The next train is coming. How easy it would be to step out now. What is there to live for if they take Rory from me? I will not see color, or taste sweetness, or feel warmth. I will be nobody. I will be worse.
My toes are on the edge of the platform. I rock forward and back on my heels, hearing the rails vibrate. Feeling the rushing air.
You’re a coward.
I’m not a coward.
Do it, then!
Images flash through my mind. My funeral. Who would be there? Nobody—not after what I’ve done, unless my mother shows up, dressed like a Spanish widow and wailing over the casket, beating at the polished lid with her bony fists.
My life has been forgettable, but my death could make amends. It could shock and horrify. It will be written about. It will make the news. The train driver will never forget. Meghan and Jack, they will have nightmares, waking in a cold sweat with my name on their lips, my face in their heads.
I rock back and forth, leaning out farther each time. Look how easily Nicky died. He had no time to regret. Nothing flashed before his eyes except the train that crushed his body. My life could be over just as quickly. My pain. My doubts.
Do it! Go now!
What about Rory?
Take him with you.
He doesn’t deserve that.
You’ll have him forever.
How? He deserves more.
Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness, but surely it becomes more so if we take another life. It’s like saying, “I cannot handle this world so I choose to die, but I cannot handle death so I choose to take someone with me.” How cowardly. How self-obsessed. A cry for help becomes a wicked act. Unforgivable. The grounds for eternal damnation.
The platform trembles. A train horn blasts. I reel away, as though blown backwards by the noise, clutching Rory to my chest. The train brakes. Slows. Stops. The doors open.
The transport officer is beside me. “Are you all right?” he asks.
“I’m fine.”
“Did you fall?”
“No. Thank you. It’s nothing.”
“Your baby is crying.”
He points at Rory, whose little face is a picture of misery, his features bunched up and reddened.
I carry him onto the train. The transport officer takes a seat, watching me. I stay beside the doors, waiting for the beeping sound that signals they’re going to close. At the last possible moment, I step back onto the platform and the doors shut behind me. The officer gets to his feet. He walks down the moving carriage, trying to keep me in view, but the train carries him away.
Rory has gone quiet. He’s watching me expectantly. It will be dark soon. We need shelter. Food. The supermarket! I know where Mr. Patel leaves the spare keys. I know the code for the alarm—unless he changed it after I left. The place closes at nine o’clock. I’ll be able to get nappies and formula. We can sleep there tonight, as long as we’re gone by six in the morning.
I sit on the metal bench and hold Rory on my lap. “We’re going to be all right,” I whisper, kissing his cheek. “Today was not ours, but there’s always tomorrow.”
MEGHAN
* * *
A dark-skinned Hawaiian girl in a coconut bikini and hula skirt jiggles back and forth on the dashboard. Jack stuck the doll there, thinking her funny in a retro-sexist way, and now she reminds me of Rhea Bowden, shimmying her hips and acting slutty. I hit the girl with the back of my hand. She bends and bounces back, shimmying even harder.
“Is there anything you want to talk about?” asks Cyrus, who insisted that he drive.
I don’t answer.
“I saw the newspapers.”
“Everybody saw the newspapers. The whole world is laughing at me.”
“They feel sorry for you.”
“Even worse.”
“Can I just say—”
“No! I don’t want to talk about it.”
We drive in silence, crossing Putney Bridge and turning onto Lower Richmond Road.
“I’ll say one thing,” says Cyrus. “Then I’ll shut up.”
He pauses, as though expecting me to argue. I don’t.
“I have cheated on someone—a one-night stand that meant nothing, but it cost me a relationship with a woman I cared deeply about.”
“She wouldn’t forgive you?”
“I couldn’t make it up to her.”
Pain is etched around his eyes. His voice drops. “I tried to make her understand that resentment towards me was punishing both of us. It may not be fair that you forgive Jack, but forgiveness by its very nature isn’t fair. Someone must make a greater sacrifice. Someone has to start.”
“You’re saying that it should be me? Why is it always the woman?”
“It’s not, I promise you. I talked to Jack. He’s devastated.”
“Good!”
“He thinks he’s lost you.”
“Even better.”
I wrap my arms around my chest and look out the window.
“Do you still love him?” asks Cyrus.
“That’s not a fair question.”
“You’re right. I should ask if you can forgive him.”
“How do I do that?”
“Talk to him. Let him explain.”
I don’t want to hear the details. I don’t want to imagine him and Rhea Bowden together. I can’t bear the thought of touching him, after what he’s done—where he’s been. I want to cut his penis off.
Cyrus is still talking. “It’s not easy. First you have to look behind you at what you’ve shared, then you look ahead. You focus on rebuilding, not blaming.”
“Is that what happened to you?” I ask.
“Almost,” he replies, steering the car onto our street. “I didn’t try hard enough.”
*
Jack meets us in the hallway, unsure whether to hug me or stay back. He reaches for my bag. I turn my head at the last moment and press my lips against his, holding the back of his head. His body shudders and melts against mine. I can taste coffee on his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“I know.”
“It will never happen again.”
“No, it won’t . . .”
I kiss him again because I don’t want to talk about Rhea Bowden or think about Simon Kidd. The fate of my marriage can wait. All my energy has to go into getting Ben back. After that I will decide if I still want Jack.
PC Soussa has been reassigned as our family liaison officer. She’s in touch with MacAteer, who is back at the station, commanding the task force. Agatha hasn’t returned to her flat in Fulham and her mobile phone stopped transmitting in Chiswick in West London shortly before 2 p.m. Twenty minutes later she used a pay phone at Kew Bridge station to call her fiancé, Hayden Cole, who has denied knowing anything about Baby Ben or the abduction. He claims to have been duped by Agatha, who faked her pregnancy while he was away at sea.
Agatha’s phone records and email accounts are being searched, looking for clues to where she might go. In the meantime, DCS MacAteer has decided not to release her name or photograph in case he pushes her to do something desperate. I can understand the logic, but the maternal part of me wants to plaster her image on every lamppost and yell her name from the rooftops.