chapter thirty-eight
Cecilia left the Easter hat parade and drove straight to the gym. She got on the treadmill, put the incline and speed up as high as they could go and ran as if she was running for her life. She ran until her heart pounded, her chest heaved and her vision blurred from the sweat dripping into her mouth. She ran until there wasn’t room for a single thought in her head. It was a wonderful relief to not be thinking, and she felt like she could have run on for another hour, if it wasn’t for one of the gym instructors stopping abruptly and quite unnecessarily in front of Cecilia’s treadmill and saying, ‘You okay there? You don’t look too good to me.’
‘I’m fine,’ Cecilia went to say, furious with him for bringing the real world crashing back into her consciousness, except that she couldn’t talk, or breathe actually, and at that instant both her legs turned to jelly. The instructor grabbed her around the waist and slammed the palm of his hand on the treadmill to stop it.
‘You’ve got to pace yourself, Mrs Fitzpatrick,’ he said, helping her off the treadmill. His name was Dane. He taught a weights class that was popular with the St Angela’s crowd. Cecilia often did it on a Friday morning before her weekly grocery shop. Dane’s skin was young and dewy. He looked about the same age as John-Paul had been when he killed Janie Crowley. ‘I reckon your blood pressure is sky-high right now,’ he said, his eyes bright and earnest. ‘If you want, I could help you work out a training programme that would –’
‘No thank you,’ panted Cecilia. ‘But thank you, I’m just, well, I’m just leaving actually.’ She walked away quickly on wobbly legs, still fighting for breath, sweat pooling in her bra, ignoring Dane’s entreaties to do a few stretches, to cool-down, to at least drink some water, Mrs Fitzpatrick, you’ve gotta rehydrate!
On the way home she decided that she couldn’t live another moment with this, it was impossible. John-Paul would have to confess. He’d turned her into a criminal. It was preposterous. While she was in the shower, she decided that confessing wouldn’t bring Janie back and Cecilia’s daughters would lose their father and what was the point of that? But their marriage was dead. She couldn’t live with him. So that was that.
While she was getting dressed she made her final decision. John-Paul would turn himself into the police after the Easter break, give Rachel Crowley the answers she deserved and the girls would just have to live with an incarcerated father.
As she blow-dried her hair, it was suddenly blindingly obvious to her that her beautiful daughters were all that mattered, were her only priority and that she still loved John-Paul, and she’d promised to be true to him in good times and bad, and life would go on as it always had. He had made a tragic mistake when he was seventeen. There was no need to do or say or change anything.
The phone was ringing when she turned off the hairdryer. It was John-Paul.
‘I just wanted to see how you are,’ he said gently. It was like he thought she was ill. Or, no, it was like she was suffering from a uniquely female psychological condition, something that was making her fragile and crazy.
‘Marvellous,’ she said. ‘I feel just marvellous. Thanks for asking.’