‘Not even if it destroys this family?’ says Rose, staring intently at her daughter. ‘Not even if it destroys Lauren’s family?’
Kate looks at her, taken aback. Of all the people in this sorry state of affairs, her sister is the one least affected.
‘Lauren?’ asks Kate wearily. ‘What’s she got to do with any of this?’
Rose looks away, as if doing so will make it easier not to say anything.
‘What has Lauren got to do with it?’ Kate asks again, her voice rising.
Rose fixes her with a stare. ‘I wasn’t the one who was pregnant. She was.’
36
Lauren
‘Do you feel guilty?’ Justin asks, caressing Lauren’s hair as she lies on his chest.
It had felt as if the twenty-two years that stood between them last being together and now had evaporated into thin air. It was as if she was sixteen again, with the same hopes and aspirations of an unknown life before her. She’d lost herself in the idea that they could run away together, live somewhere on a remote island, where no one could find them. His question brings her back to earth with a bump.
‘Guilty? No. Scared? Yes,’ she says truthfully.
‘Scared?’ asks Justin, tipping her chin up to face him. ‘Of what?’
‘Of what I’ve done and what it means.’
‘What does it mean?’ he asks.
She props herself up on her elbow, exposing her breast, and hurriedly pulls at the sheet to cover herself up. Justin gently takes it away again.
‘It means that I’m an unfaithful wife and a selfish mother. It means that I’m no better than the husband I’ve grown to hate.’
She bats away the threat of tears. She will not play the victim. This was her decision, and she needs to take ownership of it.
‘Has he cheated on you?’ asks Justin, tracing his finger down the side of her face.
‘I don’t know,’ she says honestly. ‘But if he has, that’s not why I hate him.’
‘Does he treat you badly?’
She nods. ‘He’s not happy and he takes it out on me.’
‘Physically?’
‘Sometimes, but the emotional abuse is just as hard to take. But I won’t let him break me because I have the children to think about – they’re my world.’
‘Would you leave him?’ asks Justin earnestly.
She falls back onto the pillow and sighs. ‘If I was brave enough, but it would break the kids’ hearts and I don’t think I could ever do that to them.’
‘I thought that staying with my wife until my youngest left high school was the best thing to do,’ says Justin. ‘But in reality, it just prolonged the agony for all of us. The boys have both since told me that they wished we’d called it a day well before we did, to spare them all the arguments and uncomfortable silences.’
‘They sound like sensible kids,’ says Lauren.
‘They are,’ smiles Justin. ‘I’m very lucky.’
Lauren sits up and swings her legs onto the floor. ‘I should go. I need to get home before Simon does.’
Justin trails a finger down her spine, making her whole body tingle. ‘Where does he think you are?’
‘He doesn’t know I’ve gone anywhere. He’s working in town tonight on a shop fit and I’m hoping that he’ll be none the wiser when he comes in.’
‘Maybe he’s not where he says he is either,’ says Justin with raised eyebrows.
Lauren quickly steps into her jumpsuit, not wanting Justin to see any more of her than he has already.
‘Do you not think I’ve seen it all?’ he asks, as if reading her mind.
Lauren laughs nervously. ‘Of me or women in general?’
‘Of you,’ he says, smiling. ‘Do you think I don’t know every inch of your body?’
‘That was a long time ago,’ she says.
‘And yet it’s still exactly the same.’
She’s about to give a self-deprecating retort but stops and smiles instead. Maybe Kate’s finally getting through to her. The thought of her sister brings with it a fresh surge of hurt and regret, that seems to settle in her chest. She pads barefoot into the living room to find her handbag, aware of Justin watching her every move.
‘When can I see you again?’ he calls out after her.
She looks at her phone and sees six missed calls from Kate and two from Simon. ‘Oh my God!’ she exclaims, feeling as if the air’s being sucked out of her. ‘Something’s happened.’
‘What’s wrong?’ asks Justin.
‘I need to go,’ she says, in a blind panic to get her shoes on. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’
Justin jumps up out of bed and takes hold of her, pleading with her to look at him. She shakes her head. ‘I shouldn’t have come. What the hell was I thinking?’
‘Hey, it’ll be okay,’ he says.
An impending sense of doom bears down on her, and she can’t see straight. ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she says, turning away from him.
Justin looks hurt – the bubble they were so happily cocooned in well and truly burst. ‘Don’t leave like this,’ he says, as she pulls away.
She needs to get away from him. She needs to get away from here, back to her babies – where she belongs.
‘This was a mistake,’ she says brusquely. ‘A terrible mistake.’
‘That’s not how it felt to me,’ says Justin, pulling on a pair of sweatpants.
‘That’s because you’re not married, with children who depend on you,’ she snaps, close to tears. ‘Who right now need their mum.’
‘Calm down,’ he says. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions.’
‘Look!’ she shrieks, showing her phone to him. ‘Something’s happened and I’m not there, because I’m here fucking you.’
He looks as if he’s been slapped.
‘What kind of mother does that make me?’
‘This isn’t about you and me,’ he says. ‘You’ve got to try and keep the two things separate.’
‘It’s one and the same thing,’ she says, moving towards the front door. ‘If Simon finds out about this, he’ll kill me, just before he kills you.’
‘Don’t let other people tear us apart again,’ he pleads. ‘We’ve let them do it once and look at what we’ve missed out on.’
She stops at the door and slowly
