, she’d simply gone off the pill and a couple of months later, voilà! But this time she needed to be smarter about it. She visited the pharmacy and picked up some of those ovulation predictor kits. Every morning she stared at the test window, waiting for an indication that today was a fertile day. On the day a smiley face appeared in the test window, she showed up at Lucas’s studio to surprise him. She remembered trying not to think about the last woman he’d had in there.
It was that time that had done the trick.
After an emergency C-section with Will, her obstetrician recommended scheduling an early C-section anyway. And Lucas didn’t pay attention to things like dates, especially the second time around. So, at thirty-seven weeks, when Ange sent Lucas off on a golf trip in Tasmania, he went along happily.
By the time he got back, they had another son.
Lucas was disappointed to have missed the birth, of course, but nothing made up for disappointment like a new baby boy.
Ange had thought everything would go back to normal after that. And admittedly, in the years that followed, there were long periods where she didn’t think at all about what she’d done. But then she’d be sitting at her desk one day, or driving the boys to school, and she’d be hit by a pang of guilt so strong she’d double over. Karma, as it turned out, really was a bitch.
The studio door opened and Ange sat up on alert. The little girl appeared first running, with Erin running behind her. Lucas held the door, watching them. Ange scrutinized him. He appeared to be fully dressed and he wasn’t showing any outward affection to Erin. Ange’s gaze turned to little Charlie, who was lying on the grass now, her T-shirt riding up as Erin tickled her. Her legs kicked. Get your camera, Lucas, Ange thought. This is the money shot. But Lucas’s camera was nowhere to be seen. He just watched them thoughtfully from the doorway. There was a softness to his expression that was a knife in Ange’s stomach. She became aware of her heartbeat; a quiet, urgent hammering. This wasn’t nothing, she realized. This was definitely something.
Charlie stood now, weary from laughter, but Erin wasn’t finished. She came at her again, fingers outstretched, tickling the air. Charlie shrunk away from her mother, back behind her forearm. There was something familiar about it, Ange realized. It reminded her … of Will.
Of Lucas.
Ange’s gaze snapped back to Lucas. His expression was unmistakable now. Soft and fond and bursting with pride. It was the way he looked at Will and Ollie. Ange had always thought it was a look reserved for his …
She slapped a hand over her mouth.
No. Vomit rose in her throat, but she forced herself to keep looking, to scour the scene for any evidence that she was right. Because if she was, things weren’t going to blow over this time.
Things were going to blow up.
27
FRAN
Fran was sprinting so fast she couldn’t hear her thoughts. It was bliss; it was agony. Her throat tasted of something—blood? bile? guilt?—but her legs just kept on pumping. The park was deserted but for a few dog walkers. It was midday and most kids were at home having lunch or taking their afternoon nap, she supposed. Rosie was at home with Nigel and Ava was asleep in her jogger pram, flying up and over the hills. It should have been creepy, being alone with her baby in a deserted park, but Fran found herself wanting to stay here. It was less confusing than being at home.
She came to a stop at the bottom of a hill and drained the last of her water from the bottle. She had a great affection for this park with its wide expanse of lawn, its huge wooden play-fort for the kids, and its wildly expensive pony rides on Sundays. Most weekends, children’s birthday parties were held by the barbecues. It was the park Rosie referred to as the “wood park” and the one she requested to go to most often. It was also the park where Lucas’s studio was located, and where, three years ago, he’d taken that fabulous photograph of them.
Three years ago. When things had been good.