It’s two weeks now since I emerged from Henry’s room to find Sam gone. I sat at the kitchen table with Polly as we waited for the police to arrive, drinking tea, my muscles slowly relaxing, warmth inching back into me. Henry hummed tunelessly in the sitting room over the reassuring click and clack of his trains as Polly and I talked. I told her things I had never spoken about to anyone; about Maria, about me and Sam, what he had done to me, what I had let him do, and how it had made me feel. I sensed something different between Polly and me: a barrier maybe, one that hadn’t been there before? But as we talked, I realised it was the opposite: a barrier had been taken away, the one I had been putting up every time I saw her since we met. She can see me now, all of me.
We had fallen into a comfortable silence when the doorbell rang, a shrill reminder that I couldn’t stay cocooned in the flat with Polly for ever. DI Reynolds was her usual professional self, but there was a certain solicitousness that hadn’t been there before. Unlike on the previous occasions that we’d met, the words came pouring out of me like a river. I told her everything. She said that given the passage of time, and Sam’s subsequent actions, it was unlikely that any action would be taken against me, either in relation to Maria’s death or my obfuscation over the Facebook messages. I didn’t ask whether Reynolds would be telling Bridget and Tim about my part in the events of that night in 1989. The Facebook page has disappeared and I’ve heard nothing from either of them since the day I ran from Bridget’s bungalow, towards what I thought was safety.
Reynolds had news for me too: a hiker walking the coastal path had called in Sam’s car just an hour before, abandoned near the cliffs at Sharne Bay. It was at the bottom of a rough, almost impassable track that led from the main road down past the school woods to the cliffs. The driver had crashed into a tree and simply left the car where it was, its front left bumper crumpled into a pine tree, shards of glass from the headlight sprinkled all around.
I can’t help but think of him now, bumping down that track in the darkness, past the woods. Did he think of Sophie then, or Maria? Or was he thinking of Henry and Daisy? Perhaps of Catherine and me as well. Ever since I got Maria’s friend request, the question of what really happened to her has consumed me. I no longer have to speculate, but I have paid a terrible price for that knowledge. Perhaps it’s no more than I deserve.
Henry tugs my hand, pulling me towards the play park. I am reminded of the last time I was here, and try to keep my thoughts from straying towards Pete, and our conversation last week. It had taken every drop of courage I possessed to pick up the phone, but I knew I had to apologise to him, needed the slate to be clean so I could start again. I got the apology out of the way first, but he was puzzled when I then asked after his wife and child. I didn’t do it pointedly; I just wanted him to know that I knew, and that it was OK. That nothing he could do would come close to what I had done, and that I understood I was in no position to judge anybody. I don’t think he was sure whether to be angry or amused that I had made such a quick and easy assumption, when in fact the woman and child that Esther saw him with were his sister and her baby.
In the play park, Henry jumps onto the roundabout and I push it round and round, his solemn face flashing past me again and again. He’s so like his father, a constant reminder of what I’ve lost. In my mind’s eye I see Sam, so beautiful at sixteen with his dirty blond hair flopping into his eyes, struggling down that path, Maria a dead weight in his arms. So assured, so popular. What was it in him that made him able to cross that line, and cross it more than once? All those years that we were together, shouldn’t I have been able to see it? I don’t think I was ever able to see him clearly though; my eyes were clouded by history, by shame; by love.
I think of Maria’s last moments, of how frightened she must have been, and of Bridget, her whole life irrevocably ruined. Sam’s revelation doesn’t absolve me. I still did what I did to Maria, I still played my part, and I’ll never be able to atone for that. But I can’t live the rest of my life in shadow. I have a reason to move on, to move forward into the light, and he’s here, spinning before me, his cheeks glowing in the biting December wind.
Henry holds out his hands, wanting me to stop the roundabout. As we walk over to the swings, his mittened hand slips inevitably into mine again.
‘Mummy.’
‘Yes?’
‘Where is Daddy?’
‘I told you, didn’t I? He’s had to go away for a bit, to do some work.’
‘But where has he gone?’
The dark day looms at me from the future, the day I will have to tell him who his father was. Sam has been in the papers, and all over the internet. I will never be able to hide it from Henry. But for now, I will let him hold on to his pink-cheeked, bobble-hatted, unbearable innocence.
‘Not far. He’s got to work away for a bit, that’s all. Shall we get a hot chocolate?’
He gives a little skip of delight. He’s so easy to distract now, but that won’t always be the case. I won’t always be able to keep him with me either. The day will come when I have to let him walk to school by himself, or go to the swimming pool with his friends. He’ll accuse me of being overprotective then, and he’ll be right, but I will have my reasons.
My head says that Sam is gone, but I can still feel his hands around my neck; still feel him somewhere deep inside me, like a parasitic worm, buried in the darkest, worst part of me. He could be at the bottom of the ocean, or he could be here in the park, watching us as we walk across the grass. I may never know, and perhaps that will be my real punishment for what I did to Maria. Not the messages from Bridget, not even that night in the flat with Sam, but a lifetime of looking over my shoulder, never quite knowing. Always wondering.
My phone buzzes in my pocket and I feel the usual, instinctive lurch of alarm, even though I have deleted my Facebook account – not just from my phone, but altogether. It’s a text from Polly, telling me she’s running late but will be here with the girls soon. These days I try to keep in touch with people in person, rather than from behind a screen. I’m no longer holding on to the edges of my life; I’m reaching out, rebuilding it from the fragments that were left.
My parents came to stay for a few days after it happened, and although we didn’t exactly have a Hollywood-style emotional breakthrough, I could feel their quiet support, and it meant something. Dad sat on the floor with Henry and played trains. Mum made me endless cups of tea and cleaned the bathroom. I felt closer to them than I have in years.
My clients have been really understanding too. Rosemary apologised for how she treated me that day in Islington, and promised me she wouldn’t consider using anyone else.
Henry and I reach the café and I automatically scan the room, wondering if I’ll ever be able to go to a public place without looking for Sam. It’s steamy and noisy, full of families: kids clamouring for cake, parents wiping mouths and moving cups of coffee to stop toddlers knocking them over. I walk to the counter, Henry’s hand still glued to mine, and order two hot chocolates. There are no free tables so we take them outside, wondering if it’s warm enough to sit out there.