The Husband's Secret(58)

            “No,” said Tess. “Anyway, he’s asleep.” He wasn’t asleep. She’d walked by his bedroom (her father’s old study) just a moment ago and seen him lying in bed, playing on his Nintendo DS.

            “Tell him I said hello.”

            Liam had a certain chuckle he reserved especially for Felicity.

            Tess sighed. “He’s in bed. I’ll just check—if he’s awake, I’ll put him on.”

            “Thank you,” said Felicity humbly.

            Tess pressed the phone against her chest and went to walk down the hall to Liam’s bedroom. Then she stopped, pivoted and went to the other end of the house. She put the phone back to her ear.

            “I don’t care if you sleep with Will or not,” she said. “Actually, I think you should sleep with him. Get it out of your system. But I will not have Liam growing up with divorced parents. You were there when Mum and Dad split up. You know what it was like for me. That’s why I can’t believe . . .”

            There was a searing pain at the center of her chest. She pressed her palm to it. Felicity was silent.

            “You’re not going to live happily ever after with him,” said Tess. “You know that, don’t you? Because I’m prepared to wait this out. I will wait for you to finish with him.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “Have your revolting little affair and then give my husband back.”





            October 7, 1977: Three teenagers were killed when East German police clashed with protestors demanding “Down with the wall!” Lucy O’Leary, pregnant with her first child, saw the story on the news and cried and cried. Her twin sister, Mary, who was also pregnant with her first child, rang her the next day and asked if the news was making her cry too. They talked for a while about tragedies happening around the world and then moved on to the far more interesting topic of their babies.

            “I think we’re having boys,” said Mary. “And they’ll be best friends.”

            “More likely they’ll want to kill each other,” said Lucy.





FOURTEEN


            Rachel sat in a steaming hot bath, clinging to the sides while her head spun. It was a stupid idea to have a bath when she was tipsy from the Tupperware party. She’d probably slip when she got out and break her hip.

            Perhaps that was a good strategy. Rob and Lauren would cancel New York and stay in Sydney to take care of her. Look at Lucy O’Leary. Her daughter came from Melbourne to look after her the moment she heard about her breaking her ankle. She even pulled her son out of his school in Melbourne, which seemed a bit over the top, now that Rachel thought about it.

            Recalling the O’Learys made Rachel think of Connor Whitby and the expression on his face when he saw Tess. Rachel wondered if she should warn Lucy. Just a heads-up. Connor Whitby might be a murderer.

            Or he might not be. He might also be a perfectly nice PE teacher.

            Some days, when Rachel saw him with the children on the oval, in the sunshine, his whistle around his neck, eating a red apple, she would think, There is no way on heaven and earth that nice man could have hurt Janie! And then other bitter gray days, when she caught sight of him walking alone, his face impassive, his shoulders broad enough to kill, she thought, You know what happened to my daughter.

            She rested her head against the back of the bath, closed her eyes and remembered the first time she’d heard of his existence. Sergeant Bellach told her that the last person to see Janie alive was a boy from the local public school called Connor Whitby, and Rachel had thought, But that can’t be, I’ve never heard of him. She knew all of Janie’s friends and their mothers.

            Ed had told Janie she wasn’t allowed a serious boyfriend until after she’d finished her very last HSC exam. He’d made such a big deal of it. But Janie hadn’t argued, and Rachel had blithely assumed she wasn’t even that interested in boys yet.