It should have taken me longer to understand. I should have been confused. I should have asked, ‘What do you mean there’s a little girl?’ But I knew. Perhaps I’d been primed for it since learning about the night he spent with the barmaid. I assumed it had been more than one, but I hadn’t pressed him on it because I couldn’t bear to have my fears confirmed.
I broke into silent tears. The kind that fall without effort or noise or even feeling. The kind movie stars cry. It was a strange thought, in among everything else. I’m crying movie star tears!
‘I got the call a couple of days ago. A woman I used to know . . . she died of a drug overdose.’
I closed my eyes, unable to look at him as I listened. Gabe told me he didn’t remember the woman, though he had memories of sex, shameful memories that he’d tried to push down. She’d certainly never got in touch to let him know of a baby. The little girl was six months younger than Freya. His name wasn’t on the birth certificate. The woman’s friend had been the one to identify Gabe as the father. The baby’s name was Asha.
There had been a DNA test, of course, but when I finally saw her I realised that we needn’t have bothered. Her mother was of Indian descent, and Asha’s eyes were brown and her skin too. But she had Freya’s mouth, her chin, her smile. She was Gabe’s daughter. Anyone with eyes could have told you that.
I considered leaving him. I considered slapping him. I cycled through every emotion, once and then again. There was a rhythm to it, the way they spiked and settled, spiked, settled. Anger, I realised, was the least painful, so I concentrated my efforts there for a time but eventually my rage dissipated. Because, unlike the other times Gabe had disappointed me, this time there was another person to consider. A little girl who had just lost her mother. A girl who was currently being cared for in a foster home. Whether or not she stayed there was up to me, Gabe said.
‘All right,’ I said, a week after I’d found out about Asha’s existence. ‘I’ll meet her.’
The foster home was a modest brick bungalow in a quiet street. There was a swing set in the front yard and a boy who looked to be around three or four played in a sandpit.
Asha sat between an older woman’s legs. She was wearing a yellow polka dot dress and yellow leggings, and she held a blue plastic shovel and ball. When we walked into the garden, Asha looked up at me and smiled. Was it strange that I immediately felt a connection with her? I put it down to the fact that she bore such a strong resemblance to my own child. I didn’t look at Gabe. In that moment, perhaps oddly, he’d never felt more irrelevant.
I kneeled, collected the ball that had rolled away from her and handed it back. She held up her shovel as if to show me.
I’d already decided we were taking her home, but if I hadn’t, I would have decided then. Of course she was coming home with us. It was as if she was always destined to be part of our ragtag crew. After we’d played with the ball and shovel for a bit longer, Asha reached for me with her chubby little arms. It was so typical. Gabe created beautiful things, and I took care of them.
37
AMANDA
AFTER
Max is in the back seat of the Mercedes, his driver Arnold up front. For once, he’s not looking at his phone. He hasn’t opened his computer. A couple of times on the journey he wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. That’s the funny thing about Max. He is capable of bad but also good. I forgave him for all of it, loved him for all of it. There was only one thing I couldn’t forgive. He knew that. But he did it anyway.
On the seat beside him is the article about Gabe Gerard. It’s the only thing he looks at on the whole two-hour drive.
What are you going to do, Max? I wonder, as the car pulls up in the Gerards’ street.
He picks up the article, tucks it under his arm and gets out of the vehicle.
38
AMANDA
BEFORE
Max was always a self-confessed security freak. It took some getting used to. The deadlocks, the security systems, the CCTV cameras. The alarms that went back to base. Every time I got used to a new system, he’d install something newer and more high-tech. I thought of it as a ‘man fetish’。 Some men had car fetishes. For others it was grass or tools or golf. Max lusted after security systems. It never occurred to me that his obsession with security might spring from a fear for our safety. Until the day that it did.
It was a Tuesday. Max had left for work an hour or so before and I was in the house alone, doing some stretches before my 9.30 am Body Pump class. The first hint that something wasn’t right came with the knock on the door. Not the most ominous thing in the world, but this was not how people signalled their arrival at our house. Usually, visitors pressed the intercom at the gate. I would examine their face on a screen while they told me what they wanted, and then I would decide whether or not to open the gates to let them in.
I’ll admit, the knock unnerved me, but I was a nervy type. I froze right there on my yoga mat and listened.
There was another knock, this time louder. As I made my way to the door, I remembered that the intercom hadn’t been working and Max had said someone was coming to fix it.
I walked through the living room to the foyer. ‘Who is it?’ I said through the door.
‘Mrs Cameron? Sorry to bother you – it’s Adam. I work for Max’s security team. We’re installing a new intercom system today. I just need access to your unit so I can connect it, and then I’d like to run some tests, if that’s okay?’
I’d started to open the door even before he finished talking. By the time I saw the two giant men, it was too late to close it again. A boot thudded into the door. It flew backwards, taking me with it. My head hit the wall. I was still seeing stars when the door closed again, and the men were inside.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
The men wore black jeans, T-shirts, stockings over their faces. One was tall and muscular. The other was shorter but wider, like a body builder, with veins bulging from his biceps. They had hands like baseball mitts, with fingers covered in gold rings.
‘Don’t be scared,’ the shorter one said. But his unsmiling face and dull gaze did nothing to reassure me.
‘I have money. Or jewellery. Whatever you want – you can have it.’
The taller man said, ‘We don’t want money.’ He sounded amused.
‘We have some business with your husband that we need to sort out,’ the shorter one said just as the phone in my hand started to ring. I glanced at the screen. Max.
‘Speak of the devil,’ the shorter man said. His tone told me that this was expected. ‘Answer it.’
I lifted the phone to my ear.
‘Amanda?’ Max said, before I could speak. His voice was strained. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. But there are two men here.’
‘Inside the house?’
‘Yes.’
I heard him exhale slowly. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No. They just said . . . they have some business with you that needs sorting out?’ My voice rose in desperation. Sort out the business, it said. For God’s sake, sort out the business.
‘Okay.’ Max took a long breath. ‘Put me on the phone to them.’