A positive pregnancy test—real or not—is exactly what was missing from the case against Neville. It is a motive. And not just for Ryan. It’s a motive for Will, and for anyone else who was sleeping with April.
Hannah remembers again the noises coming from behind that closed bedroom door, the morning after the premiere of April’s play. And, more than ever, she wishes that she had stopped, pulled back that door, and put a face to whoever was in there.
Because it wasn’t Ryan, that much she is sure of, or at least as sure as she can be without asking him outright. Not just because of the way he reacted on the first night of the play, pulling away from April as if reluctant to touch her, but because of what he said in their conversation just now. She texted me the morning after that first night. If April were in bed with Ryan, why would she text him with the news just an hour or so later? It wouldn’t be plausible—to go from carefree noisy sex to a pregnancy test in a single morning. Ryan wouldn’t have been taken in, he would have wondered why she hadn’t raised her worries just an hour or so earlier.
But if it wasn’t Ryan, then who?
Will is the next most obvious candidate. But Hannah isn’t sure about him either. There was something wrong, that night at the play. Some kind of reserve or antagonism between him and April that didn’t seem to mesh with the loud, performative sounds coming through the wall the following morning. And, though it makes her flush to think of it, Hannah knows what Will sounded like—sounds like—during sex, both now and then. She watches the countryside rippling hynotically past the window, thinking about her husband—thinking about the way he holds himself over her, bracing his weight on his forearms, staring into her eyes, silent, concentrated, attentive. He doesn’t whimper and grunt and thrash about like someone in a blue movie.
Why. Why didn’t she stay behind that morning? Why didn’t she curl up and wait in the living room armchair to see who exactly came out of April’s bedroom?
Why didn’t she confide in April what had happened?
Because she was traumatized, and in denial. Because she was recovering from—and now ten years on, she can say the words, without feeling they are too strong—an assault. And because she didn’t know. She had no idea how important that question would become. She didn’t know that many years later, so much would end up hanging on it. Her happiness. Her future. Her marriage.
It is at that moment that the train goes into a tunnel and momentarily loses power. The lights in the carriage go out—just for a second—and it’s then that Hannah feels it. Something just below her belly. A flutter, like a bubble popping, or an elastic band snapping, or something small and slippery and feathered rippling inside her.
She goes utterly still. She doesn’t even breathe.
And then the train comes out of the tunnel and the carriage is flooded with light again and she is left, sitting perfectly still, her hand over her stomach, iridescent with happiness. And for the first time since John Neville died, she isn’t thinking about April, or the past, or the fact that she may have condemned an innocent man to die in prison.
She is thinking about her baby, and the new life inside her. And her happiness is so intense that it hurts.
BEFORE
“Well fuck you.”
“Well fuck you.”
The voices came clear through the door of April’s room, making Hannah wince, wondering if they knew she was sitting just on the other side of the wall, working on her final essay of the term.
She thought about calling out, Hey, some of us are trying to study as a jokey way of alerting them to her presence, but before she could do so the door to April’s bedroom opened and Will walked out, slamming it bad-temperedly behind him.
“Oh.” He had the grace to blush when he saw her sitting there. “Sorry, I didn’t realize—”
“No, gosh, I mean—it’s fine,” Hannah said. She put down The Faerie Queene and stood awkwardly, twisting her fingers together. “You weren’t disturbing me.” The lie makes her cheeks color. “I mean, I could—should—have moved. Are you—”
Are you okay was what she wanted to ask, but she wasn’t sure if it sounded patronizing, or disloyal. She was supposed to be April’s friend—April, who was probably listening from the other side of the doorway right now. She couldn’t be seen to be taking Will’s side.
But Will was frowning, and now he came across the room to stand closer, looking at her with an unsettling intensity.
“Hannah, what happened to your face?”