He cares, just as much as she does. He loved April, and she knows it. And yes, perhaps he hated her too, but so did Hannah sometimes—she can admit it now, though it took many years.
They were kids. Just kids.
I’m sorry, she types out, knowing that her text might wake him but unable to wait. I’m sorry I was such a bitch. The things I said—they were awful. I love you. See you tomorrow? xxx
There is a moment’s pause and she sees Typing… flash up at the top of the message. It shows… and then goes away. Then comes up again… then disappears. What is he doing? Is he typing the world’s longest message? Or is he trying to say something, and deleting it, and then typing it again, and then deleting it again?
Typing…
Typing…
Pause.
Typing…
It goes away again, this time for so long that her screen goes dark and she has to unlock her phone again. And then at last a message comes through.
I’m sorry too. I love you.
And that’s it.
Whatever he had been going to say, he has thought better of it.
What was it? You’re right, you were a complete bitch, how dare you say that stuff to me.
Or, If you weren’t pregnant with my child I would be considering our future.
Or, What’s wrong with you, Hannah?
Or maybe none of that? Maybe something completely different. I’m sorry. It was my fault too. Neville’s death has screwed me up.
She wants to text him back, demand to know what he was thinking of telling her, what he’s keeping from her.
Her mind starts running.
There’s something I’ve been hiding.
I’ve met someone.
I couldn’t work out how to tell you.
I want a fresh start.
I don’t love you anymore.
No, no, no, no, no! She has to sit up at that, her heart racing in her chest, the baby flip-flopping inside her, jolted awake by her surge of adrenaline.
No, this is completely irrational. It’s the paranoia of two-in-the-morning insomnia.
She loves Will. He loves her.
He’s not keeping any secrets from her—he probably just couldn’t work out how to phrase his apology.
Now she realizes, she forgot to take her bedtime blood pressure pill. She stands and hobbles to the bathroom, a stiffness in her ankles and hips that is increasing ever since she became pregnant—ligaments loosening for the birth, her joints creaking in sympathy.
In the bathroom she turns on the light, blinking at the brightness, and stares at herself in the mirror. Her face is puffy with tiredness, her is hair tousled and wild, and there are dark rings beneath her eyes.
She thinks of Will, of his lips against the top of her head as he was leaving for work. Of his whispered words. Please. Please.
She knows what he wanted to say. Please, Hannah, don’t do this.
She should leave this alone. She knows it. For Will’s sake. For the baby’s sake.
But for her own sake, and for April’s, she cannot. She cannot. She has to be sure. If her evidence put an innocent man in jail she has to know. She can’t live like this.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, to the baby in her belly, to Will’s ghost, hanging over her. “I’m so sorry.”
She downs the pill with a gulp of water and looks again at her reflection in the mirror. The woman who stares back at her looks exhausted, but also grimly determined. Not the frightened girl of ten years before, terrified and full of an obscure guilt and shame at what had happened, as if it had been as much her fault as Neville’s.
Now she knows—it was not her fault. And maybe it wasn’t even Neville’s.
And she is not afraid anymore.
She has stopped running from the monsters. She has turned to face them.
She wants the truth.
AFTER
“Coffee?”
Hannah is staring out the window, thinking, when the question comes, and at first she doesn’t hear it.
“Coffee, madam?”
She turns to see a uniformed attendant standing beside her, braced in the narrow aisle, holding out a silver pot. There’s a trolley behind her, rocking as the train goes over a crossing.
“Oh, sorry, I was in a dream. No thank you, I’ve had enough caffeine already today.”
“I’ve got decaf,” the woman offers. “It’s all complimentary.” But Hannah shakes her head. She knows what train coffee will be like—weak instant with powdered milk in little sachets.
“No, thanks, honestly. I’ll—” She racks her brains to try to think of a way to accept this kind woman’s hospitality. “I’ll take a bottle of water, if you have one?”