The End of Her

THE TWINS ARE in their high chairs and Stephanie is in the middle of giving them their little bit of baby cereal mixed with breast milk. Patrick hasn’t come home from work yet and she tries not to resent it. She’d smelled the Scotch on his breath the day before – he’d obviously been out for a drink after work, but she didn’t mention it, tries not to begrudge it. She expects him any minute. She could use a hand. She’s got a high chair on either side of her and she’s spooning the milky cereal into one little mouth after the other. My little birds, she thinks fondly.

There’s a sound at the front door but she’s focused on the babies. She hears Patrick come in, but he lingers in the front hall for a moment. Another spoonful for Emma – most of it ending up on her chin – then Stephanie scoops it from the baby’s face with the spoon. She wonders what Patrick is doing. Why doesn’t he come through to the kitchen and help her? ‘Patrick?’ she calls.

‘Yeah, I’m coming,’ he says.

‘What’s wrong?’ she says, the moment he appears in the kitchen, looking as if he’s had terrible news. Her stomach clenches. It must be worse than she thought at work. Maybe he has been shielding things from her after all, because she’s got her hands full with the twins. Her anger flares, along with anxiety.

He pulls out a kitchen chair and slumps into it. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’

She imagines the worst. A serious problem – a lawsuit of some kind, a mistake. Architecture is a fraught, difficult field. And she’s never completely trusted Niall, even though Patrick does. ‘Is it work?’

He looks at her, surprised. ‘No.’

Now she’s the one who’s surprised. What else could it be?

‘Christ, I don’t know where to start,’ he says.

She’s forgotten about the cereal and now Jackie and Emma start to whimper. She goes back to feeding them, trying to remain calm, fake-smiling at the babies. ‘There you go, yum-yum,’ she says, in a singsong voice. Then, to Patrick, ‘Just tell me. I can handle it.’

‘You know I love you, Stephanie,’ he says earnestly.

She turns her head away from the twins and stares at him. Now she’s really worried. He has the tortured look of someone about to confess. What has he done? They haven’t had sex since the twins were born. Is that what this is about? She waits.

‘You know I told you that my previous wife, Lindsey’ – now tears are coming into his eyes – ‘died in a car accident.’

‘Yes.’ Her voice is uncertain. She can’t imagine what he’s about to say next.

‘I didn’t tell you everything.’

She goes absolutely still, staring at him.

His face has gone pale. ‘I never told you because … it was my fault.’

Oh, dear God. Her entire body tightens, as if for a blow. This is coming at her out of the blue; she’s not prepared for it.

He sags further into the kitchen chair. ‘I have to tell you what happened.’

‘Okay,’ she says.

‘It was winter,’ he begins. ‘There was a storm. We were going to visit her mother. There was so much snow. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted …’ His face is anguished and he stops, as if he can’t go on.

It’s difficult for her to look at him in such obvious, raw pain. ‘You were driving?’ she whispers. Even the babies are quiet now, as if they can sense the tension in the room.

He shakes his head. ‘No. We never got off the street.’

She doesn’t understand. He’s not making sense.

‘She got in the car to get warm. Lindsey was always so impatient. I told her to wait inside the house, but she came out before I was done. I didn’t know it was dangerous.’ He swallows.

‘What was dangerous?’ she asks, confused.

He takes a deep breath. ‘I had to shovel out the car. It was taking a long time because the snow was almost up to the roof. She was so desperate to visit her mother and her sister.’ He hesitates. ‘She was finding it hard, being away from her family – she was eight months pregnant – and I was working such long hours.’

Stephanie feels her stomach turn. She hadn’t known his wife had been pregnant when she died. She steels herself for the rest.

‘She wouldn’t stay inside. It was very cold. I told her to go back in the house, but she got in the car. And I just kept shovelling – I had no idea that the exhaust pipe was plugged with snow, that carbon monoxide was getting into the car – killing her.’ He chokes back a sob.

Stephanie gapes at him in horror, but he doesn’t meet her eyes.

‘When – when I finished, I put the shovel away and went up and got the bags from the apartment and locked everything up. I put the bags in the boot. And then I opened the driver’s-side door.’ He pauses, and it looks to Stephanie like he can’t catch his breath. ‘At first I thought Lindsey was just asleep.’ He glances at her, and quickly looks away. ‘But then suddenly it struck me that she didn’t look right somehow, that she didn’t look normal. I grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her, but her head just fell forward. And – I knew she was dead. I started to scream. I lost my mind for a minute. I backed out of the car, screaming for help, fumbling for my cell phone. I called 911. Some of the neighbours came running out. I was hysterical – I don’t remember much more than that, other than people dragging Lindsey out of the car and lying her down on the snow. Someone did CPR on her. The paramedics got there really fast, but it was too late. She was declared dead. The baby too.’

He puts his head in his hands and says, ‘If I’d only known what was happening. If I’d checked on her first, before putting the shovel away, going upstairs to get the luggage—’ He collapses into ragged sobs.

Stephanie stirs herself out of her shock and goes to Patrick, putting her arms around him. She doesn’t know what to say. She watches him break down, his face in his hands. The babies start to cry too. She’s numb. She had no idea. No idea that he’d been carrying this awful burden the whole time that she’s known him. She clasps him in her arms as he sobs, his body heaving. ‘Shhhhh,’ she whispers, holding him tight. It’s the saddest thing she’s ever heard. She can’t even imagine –

‘It was an accident,’ she whispers, holding him tight until his body stops trembling. She has never seen him like this, in such inconsolable grief. As if he’s been torn apart.

He looks up at her finally, his eyes wet and red. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.’

The babies are bawling now and together Stephanie and Patrick wipe the girls’ faces and hands and unbuckle them from their high chairs. Then they carry them through to the living room and put them in the swings so that Stephanie and Patrick can talk. The twins like the swings, and they’re distracted, at least for a few minutes.

Patrick collapses onto the sofa as if all the strength has gone out of him. Stephanie sits down close beside her husband and turns to face him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asks softly.

He looks back at her, completely spent. ‘I was too ashamed. I can’t tell you the guilt I carry around. I didn’t think. I didn’t know it was even possible to get carbon monoxide poisoning that way.’

She nods. It wouldn’t occur to her, either. It was a simple but tragic mistake.

‘I was only twenty-three. I was almost destroyed by grief, by guilt. I left Colorado after the funeral, came back to New York. It took a long time to just begin to feel normal. I still think about it, about what happened, every day.’ He looks at her, his face overwrought. ‘And then I met you three years ago, and started to feel like living again.’ He turns away. ‘I’m sorry. It isn’t fair to you. To dump it on you like this.’

‘You don’t have to apologize to me,’ she says. ‘I wish you’d told me before, but I’m glad you’ve told me now.’ She wonders why he chose today to do it.

‘I didn’t want it to be part of our life together. I didn’t want to burden you with it too. It should be mine to bear, alone.’

She reaches out, takes his face in her hands and says, ‘Patrick, I love you, and I always will. We have two beautiful little girls together. What happened is horrible and I’m so, so sorry.’ She pauses and then goes on. ‘I don’t mean to minimize it in any way, but it’s in the past. You have to let it go, forgive yourself. We’re building a future together.’

He looks back at her, but his face is still bleak, and he turns away and stares at the floor. ‘I want to put it behind me. God knows I’ve suffered enough for it.’

‘You can put it behind you. Have you ever seen anyone, a grief counsellor, to help you with this?’

He shakes his head, sniffs. ‘No.’

‘Maybe you should,’ she says gently.

He’s still looking down; he takes a deep breath. ‘There’s a bit of a problem that you need to know about.’

She waits, worried.