The Husband's Secret(149)

            Cecilia was dimly aware that people continued to move through the corridor where they sat. They hurried or strolled by, they gesticulated and laughed, they talked animatedly into mobile phones. Nobody stopped to observe the white-haired woman sitting straight-backed in the brown leather chair, her gnarled hands gripping the sides, her eyes fixed on the middle-aged man who stood in front of her, with his head bowed in deep contrition, his neck exposed, his shoulders slumped. Nobody seemed to notice anything extraordinary about their frozen bodies, their silence. They were in their own little bubble, separated from the rest of humanity.

            Cecilia felt the cool, smooth leather of the chair beneath her hands, and suddenly the air rushed from her lungs.

            “I need to get back to Polly,” she said, and stood up so fast that her head swam.

            How much time had passed? How long had they been out here? She felt a panicky sensation, as if she’d deserted Polly. She looked at Rachel and thought, I can’t care about you right now.

            “I need to talk to Polly’s doctor again,” she said to Rachel.

            “Of course you do,” said Rachel.

            John-Paul held out his palms to Rachel, his wrists upward, as if he were waiting to be handcuffed. “I know that I don’t have any right to ask you this, Rachel, Mrs. Crowley, I have no right to ask you for anything, but, you see, Polly needs us both right now, so I just need time—”

            “I’m not taking you away from your daughter,” interrupted Rachel. She sounded brisk and furious, as if Cecilia and John-Paul were badly behaved teenagers. “I’ve already . . .” She stopped, swallowed and looked up at the ceiling, as if she were trying to suppress the urge to be sick. She shooed them away. “Go. Just go to your little girl. Both of you.”





FIFTY-FOUR


            It was late Saturday night, and Will and Tess were hiding Easter eggs in her mother’s backyard. They both held bags of tiny eggs, the ones wrapped in shiny colored foil.

            When Liam was very little, they used to put the eggs in plain sight, or even just scatter them across the grass; but as he grew older, he preferred the challenge of a tricky Easter egg hunt, with Tess humming the theme song to Mission: Impossible while Will timed him on a stopwatch.

            “I suppose we could put some of them in the gutter.” Will looked up at the roof. “We could leave a ladder somewhere handy.”

            Tess gave the sort of polite chuckle she’d give to an acquaintance or a client.

            “Guess not,” said Will. He sighed and carefully placed a blue one in the corner of a windowsill that Liam would have to stand on tippy-toes to reach.

            Tess unwrapped an egg and ate it. The last thing Liam needed was more chocolate. Sweetness filled her mouth. She herself had eaten so much chocolate this week, if she didn’t watch it she’d be the size of Felicity.

            The casually cruel thought came automatically into her head like an old song lyric, and she realized how often she must have thought it. “The size of Felicity” was still her definition of unacceptably fat, even now, when Felicity had a slim, gorgeous body that was better than hers.

            “I can’t believe you thought we could all three just live together!” she exploded. She saw Will steel himself.

            This was the way it had been ever since he had finally turned up at her mother’s house the previous day, pale and discernibly thinner-looking than the last time she’d seen him. Her mood kept swinging about precariously. One minute she was cool and sarcastic, the next she was hysterical and weepy. She couldn’t seem to get ahold of herself.

            Will turned to face her, the bag of chocolate eggs in the palm of his hand. “I didn’t really think that,” he said.

            “But you said it! On Monday, you said it.”