“I am home!” Libby sobbed.
“I’ll come to you then.”
“Bring the girls.”
Alice had glanced at Indi and Lucy playing happily, oblivious to the fact their parents’ lives, and therefore theirs, had just changed irrevocably. “Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” Libby said, sounding unrecognizable. Libby’s lack of certainty upset Alice more than her tears.
Alice had been at Burrunan for eight nights so far. Her nieces needed her, Libby needed her and in a way, so did Nick. For years she’d loved the house on the water, but she didn’t at the moment. Although it looked the same with its relaxed seaside décor and eclectic knickknacks that told the story of love and laughter and a life shared, now it was rigid with tension. It held the putrid air of a torture chamber—pungent with unmitigated pain and torment.
Each morning, Libby would clutch her coffee cup and say brightly, “I’ll be okay today,” but by the afternoon it was obvious to Alice that her twin was far from okay. Glassy eyed and barely able to string a sentence together, Libby had shut down, retreating to a place where Alice couldn’t reach her. It scared Alice so much she’d called Ramesh. He’d prescribed medication that Libby was refusing to take.
Nick wasn’t doing much better. Round shouldered and slumped, his aura simmered with shame and remorse. He veered between racing around the house cooking, cleaning, working in the yard and playing with the girls to staring vacantly out at the water as if it could offer him a solution to the nightmare. Alice had expected him to go sailing but, like Libby, he hadn’t left the house.
Part of Alice wanted to scream at him and ask, “How could you have betrayed Libby?” How could you have betrayed me? Her own level of hurt stunned her. She loved Nick like the brother she’d never had and she respected him—had respected him. Still did in all ways except this. Nick hadn’t offered Alice an excuse for his behavior, nor had he asked her to see things from his perspective or asked her to speak to Libby on his behalf. Although he wasn’t wearing sackcloth, Alice got a strong sense of a man doing penance.
One night, as they tidied up the kitchen together, Alice asked, “You kept it a secret for so long. Why did you decide to tell her now and ruin her life?”
“The guilt was killing me.”
Alice glimpsed the lapsed Catholic who’d been raised to go to confession and a flash of anger hit. “If you’d wanted absolution for your sins, you should have protected Libby and told a priest!”
He dipped his head. “I wanted Libby’s forgiveness.”
“Yeah, well. Good luck with that.”
When Lucy had asked Alice why she was living at Burrunan, both girls had accepted her explanation that, “Mommy and Daddy are sick.” It wasn’t a lie, it just wasn’t the sort of illness the girls understood.
At night, Alice lay awake for hours, filled with fury at Jess and Nick for destroying her twin’s sense of self, and when she slept, her dreams were filled with her dragging Jess along the beach by the hair. They forced her to admit that she hated the woman more. She wanted to hate Nick just as much, but she’d had years to build up her antipathy to Jess and as hard as she tried, she struggled to wrap her head around her brother-in-law actively setting out to wound Libby. Not that she’d ever anticipated Jess slicing Libby down to her heart and soul either. Alice’s dislike of Jess stemmed from being cut out of Libby’s life. Not once had she ever doubted Jess’s loyalty to her twin.
Alice had seen that loyalty in action and not just back in the day, but in the last year—a period she now knew Jess had already betrayed Libby. Was that still friendship or was it guilt? Judging by what Libby had said about her conversation with Jess, the woman displayed no signs of guilt or regret for her actions. So why had Jess continued to invest in the friendship?
“Alice! Slow down, I want to talk to you.” Genevieve Lawry power-walked up to her, puffing slightly. “We’re all worried about Libby. How is she?”
Bereft. Heartbroken. Enraged. “Surviving.”
“Oh my God, it’s just so awful. You know, I always thought that Nick Pirelli was too good to be true. I mean, what man is ever that helpful around the house or with the kids, right? If Jake did anything like that to me, I’d castrate him. Then I’d take the boys and leave him.”
Initially, Alice and Karen had believed that Libby should do exactly that. Now, after a week living at Burrunan and talking with Libby and Nick, Alice wasn’t close to certain what she’d do in the same situation.
“It’s easy to say what you’ll do when it’s not happening to you.”
Genevieve’s mouth pursed in disapproval. “So, it really is true then? Libby’s still living at Burrunan with that scumbag?”
Alice’s hands fisted in her pockets. “Libby’s not in a fit state to make any important decisions just now.”
“Then Nick should do the decent thing and move out,” Gen huffed. “He and Jess deserve each other.”
The thought of Nick leaving his daughters and moving in with Jess and their son sent furnace-hot rage tearing through Alice, banishing the chill she’d battled for two laps. She unzipped her puffer with a jerk. “Nothing in life is black and white, Genevieve.”
“Murder and adultery are,” Genevieve muttered before crossing her arms. “I’m surprised at you, Alice. You, of all people, should want the best for your twin.”
“Of course I want the best thing for her!”
“Then encourage her to kick him out. Believe me, staying married to a prick like that’s the worst possible thing she can do to herself.”
Alice’s teeth locked. “Only Libby can make that decision.”
“Let’s hope she does it then.”
The urge to slap the self-righteous woman’s face was so strong that
