‘Maybe he’s changed?’ I say. ‘Become a better person?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t believe any of us are capable of changing. Not really. We’re still always who we are inside, no matter what we try to show to the world. Don’t you think?’
‘Perhaps.’ I think of Zach. Was he always capable of such betrayal? How did I not notice it? ‘That’s if we see it in the first place,’ I tell Elaine.
She offers her sympathetic smile again. ‘Don’t blame yourself for anything. I spent a long time wondering if I’d pushed Dominic away, or turned him into the uncaring person he became, and it was ages before I woke up and realised none of it was my fault. I gave all I could to that marriage and I’m sure you did too.’
Although Elaine is being more forthcoming than I could have hoped for, I still don’t know whether Dominic Bradford was physically abusive towards her. I make one last attempt to find out for sure. ‘Still, divorce is one of the most stressful things you can go through. It’s funny, people get divorced for so many reasons: infidelity, abuse—’
She starts to say something but we’re interrupted by a knock at her door. Through the glass I see a young couple standing together, their arms wrapped around each other. Elaine smiles and holds up her hand to signal them to wait. ‘Oh, that’s my appointment. I have to go and show them a property now.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Between you and me, they’re bloody time-wasters. I think this must be the thirtieth house they’ve viewed and none are anywhere near good enough.’ She stands up and holds out her hand. ‘Anyway, it was lovely to meet you, Mia. If you just leave your details with Tina, the lady sitting nearest the front door, I’ll give you a call and we can get started with your search.’
I thank her and leave her office. As I head to the front door I see the woman who must be Tina. I consider stopping to leave my details, to keep up the charade in the hope that I can get more information about Dominic from Elaine, but I decide it’s not fair to deceive her this way. Besides, she doesn’t know anything about Dominic now – and she won’t be able to tell me a thing about Alison – so I need to move on.
I glance back at Elaine’s office and see she is busy talking the ears off the loved-up couple, so I smile at Tina and head through the doors, out into the oppressive heat.
* * *
Freya was quiet when I picked her up from Graham and Pam’s, and although I asked her about her weekend, she only offered mumbled responses. I didn’t push her, but now we’re back at home and she still won’t talk much. This isn’t like her.
‘Sweetheart, are you okay?’
She shrugs. ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’
She’s half-heartedly doing a jigsaw on the living room floor, and I sit down next to her. ‘You don’t seem okay. Can you tell me what’s wrong?’
Again she gives a shrug, but then immediately starts talking. ‘My daddy was a nasty man, wasn’t he?’
Her question is such a shock that for a moment I think I must have misheard her. She has never said anything like this before. But then she repeats herself.
I reach across and hold her hand. ‘No, sweetheart, of course he wasn’t. Why do you say that?’
She pulls her hand away. ‘Mummy, you’re lying. I know he was. He was a bad man.’ She tries to crush a jigsaw piece in her palm but it’s too sturdy so she gives up and throws it down instead. My daughter never behaves like this, at least not since she was a toddler and could only express her frustration with tantrums.
‘Freya, you need to tell me why you’re saying this and then we can talk about it properly, okay?’ I put the jigsaw piece back with the others.
Seconds pass until she finally nods. ‘I read it. On Grandad’s iPad.’
My chest tightens. ‘Read what, Freya?’
There are tears in her eyes now so I pull her towards me and wrap my arms around her. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart, just tell me everything. What did you read?’
Through her sniffs and snorts, I have to strain to hear all her words. ‘Megan told me how to Google stuff on her iPad so I used it to look up my dad.’
I knew this time would come eventually, I just didn’t think it would be when Freya was only seven. There is no way I can expect her to understand what happened, so all I can do is try to control the damage. I urge her to carry on.
‘It said he did a bad thing to a girl he was teaching. Mummy, what did he do? I didn’t understand it all. But they said she must be dead and that’s why he… made himself dead.’
Her tears come faster now so I hold her even tighter. I have always been honest with Freya and told her Zach took his own life. There was no way I was going to lie to her only for her to find out the truth years later and question everything she’s ever known. But I have never mentioned the circumstances surrounding it, only telling her that he felt very sad.
‘Listen to me, sweetheart. Daddy loved you very much – more than anything – and don’t you ever forget that.’
She thinks about this for a moment, staring at me with glassy eyes and a trembling lip. ‘Okay. But it’s horrible, Mummy. Was he really nasty, like they’re saying?’
‘What you’ve got to remember, honey, is that he loved you.’
‘And you, Mummy.’
My chest tightens. ‘Yes, and me. He loved us both and that’s all that matters. Don’t listen to anything else. As you get older you might hear more things about him, but you’ve got to just ignore it. And just keep remembering what I’ve said. He loved us, and nothing else matters. Sometimes people make bad mistakes – it doesn’t always mean they’re bad people.’
The words stick in my throat, threatening to choke me.
* * *
Will is in good spirits this evening, bounding through the door with a box of chocolates for me and a pack of the Frozen stickers he knows Freya collects.
I half-heartedly cook us a meal while they watch television together and I can’t bring myself to speak much as we eat. Thankfully, Freya has perked up after our chat and is keeping Will busy enough not to question me.
The talk I had today with Elaine plays on my mind. She didn’t come out and say that Dominic was abusive, but I know she was about to tell me something when we were interrupted. But it’s too dangerous to make assumptions. The only thing I know for sure is that either Alison or Dominic is lying to me. Was Alison scared of him? Is that why she quickly retracted her statement and practically ran from my office? Or is Dominic right and she’s extremely troubled? I can’t ignore the fact that she’s chosen to focus on me: there’s a reason for that and I need to find out what it is.
Drop it, Mia. You’ve fought hard to move on after what Zach did, and to build a life for yourself and Freya, so don’t step backwards now. That would be a huge mistake. But how can I forget Alison’s words, constantly whirring in my head?
* * *
Later, in bed, Will questions me about my reticence during dinner, just as I knew he would. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? Are you feeling ill again?’
Normally I don’t like to burden him – I try to solve problems on my own, and so far I’ve kept him out of anything to do with Zach, but tonight I’m exhausted, and just in this moment it feels right to share some things with him.
‘Oh, Will, something happened with Freya this afternoon and, well, it’s kind of thrown me. More than thrown me, actually.’
He sits up straighter, a frown on his face. ‘Tell me.’
I repeat what Freya said, trying to remember the words she used, but I know I won’t have them exactly right. I was too shocked to notice exactly how she put everything.
‘Oh shit,’ says Will, when I’ve finished. ‘That’s not good.’ He very rarely swears so I know this is a shock to him. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘The only thing I could. That Zach loved her and nothing else matters.’