Another married couple, Cassie corrected herself.
This seemed like a normal life being lived; that was the most worrying part of this whole inexplicable situation. When had this drinks arrangement been made? Why had it even been made if there was so much uncertainty surrounding their relationship?
She wished she could drive down to the pub and peer through the windows and see how Ryan and Trish were interacting, whether they seemed friendly, or even loving. Was Trish going to try and use this outing to make Ryan change his mind and rethink the divorce?
Cassie stopped herself as she was putting the salt and pepper shakers into the dishwasher, realizing she was so distracted she was messing up horribly with the simple job of tidying.
Rechecking, she found a few idiotic errors. The cheese was in the cupboard and she’d folded a dirty dish towel and put it back with the clean ones. Quickly she corrected her mistakes, now frantic with worry that she would keep buckling under stress. Trish seemed to be a stickler for correctness and Cassie didn’t think she looked like the forgiving type. Even a small slip-up might land her in trouble.
She went back into the family room to find that Dylan had already gone to bed, and Madison was dozing on the sofa. She’d been doing a puzzle, but the tray had tipped sideways and some of the pieces had fallen onto the floor.
“Come on. It’s bedtime. You’ve had a busy day,” Cassie said, carefully righting the tray to salvage as much of Madison’s work as possible.
“What time is it?” Madison asked, confused.
Cassie glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“It’s a quarter to nine.”
She’d run late without even realizing it.
On her hands and knees, Cassie picked up the puzzle pieces and peered under the couch to make sure none of the others had fallen out of sight.
She could see no puzzle pieces, but something else, pushed far under the low-slung couch, caught her eye.
Scrabbling her fingers along the carpet, Cassie grasped it and pulled it out, before staring at it in consternation.
It was the manila envelope that the unpleasant, dark-haired man had delivered a few days ago. She recognized the handwritten address on the front. Ryan had opened it, but the papers were still inside. So this was surely nothing to do with any divorce.
Suspicion crystallized inside her as she wondered why Ryan had hidden it away after opening it.
Now she had found it, and Cassie resolved that as soon as she was alone in her room, she was going to look inside.
She put the envelope in her jacket pocket and picked up Madison’s tray.
Madison followed Cassie to her bedroom in sullen silence.
Cassie had no idea why she was so moody, but she was starting to suspect it had nothing to do with the so-called divorce. On the spur of the moment, she decided to ask Madison some careful questions. She was desperate to find out what she knew.
“Madison,” she asked softly, “do you know if your mum and dad have been planning to live in different places? Did they talk to you about it at all?”
Madison frowned at her.
“How do you mean?” she asked.
“If your mum was moving out?”
She didn’t want to put ideas into Madison’s head, and felt as if she was walking a tightrope. Madison could so easily pass this information on to Trish. Cassie clenched her hands tightly, realizing her palms felt damp.
“No. She hasn’t moved out. She spends a lot of time at work though.”
“You haven’t felt sad about that?”
Madison looked confused.
“No,” she said.
Rage flared inside Cassie and she had to struggle not to show Madison, through words or gestures, how furious she was.
This was not what Ryan had told her, not at all. He’d said the children knew about the divorce, and it had affected them so badly they weren’t willing to speak about it.
Not true. In fact, they knew nothing about it and that was why they had said nothing about it. All the nuances she thought she’d picked up in their behavior had simply been coincidence. Even Dylan’s shoplifting had nothing to do with the mention of the children’s mother.
God, what a fool she’d been. If she had asked them about this at the start, she could have gotten to the truth of the situation and not become embroiled the way she had. She hadn’t asked them because Ryan had told her how traumatized they were.
He’d covered all his bases like a seasoned liar, and Cassie was starting to fear that was what he was.
“I’m very tired, Cassie,” Madison said.
Cassie climbed hastily off her bed.
“Sleep well. I hope you will feel happy in the morning,” she said.
She switched Madison’s light off and closed her door.
Rage was still simmering inside her as she sat on her bed and took the manila envelope out of her pocket. She pulled out the papers, noticing that her hands were shaking, and then stared at them, appalled.
This was no divorce document. It was a final demand for payment from a loan agency.
Cassie read it carefully. It was for a substantial amount, and Ryan was months overdue with it. From the printed statement, it looked as if he’d defaulted on every single repayment. Either he hadn’t had money, or he’d ignored the payment requests completely.
Now she realized why the delivery man had been so unpleasant to her—and she was the one who’d bear the brunt of his attentions if Ryan continued to default, and he came back again.
“He told me it was divorce papers. This has nothing to do with any divorce,” she said aloud. “Is there even a divorce? I doubt there is!”
Anger was making her reckless. She was entitled to know the truth. If it wasn’t being told to her, there were ways she could find it out.
Cassie left her room and walked quietly to the master bedroom, where she eased open the door.
Ryan had said
