“No, Robin,” Angela eventually says. “No, she didn’t.”
Robin rocks on her heels and rubs her temples with one hand. “Don’t lie to me, Angela. I know she hurt someone in our family, and I know you and Hilary ‘dealt’ with it. I’ve been sent a letter. So who was it?”
Angela takes a deep breath. “Sarah asked to stay with us a couple of years after Dad died.”
“Really? Why?”
Angela ignores the question. “I was surprised but obviously delighted. Drew wasn’t keen but I stood up to him. I’d let him dictate when my children could visit too many times.” She left a pause, but Robin refused to fill it. “Anyway, she came here and we had a meal. She was staying over and we’d had a few glasses of wine, so we all went off to bed quite early. The next thing I know…” Angela paused. “Do you really want to hear this? It was a few years ago now.”
“Yes,” says Robin firmly. “And I should have heard it then too.”
Angela takes another deep breath. “Okay. Well, we must have been asleep for an hour or so, and I woke up with Sarah on top of me, hitting me. She was going crazy, like a wild thing. I’ve never been so scared. She started clawing at my eyes—”
“What?”
“I think she would have killed me if Drew hadn’t come back in. He’d been in the bathroom.”
“What a hero,” Robin spits.
“Hardly,” Angela says.
None of this made any sense to Robin, but neither did the conversation she’d had with Jim.
“She wanted to hurt him just as much as me, maybe more. She probably would have killed him if he’d been the one in the bed.”
“Why?” Robin asks, trying to keep her voice hard.
“Because she thought I knew what he’d done, Robin. And I swear to you, I didn’t. She didn’t believe me and you probably won’t either, but I didn’t know.”
What he’d done? What had he done?
“It was only after she’d been arrested and released to stay with Hilary that I got to see her. Drew begged me not to go. It didn’t make any sense. He was pleading. He should have been angry, but he was scared. So I went to the old house and I sat with Sarah and Hilary, and your sister told us everything.” Angela’s voice breaks and falters.
“What do you mean?” Robin says, louder than intended. “Everything about what?”
“That he’d seduced her—that was the word she’d used, but I’d use a different one—how he’d—” Her voice cracks. “How he’d got her pregnant.” The word sticks in Angela’s throat.
“That was his baby?” Robin gasps, an eighteen-year-old question finally put to bed in the worst way.
“My poor girl,” their mother says. “She looked at me like I was insane for asking, like I’d known it all already. I really didn’t. I felt sick to my stomach. Of course, Hilary hadn’t been that surprised, not after everything he’d done to her and Callum.”
Robin winces. She avoids ever using Callum’s name, and it had been brandished freely today. Every mention hurts.
“I’d never felt so guilty or so angry. Sarah still didn’t believe me though,” Angela adds.
“And yet you stayed with him?” Robin says quietly, her mother as low in her estimation as she’s ever been.
“Jesus Christ! Is that what you think of me? I threw Drew out that night. I threw him out and I begged Sarah to tell the police what happened in Atlanta, but she refused. Said she was eighteen at the time, that he’d confused her, got into her head, that she didn’t want to relive it. It was her decision. I had to give up in the end and she swore me to secrecy.”
“So what happened to Sarah after that? Surely you didn’t press charges against her for the attack?”
“I wanted them to drop it. Hilary and I both begged them. But I’d already given a statement, before I’d known any of this stuff. They said I couldn’t withdraw it, that it was on record. They said she’d get help if it went to court. That it would be in her best interests. I promise, Robin, I promise I didn’t know what had happened. Sarah doesn’t believe me and I understand why, but I didn’t know. I’d never have let that happen to my child.”
“And where’s Drew now?” Robin isn’t prepared to believe her mother on the strength of one phone call.
“I don’t know and I don’t care. The last I heard, he was in Scotland, bobbing from job to job, probably from na?ve woman to na?ve woman. I haven’t seen him since the night I threw him out.”
“That’s hardly a comeuppance for everything he did.”
“What do you want me to say, Robin? This isn’t a fairy tale. As far as he was concerned, anything less than a glowing reputation, a fancy job title and a thin wife equaled failure. I have no doubt he thinks that his life is over.”
Robin shook her head, said nothing.
“Look, the priority was Sarah,” Angela continued. “Even if she still thought I was her enemy, Hilary and I had to make sure she was looked after and that she got better, and then Hilary helped her find a new job away from here. A fresh start. And she’s still there now. She’s working as a nanny for a family in Surrey.”
“No, she’s not. She’s up here with me, and I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me any of this. I shouldn’t be finding it out now while my sister sleeps upstairs,” Robin hisses.
“What difference would it have made if I’d told you? You already hated me. Anyway, it was Sarah’s story to tell.”
Robin says nothing. Her mother is right.
FORTY-FOUR
SARAH|2013
She’s perfect, Violet. Exactly the kind of baby girl I always dreamed about having. I always knew I wanted children, for as far back as I can remember. Two children, a girl first and then a boy.
Jim, my boss, is pleasant enough, but he’s distracted right now and goes days without so much as kissing his daughter’s little head. I kiss her constantly, wrap her in cuddles. She shouldn’t suffer just because his late wife was lacking as a parent. I know Jim will re-emerge; he’s a good dad. But right now she’s all mine. My responsibility and my joy.
When I first moved here, I called Hilary once a week to check in. I have to check in with several people. I tell them that I’m working at an accountant firm, typing up letters. I don’t tell them about Violet. My mother said it wasn’t such a good idea. But Hilary knew I’d be good at this, and she was right.
I mean, I certainly don’t always get it right the first time. I’ve made some mistakes along the way, but with every day that goes by, my confidence grows and so does my bond with Violet. And that’s what she needs most right now. Someone who loves her more than anything else in the world. That’s a job I can do for the rest of my life.
ROBIN|2013
“What’s this?”
Steve holds the letter between his fingers. “Is this a joke?” He laughs briefly but frowns at the end of it.
“It’s nothing. Come back to bed.” Robin pats the rumpled white sheets on the big American hotel bed, tries to look nonchalant.
He’s still holding it. Standing naked with his hip cocked, morning erection at half-mast. “It’s literally got cut-out words from a newspaper, like they do in films.”