The door opened and I froze. Jake was back.
I slammed the suitcase shut and stared at my trembling hands. At this point I knew there was no innocent explanation for him lying to me. Either he had been having an affair this whole time, or he’d been hiding a second life from me. The one thing I didn’t know was whether that second life included kidnapping and abusing my own child.
I ran my hands over my hair and tried to remain calm as Jake shouted hello upstairs. I’d been so sure that Jake was innocent when the police took him in for questioning. They’d found nothing. He’d had a decent alibi. The police had questioned several men, so I’d thought nothing of it except that I was certain I knew my husband and that he wasn’t capable of hurting a child like that. I was certain. But now… this lie. It was different. It changed everything and threw my entire home-life into question.
I didn’t know what to believe. All I knew was that my son was downstairs with a man I could no longer trust. I gritted my teeth, hefted the suitcase, and began to drag it downstairs.
36
I lugged the suitcase down the stairs and left it by the front door. Then I hesitated, wondering whether to put my shoes on now or to see what happened when I talked to Jake. I scratched my wrists and tried to collect myself. This was going to be incredibly tough and I needed to be strong and calm. The baby kicked as I moved through the hallway into the kitchen, and I bit my lip to deal with the pain. Jake must have seen the strain on my face because he was next to me in an instant.
“What’s wrong? Is it the baby?”
I shook my head, biting harder on my lip. I couldn’t look at him, and I think he sensed that right away.
“Emma, you’re white as a sheet. Tell me now. Have the police made an arrest?”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I said. “It’d get you off the hook.” I clenched and unclenched my fists, still itching all over my body. I felt a flush of heat work its way up my neck. My entire body was hot and itchy and I wanted nothing more than to scratch every inch of my skin until it all came off.
“What the hell?” Jake took a step away from me and tried to get me to meet his gaze. I noticed that behind him on the kitchen counter was a new bottle of Scotch.
“Is that what you drink to numb the guilt?”
“What the hell are you talking about, Emma?”
I lifted the prospectus from the kitchen table and slapped it down on the counter in front of his Scotch. The glass rattled against the bottle as I flipped the page to the art history course. The spine was already bent in the appropriate place, meaning it took only a few moments to find the evidence of his lies.
“I’m talking about this, Jake. You’ve been lying to me since we very first met. All these years. Where did you keep him? Where was he?” I flew at him, with my claws out, my nails reaching for his neck. But Jake was quicker. He grasped me by the wrists and pushed me away.
I backed away from him, wide-eyed and shaking, while Jake snatched up the brochure and read the page. When he realised what I was talking about, the blood drained from his face and his jaw slackened.
“It’s a typo,” he said. But he also reached for the bottle of Scotch and began to unscrew the cap.
“No it isn’t. I rang them. Twice. The college has never heard of you. Unless David Brown is some alter-ego you’ve dreamt up, you don’t go to York every Tuesday and Thursday. You go somewhere else.”
He poured a large measure of Scotch into a tumbler and drank it quickly. “You don’t understand.”
“Then enlighten me, because my son has been missing for ten years and I’ve defended you against people who suspected you. Now I find out you’ve been lying to me all these years and—”
“You think I took Aiden?” He shook his head and poured another large measure. “Fucking hell, Emma. Of all the… You actually think I’m capable of that? You think I’m a paedophile, do you? You’re my wife, Emma. You’re supposed to know me.”
“I thought I did. But then I found out that you’ve been lying to me all these years. What am I supposed to think?”
Jake necked his drink and leaned over the kitchen counter, gripping the sideboard with his fingers. His knuckles turned white as I waited for him to answer me. I couldn’t stand still, yet I barely moved. I found myself sort of rocking back and forth onto the balls of my feet like a runner psyching themselves up for a sprint. Anything to rid myself of the energy coursing through me.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“Then what is it?”
“I love you. I really do.” He sucked in a deep breath, but still he didn’t face me. Instead he stared down at his hands gripping onto the kitchen counter like he was holding onto a cliff ledge. “But I have other… needs.”