After Tom was born everything changed. Cam became possessive about his wife and son and couldn’t understand Chrissie’s desire to meet other mothers or to have coffee with friends. He’d ring her during the day to check that she was at home and if she did go out, he’d grill her about where she’d been and who she’d seen. One afternoon she’d been late back from a routine doctor’s appointment and Cam had sulked for a week – barely speaking to her and sleeping in the spare room. Chrissie had been glad of the break, if she was honest with herself, but it wasn’t fair on Tom, so she’d apologised, accepted blame and Cam had agreed to move on.
As she became more aware of her husband’s manipulation, she became less convinced that she loved him. Chrissie wasn’t afraid of Cam – she knew he’d never physically harm her – but she hated his moods and his passive aggressive behaviour. She could never fully relax around him. She’d heard rumours, the threats and the bullying, but she’d never seen any of it in her home – she just didn’t want to be there with him.
She’d stayed for her son. Chrissie knew that Cam loved Tom, but she never fully trusted him not to harm the boy – psychologically if not physically. There was no way she could leave him with his father and, if she’d tried to take him, she knew Cam would leave her penniless and abandoned. So, she’d waited and planned; setting up her own bank account and hiding small amounts of cash from her husband until she could deposit them. By the time Tom turned fourteen she had over £6,000 and she thought that when Tom finally escaped to university, she might have over £10,000. Enough to get away – maybe even to wherever Tom ended up so she could see him regularly.
Then she’d met Adam and everything had changed. He’d walked into the café where she was having coffee with Laura and literally turned her head. Tall and dark with a heavy beard – since shaved off – he was striking to look at. He moved with an air of easy confidence and was friendly with the young girl serving coffee without being patronising or flirty.
Laura had noticed him too but, more significantly, she’d noticed Chrissie’s eyes following him out of the door. Three weeks later he’d approached her as she was opening her car door and asked her out. Chrissie had shrugged him off, but she’d seen him in the café nearly every week for a couple of months and, every time, he smiled and nodded. One morning, after an especially trying evening with Cam, she’d thought, What the hell? She’d smiled back and he’d come over to chat. Laura, with uncharacteristic discretion, had left early allowing Chrissie time to find out that Adam was unmarried, didn’t have any kids and worked in property management.
Chrissie had never considered the possibility that she might cheat on her husband but after two meetings with Adam she knew that he was worth the risk. She wasn’t frightened of Cam; she was irritated, sickened by him and appalled at the person he’d turned her into. When she was with Adam she felt like herself; more than that, she felt like she’d come back to life. And, after all she’d put up with, she deserved to live.
Her lipstick looked a bit blurred around the edge of her upper lip, so she blotted and did a quick repair. Not that Adam seemed to care about her appearance, she just wanted to look her best – it had become second nature to make sure that the way she looked was always beyond reproach. Too many negative comments and sulks from Cam had trained her well. Adam never commented on anything specific about her appearance – he just told her she looked great, or beautiful, or, on one occasion, good enough to eat. She liked that. She didn’t want to be told that her lipstick was the wrong shade or her hair was too short – it was too much pressure. She took it from Cam, but she didn’t want it from Adam: she just wanted him to appreciate her for who she was.
She was meeting him in Carlisle where it was unlikely that they’d be spotted by anybody she knew. Adam had booked a room in a chain hotel on the outskirts where they planned to spend some time together before a quick lunch at a small café down one of the city’s many quiet side streets. It would be the first time they’d slept together, and Chrissie was as nervous as she’d been on the night she lost her virginity. So much could go wrong. What if they weren’t compatible? What if her naked, childbirth-scarred body repulsed him?
‘Idiot,’ Chrissie said to herself, snatching the keys of her Mercedes from the hall table and resisting the urge for yet another look in the mirror. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Adam raised his mug to his lips, his eyes still smiling as he drank.
‘What?’ Chrissie asked.
‘Nothing. Just looking at you.’
Chrissie smiled back. She knew the feeling. She loved to look at Adam’s strong features, his dark hair, straight nose and deep brown eyes; he was so different from Cam.
‘Do you feel different?’ Chrissie asked. She did. There had been a seismic shift in their relationship in the past few hours. For a while she’d felt like she wasn’t really cheating; that Adam was just a friend. Their first kiss had undermined that belief and Chrissie realised that she’d been pretending to herself – she was falling in love with Adam. Now, though, everything was different and she couldn’t go back
