All day long the curtains were drawn, the windows were closed. I forgot what natural sunlight looked like; it felt as if we were living in a cave. If I tried to let air and light in, Gabe recoiled like he was in pain.
More and more, I felt trapped by Gabe’s moods. I mourned our old happy life, and I had no idea how to get it back.
‘Let me make you an appointment,’ I suggested.
But he was adamant in his refusal. ‘I just need to ride it out, Pip,’ he said. ‘I will come good again. Trust me.’
But he didn’t come good, apart from the odd proclamation of love for me or Freya that felt worryingly incongruent with his mood. ‘I’m so grateful to you,’ he’d say. ‘I’d do anything for our family. I really am the luckiest man alive.’
Freya was my solace. I built a little world just for the two of us, structured around Freya’s naps and mealtimes and evening routine, her play dates, doctor’s appointments, first words and first steps. I made friends with other mums and we met in parks and libraries and play centres, where we talked about breastfeeding, baby-led weaning, gross motor skills – new, interesting, distracting things that required a lot of my time and attention. At night, if Gabe had fallen asleep on the couch, I’d bring Freya into our room, bathed and sleepy, and fall asleep to the sound of her rhythmic, steady breath.
The days were full and, for the most part, fulfilling. It was surprisingly easy to forget for hours or even days at a time that there was something very wrong with my husband. Besides, what was the point of thinking about something I was so powerless to change?
Once, I came home at midday to find Gabe at home. It was a Wednesday, and he should have been at work.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘Why aren’t you at work?’
‘I couldn’t stay there,’ he said. ‘I tried, but I couldn’t. It was too loud.’
The noise was becoming more of a problem. The day before, he’d told me he’d unplugged the photocopier because he couldn’t bear hearing it outside his office all day long. He’d also complained that the lights were too bright. Recently he’d petitioned to HR to get dimmers in the offices. I hadn’t heard how that campaign had gone.
‘Was it the photocopier?’ I asked.
‘It was the voices. All day long, voices. They reverberate in my brain.’ He sat on the couch and dropped his head into his hands. ‘I can still hear them.’
I sat beside him. ‘You hear them now?’
He nodded. ‘In my head.’
‘What do the voices say?’
He threw up his hands. ‘You know. You’re not good enough. You’re not working hard enough. Your ideas are crap.’
I relaxed a little. ‘I think everyone hears those voices. When I hear them, I just remind myself that they aren’t real. And I tell myself that I am good enough.’
His eyes were narrowed, and he was leaning in as if he was listening hard. But when I finished speaking, he seemed dissatisfied. And I started to suspect he was hearing a different kind of voice.
27
PIPPA
NOW
We get up just before 6 am. Neither Gabe nor I have slept. My head aches and I feel that slightly surreal, off-balance feeling I used to get after a rough night with Freya when she was a tiny baby. The girls are still fast asleep, so we stumble down the hallway in darkness towards the living room. Halfway down the hall I crash into our fiddle-leaf fig, upending it and cracking the terracotta pot. It lands on my toe.
The pain is breathtaking.
‘Fuck,’ I shout-whisper. ‘Fuck.’
The floor is covered in dirt and shards of the pot. The sad-looking （and surprisingly expensive） plant that I have nurtured for months lies on its side, its roots exposed. It feels like a metaphor. Particularly since, like my life, I have no idea how to clean it up. Gabe turns on a lamp then drops to his knees, gently manipulating my toe in his fingers. Yesterday’s frenetic energy is gone and suddenly he seems almost Zen-like in his calm.
‘Don’t think it’s broken,’ he says. While I hop to the couch, he goes to the kitchen and returns with a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel. He kneels before me, places it on my toe. ‘You okay?’
I nod. But I’m not. A tear slides down my cheek.
‘What happens if I stub my toe and you’re not here?’
Unlike the broader vision of life without him, there’s something about this specific situation that fills me with loss. Gabe is the first-aid man, always has been. He’s not squeamish about blood or pus. When the girls hurt themselves it’s Daddy they run to. Daddy, who is calm in the face of chaos and distress. But if Gabe is in jail, the girls will shout for me when they have a bloody nose or a grazed knee. I’ll be the one to get out the first-aid box, the frozen peas. It’ll be up to me to bandage them up and send them on their way. And I will do it. But I’ll do it with a broken heart.
Gabe is quiet for a long while. ‘What if I didn’t go to the police?’
It feels like a trick question. ‘But you have to.’
‘Maybe not. I’ve been thinking: if the police discover the connection, I could just say I didn’t recognise her. We’d only met a couple of times; it’s plausible. The rest of my story stands. She came to the cliff because Max cheated. She jumped.’
I try to work through the ramifications of what he’s saying, searching for gaps in his logic. But my thoughts are so tangled I don’t know which way is up. ‘But –’
‘The thing is,’ he continues, ‘we’re assuming that if Max knows, he’ll tell the police. But I’m not sure he will.’
‘Of course he will,’ I say. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’
‘Max Cameron isn’t the nice guy everyone thinks he is, Pip. He has another side to him. You don’t get to where he is without making a few deals with the devil.’
I’m reminded that Max filmed us. It felt out of character with the Max I thought I knew. What else don’t I know about him? Maybe Gabe is right. Maybe Max won’t pursue this.
‘Think about it. Amanda was furious with him. This has saved him a messy, expensive divorce. He might not be interested in where she died or who she was with.’
‘But what if someone else makes the connection? The police?’
‘Like I said, I didn’t recognise her. I’m as surprised as they are to find out who she was. Besides, Max and Amanda have a beach house here and it’s a well-known suicide spot; it’s not unfathomable that she would come here to take her life. It’s a coincidence, pure and simple.’
I’ve never wanted to believe anything more. And yet I’m afraid to believe that it could be this simple.
Down the hall, a door opens and two little girls in pyjamas scurry out, teddies in hand.
‘Daddy!’ they cry as they break into a trot. We turn to face them, pasting false smiles on our faces.
‘Can I have strawberries for breakfast?’ Asha asks.
‘Okay,’ I say to Gabe quietly as Asha runs headlong at me. ‘We won’t say anything.’
28
PIPPA
THEN
‘Dada.’
Freya was one year old. It was 7.30 am. She was in her highchair playing with a piece of toast that I’d put on her tray. That was when she said it. Two clear syllables. Da-da. But Dada wasn’t here.