He had it all worked out: a petition for adultery, the quickest route to a clean divorce, leaving him free to marry the redhead before the ink had dried on their decree absolute.
‘Part of me will always love you, Lil. Always. But surely you must know things haven’t been great between us these past few years. I don’t know … After all those miscarriages … I never felt like we’d just lost a baby. I always felt we’d lost a little piece of our marriage too.’
The back of Lily’s throat burned. She thought about her lost babies, those ghostly figures of children who would never take up their rightful place in the family yet never altogether disappear. ‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner? If you wanted to be with her so much, why didn’t you just leave me?’
Daniel hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t sure, I suppose.’
‘You weren’t sure about what?’
‘I wasn’t sure about anything. For God’s sake, it’s not a decision I’ve taken lightly. I didn’t know until I got here – until Amy and I were living together – that things were going to work out between us.’
It took a moment for Lily to understand what he meant. ‘You were hedging your bets? You came out here to test the water? And what were you going to do if it didn’t work out? Come back to me? Pretend nothing had ever happened? Wait until someone else came along? I can’t believe your audacity, Daniel. I can’t believe you could be so selfish, so calculating.’
Lily watched Daniel’s eyes flick up to the left, as they always did when he was in the wrong, the way his lips rolled inwards when he was lost for words, the way his fingers rubbed against one another when he was agitated. And in that moment she hated him. She hated him for calling time on their marriage without so much as a warning. Hated him for not having had the courage to leave her until he’d already replaced her. Hated him for the biological injustice that he could start a whole new family. More than anything she hated him for the inequity of it all.
Lily released her hands from their grip on the stone wall, took a step backwards, and began to walk away. Her legs felt as though they were no longer attached to her body, seemed to be moving independently of the rest of her. Her head felt light, as though it had been emptied of everything she thought she knew about her life. Just a single thought went round in her mind: that she needed to keep going, putting one foot in front of the other, and accept the fact that she didn’t know where she was heading or where she might end up.
‘Lil? Where are you going? You can’t just leave. We need to talk.’
Lily whipped her head around and looked directly into Daniel’s eyes. ‘I can’t just leave? You’re the one doing the leaving, Daniel. You’re the one who’s shacked up in New York with a mistress half your age. You’re the one who’s about to become a father again at nearly fifty, with no thought at all for the daughter you’ve abandoned in London. You’re pathetic, do you know that? You’re pathetic and cowardly and a total bloody cliché. So do not tell me I can’t leave. I didn’t do this. You did it. And now you don’t get to decide what happens next.’
Chapter 54
Audrey
Sitting on a bench in Central Park, overlooking the boating lake, Audrey hoped that if she surrendered to the pain in her chest it might grant her a brief respite.
Cancer was like that, she’d discovered. It turned you into someone in a permanent state of negotiation, bargaining with the intruder inside your body. Audrey would find herself offering deals to it, anticipating their rejection, proposing new terms. But cancer was an unreliable business partner, constantly making ever greater demands for less favourable returns.
Right now, all Audrey wanted was to enjoy her first afternoon in New York: to walk around a park she had seen in so many photographs and films that visiting it now gave her an uncanny sense of déjà vu.
Next to her, Jess flicked through a guidebook with unintentional impatience, wanting to see things, do things, make the most of their time. Audrey would have been like that once too. She would have wanted to cram in as much sightseeing as possible, to tick off all the major attractions and fulfil a set of objectives. Now all she wanted was to sit quietly and soak up the atmosphere.
Dotted across the lake, boats were being rowed by young couples, enthusiastic dads, groups of laughing girls. As Audrey looked out across the water, wondering if she dared risk embarking on the next stage of their walk, someone caught her eye hurrying along the path towards them. ‘Lily? Lily! We’re over here.’
As Lily raised her head and turned towards them, Audrey saw immediately the creased forehead, the red eyes, the pinched eyebrows. As Lily sat down on the bench next to her, Audrey could see she was trembling. ‘What is it? Whatever’s the matter?’
Audrey listened in silence as Lily gabbled a story about Daniel and a redhead, about a pregnancy and a divorce, all the time wondering how it was possible that she could think herself so close to her daughter yet know so little about her life. ‘Why didn’t you tell me there were problems between you and Daniel?’
There was a microscopic quiver in Lily’s chin that Audrey last remembered seeing decades before in the wake of their double loss, accompanied by the muffled echo of restrained grief.
‘He said he just needed some space. I thought everything would go back to normal once he was home.’
Lily’s voice flatlined, and she stared straight ahead as if gazing towards a future she didn’t dare approach.
All this time Audrey had allowed herself to believe that Lily was strong, secure, unshakeable. Five months earlier she’d moved in with Jess rather than Lily, to live with the daughter who needed her rather than the daughter whose life, she’d believed, was perfect. Now she felt as though she had failed them both.
With Jess sitting silently next to her, Audrey sensed something stir in the atmosphere, as if somewhere out to sea a hurricane was gathering pace and the winds on land were eddying in response.
Chapter 55
Jess
Jess sat unmoving as her mum held Lily’s hand.
It had always been like this, for as long as she could remember. Lily, the good girl, who could do no wrong. Lily, the chosen one, who deserved the very best life had to offer. Lily, the innocent, to whom nothing bad should ever happen. Except she wasn’t. And it had.
‘Maybe it’s karma, Lily.’ The words whispered their way through Jess’s lips. Her heart knocked in her chest, warning her of what was to come, cautioning her that once the story was out in the world there was no way of erasing it from their family history.
Jess watched Lily raise her head from their mum’s shoulder, watched her widen her bloodshot eyes, thin red lines streaking above her green irises like a pastoral sunset.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know exactly what I mean.’ Jess tried to encourage some air into her lungs, willed her voice to stay strong.
Lily glanced at their mum as if she might hold the answer.
‘What are you talking about, Jess? What karma? What could Lily possibly have done to deserve this?’
Perhaps it was the incredulous tone of her mum’s voice. Perhaps it was Lily’s self-righteous tears. Or perhaps it was simply the change of scene. But suddenly decades of unspoken fury were erupting from deep within Jess where they had lain dormant for decades. ‘Stop pretending, Lily. Stop lying. You know what you did and so do I. I saw you. Don’t pretend you don’t remember. You know I saw you.’