The Husband's Secret

Chapter nine





There was a knock at the door.

‘Ignore it.’ Tess’s mother didn’t look up from her book.

Tess, Liam and her mother were sitting in separate armchairs in her mother’s front room, reading their books with small bowls full of chocolate raisins resting on their laps. It had been one of Tess’s daily routines as a child: eating chocolate raisins and reading with her mother. They always did star jumps afterward to counteract the chocolate.

‘It might be Dad.’ Liam put his book down. Tess was surprised at how readily he’d agreed to sit and read. It must have been the chocolate raisins. She could never get him to do his reading for school.

And now, bizarrely, he was starting at a new school. Just like that. Tomorrow. It was disconcerting the way that peculiar woman had convinced him to start the very next day, with the promise of an Easter egg hunt.

‘You spoke to your dad in Melbourne just a few hours ago,’ she reminded Liam, keeping her voice neutral. He and Will had talked for twenty minutes. ‘I’ll talk to Daddy later,’ Tess had said when Liam had held out the phone. She’d already spoken to Will once that morning. Nothing had changed. She didn’t want to hear his awful serious new voice again. And what could she say? Mention that she’d run into an ex-boyfriend at St Angela’s? Ask if he was jealous?

Connor Whitby. It must have been over fifteen years since she’d seen him. They’d gone out for less than a year. She hadn’t even recognised him when he’d walked into the office. He’d lost all his hair and seemed a much bigger, broader version of the man she remembered. The whole thing had been so awkward. Bad enough that she was sitting across the desk from a woman whose daughter had been murdered.

‘Maybe Daddy got on a plane to surprise us,’ said Liam.

There was a rap on the window right near Tess’s head. ‘I know you’re all in there!’ said a voice.

‘For God’s sake.’ Tess’s mother closed her book with a snap.


Tess turned and saw her aunt’s face pressed flat against the window, her hands cupped around her eyes so she could peer inside.

‘Mary, I told you not to come over!’ Lucy’s voice rocketed up several octaves. She always sounded forty years younger when she spoke to her twin sister.

‘Open the door!’ Auntie Mary rapped again on the glass. ‘I need to talk to Tess!’

‘Tess doesn’t want to talk to you!’ Lucy lifted her crutch and jabbed it in the air in Mary’s direction.

‘Mum,’ said Tess.

‘She’s my niece! I have rights!’ Auntie Mary tried to wrench the wooden window frame up.

‘She has rights,’ snorted Tess’s mother. ‘What a load of –’

‘But why can’t she come in?’ Liam’s brow knitted.

Tess and her mother looked at each other. They’d been so careful about what they said in front of Liam.

‘Of course she can come in.’ Tess put her book to one side. ‘Grandma was just teasing.’



‘Yes, Liam, just a silly game!’ cooed Lucy.

‘Lucy, let me in! I genuinely feel faint!’ shouted Auntie Mary. ‘I’m going to faint on your precious gardenias!’

‘Such a funny game!’ Lucy chuckled insanely. It reminded Tess of the ineffectual job she used to do of perpetuating the Santa Claus myth. She was the worst liar on the planet.

‘Go let them in,’ Tess said to Liam. She turned to Auntie Mary at the window and pointed towards the front door. ‘We’re coming.’

Auntie Mary crashed off through the garden. ‘Oops-a-

daisy.’

‘I’ll give you oops-a-bloody-daisy,’ muttered Lucy.

Tess felt a sharp sense of loss at the thought that she wouldn’t be able to share this story about their mothers with Felicity. It was like the real Felicity had vanished along with her old fat body. Did she exist anymore? Had she ever existed?

‘Darling,’ said Mary when Tess got to the door. ‘And Liam! You’ve grown again! How does that keep happening?’

‘Hi Uncle Phil.’ Tess went to brush cheeks with her uncle, but to her surprise he suddenly pulled her to him in an awkward hug. He said quietly into her ear, ‘I am deeply ashamed of my daughter.’

Then he straightened and said, ‘I’ll keep Liam company while you girls talk.’

With Liam and Uncle Phil safely stashed in front of the television, Mary, Lucy and Tess sat at the kitchen table drinking tea.

‘I made it very clear that you weren’t to show up here,’ said Tess’s mother, who wasn’t so cranky with her sister that she would forgo her extremely good chocolate brownies.

Mary rolled her eyes, settled her elbows on the table and pressed Tess’s hand between her warm, plump little palms. ‘Sweetheart, I’m so sorry this has happened to you.’



‘This isn’t something that just happened to her,’ exploded Lucy.

‘The point is that I don’t think Felicity really did have a choice,’ said Mary.

‘Oh! I didn’t realise! Poor Felicity! Someone put a gun to her head, did they?’ Lucy put a pretend gun to her own head. Tess wondered when her mother had last had her blood pressure checked.

Mary resolutely ignored her sister and directed her conversation at Tess. ‘Sweetheart, you know Felicity would never have chosen for this to happen. This is torture for her. Torture.’

‘Is this a joke?’ Lucy took a savage bite of brownie. ‘Do you seriously expect Tess to feel sorry for Felicity?’

‘I just hope you can find it in your heart to forgive her.’ Mary was doing a wonderful job of pretending that Lucy wasn’t there.

‘Okay, that’s enough,’ said Lucy. ‘I don’t want to hear another word come out of your mouth.’

‘Lucy, sometimes love just strikes!’ Mary finally acknowledged her sister. ‘It just happens! Out of the blue!’

Tess stared into her teacup and swirled it around. Was this actually out of the blue? Or had it always been there, right in front of her eyes? Felicity and Will had got on famously from the moment they’d met. ‘Your cousin is a riot,’ Will had said to Tess after the three of them had been out to dinner for the first time. Tess had taken it as a compliment, because Felicity was part of her. Her sparkling company was something Tess had to offer. And the fact that Will properly appreciated Felicity (not all her previous boyfriends had, some had actively disliked her) had been a huge mark in his favour.

Felicity had taken an instant liking to Will too. ‘You can marry this one,’ she’d said to Tess the next day. ‘He’s the one. I have spoken.’



Did Felicity already have a crush on Will back then? Was this inevitable? Foreseeable?

Tess remembered the euphoria she’d felt that day after she’d introduced Will and Felicity. It had felt like she’d reached a glorious destination, a mountaintop. ‘He’s perfect, isn’t he?’ she’d said to Felicity. ‘He gets us. He’s the first one who really gets us.’

Gets us. Not gets me.

Her mother and aunt were still talking, oblivious to the fact that Tess wasn’t contributing a word.

Lucy had slapped her hand over her eyes. ‘This isn’t some wonderful love story, Mary!’ She removed her hand and shook her head in disgust at her sister as if she was the worst kind of criminal. ‘What’s wrong with you? Truly, what’s wrong with you? Tess and Will are married. And have you forgotten there is an actual real child involved? My grandson?’

‘But you see they’re just so desperate to somehow make it right,’ said Mary to Tess. ‘They both love you so much.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Tess.

Over the last ten years Will had never once complained about the fact that Felicity spent so much time with them. Perhaps that had been a sign. A sign that Tess wasn’t enough for him. What ordinary husband would be prepared to have his wife’s fat cousin come along on their annual summer holiday? Unless he was in love with her. Tess was a fool not to have seen it. She’d enjoyed watching Will and Felicity banter and argue and tease each other. She’d never felt excluded. Everything was better, sharper, funnier, edgier when Felicity was around. Tess felt like she was more herself when Felicity was around, because Felicity knew her better than anyone. Felicity let Tess shine. Felicity laughed the loudest at Tess’s jokes. She helped define and shape Tess’s personality, so that Will could see Tess as she truly was.



And Tess felt prettier when Felicity was around.

She pressed cold fingertips to her burning cheeks. It was shameful but true. She had never felt repelled by Felicity’s obesity, but she had felt particularly slim and lithe when she stood next to her.

And yet nothing had changed in Tess’s mind when Felicity had lost weight. It had not occurred to her that Will would ever look at Felicity in a sexual way. She had been so sure of her position in their strange little threesome. Tess was at the apex of the triangle. Will loved her best. Felicity loved her best. How very self-centred of her.

‘Tess?’ said Mary.

Tess put her hand on her aunt’s arm. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

Two fat tears slid snail paths down Mary’s pink, powdery cheeks. Mary dabbed at her face with a crumpled tissue. ‘Phil didn’t want me to come. He said I’d do more harm than good, but I just thought I could find a way to make it all right. I spent all morning looking at photos of you and Felicity when you were growing up. The fun you two had together! That’s the worst of this. I can’t bear it if you become estranged from each other.’

Tess patted her aunt’s arm. Her own eyes felt dry and clear. Her heart was clenched like a fist.

‘I think you might have to bear it,’ she said.