But it was when he mentioned the girls that she finally snapped. It was her raw spot and he’d hit it bang on. The idea of this other woman being a better mother than her – of the girls adoring her, of them loving this ‘C’ more than her. And he seemed so smug about it, the bastard. And something inside her snapped. As he turned to leave, to walk away from her and the life she had worked so hard to build she was seeing red, she was so furious, so she grabbed the first thing she could find – a stone ornament of a naked woman that she had bought from an art gallery and Pete had rolled his eyes at when he heard how much it cost – and she had whacked him over the head with all her might. And then again, and then again.
But she hadn’t wanted to kill him. She had just wanted to hurt him, the way that he had hurt her with his horrible words. And when he fell to the ground with a sickening thud and lay motionless in the hallway, all the anger deflated from her like a burst balloon and she sat down on the floor next to him and stared at the unresponsive body of the man she had loved for half her life. She knew she should call an ambulance but she couldn’t move. Her body was cemented to the floor. And surely she hadn’t done much damage, she’d only hit him a few times and she wasn’t particularly strong, he’d wake up any moment with a headache and be on his way. Time ticked on but still she sat and stared, unable to process the seriousness of what had just happened, completely incapable of accepting that she had just killed her husband.
Eventually the sound of the post being shoved through the letterbox and landing on the tiled floor, just centimetres from Pete’s head, brought her back to reality with a sickening jolt. This time she looked at Pete, really looked at him, and finally understood that he was dead. Suddenly her body came back to life and she started scrabbling around in a panic and trying to slide her body backwards along the floor, to get as far away from him as possible. She put one hand to her mouth and stared at him in horror. What had she done?
She stood up and paced around the house, frantic, trying to work out what to do next. Perhaps it is all just a nightmare, she thought, but every time she went back into the hallway, there he was on the floor. What had she done? What did she do now? Should she call someone? Erin? The police? Of course she had to call the police. But then they would arrest her and what would happen to the girls? They’d just lost their father and now they would lose their mother, too. They would be known forever as the girls with the murderer mother. Had she actually done this? Had she actually killed her husband? No, surely that wasn’t possible. She walked slowly back up to him, peering at his face, still clinging on to the hope that he was just unconscious. Gingerly she put two fingers to his neck. No pulse. He was definitely dead. She backed away again, staring at him in fresh horror.
She ran up the stairs, desperate to get away from him. Thundering into their bedroom she sat on the bed, her heart pounding. Something on the pillow caught her eye and she turned to look at it. It was an envelope with her name written on it. She grabbed it and opened it, reading the words quickly. It was a note, telling her he was planning to leave her. He must have put it up there knowing that she wouldn’t see it until later that day, after he was long gone. He was a bastard, a coward of a man. But still, he didn’t deserve to die.
Think, she told herself, think! But she couldn’t, her mind was a complete mess, suspended somewhere between reality and disbelief, unable to comprehend that less than a couple of hours ago she was having breakfast with her husband and now he was dead on their hallway floor. She went to the kitchen and poured a glass of whisky to try to calm herself down. As the liquid coursed through her body her breathing began to slow down and she started to focus again. She had to think.
What were her options now? If she called Erin right now to tell her what had happened what would she tell her to do? She’d say to call for an ambulance. But it was too late for that now, he was dead. The only option was the police but how could she explain what had happened? Even if she could convince them it wasn’t premeditated, she was still a killer, there was no doubt about that. She would go to prison. Their private lives would be splashed all over the newspapers, there would be a court case. Her life would be over, her children’s lives would be ruined. Where would they live? Would Erin have them? Her new boyfriend Scott seemed lovely but would he agree to take in two damaged children who weren’t even Erin’s, let alone his? And she wouldn’t cope in prison, she knew she wouldn’t, she couldn’t hack it. And why should she go to prison anyway, for an accident? She hadn’t meant to kill him, it had been a terrible, tragic accident.
Should she
