The End of Her

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

STEPHANIE BLINKS HER eyes. For a moment there, she completely forgot what she was doing. She feels a wave of dizziness and grabs the kitchen counter. She can hear the twins babbling from the living room, content for the moment, at least.

Right, she’d come into the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

She was going to get herself a coffee and try to think for a minute.

She reaches for a clean mug out of the cupboard and pours from the carafe. She feels like shit. She has to eat better. She has to get more sleep. Would it be wrong to fall asleep on the sofa with the twins safely in the playpen? She closes her eyes again for a minute, then blinks a couple of times and reaches into the refrigerator for the milk. It seems like she’s doing everything in slow motion. She feels detached, as if she’s watching herself go through the motions of getting her coffee ready. Weird. She shakes her head, quickly takes a couple of gulps of caffeine. Sleep deprivation can really mess with your head. She knows if she stares at the pattern on the wallpaper for a minute it will almost put her into a trance.

Things are still calm in the living room. She pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and sits down. She doesn’t want to go back in the living room for a bit because she knows that as soon as she does, the twins will see her and start demanding her attention. For now, she’s better off here.

She presses her fingers to her burning, itchy eyes. She needs to think. But her mind is such a crazy mess right now she can’t make sense of anything. If only she could talk to someone, lay it all out clearly, get someone else’s perspective, someone objective – but there’s no one she can possibly talk to about this. Patrick is too close to it, and he’s freaked out himself. She wants to tell Hanna, but she can’t, even though she and Hanna have become close over the last few months, as first-time moms. Patrick would be furious if she told her.

Although it might be in the newspapers soon enough.

Her mind keeps circling back to Patrick’s safety deposit box. Where is it? She’s already called half the banks in town and hasn’t found it.

She gives her head a shake and forces herself to get up and get ready to take the twins out. She fumbles through her preparations, almost forgetting her keys at the last moment, then going back into the house to get them. As tired as she is, she needs to get them all some fresh air. She’ll call the rest of the banks when she gets back. They can’t stay in all day.

Stephanie plays with the twins on a blanket on the grass at the park, her eyes scanning sporadically for a glimpse of Erica. Patrick had suggested she avoid the park because of the run-in, but she had protested. What the hell else is she going to do with the babies on a nice day? She can’t keep them inside – they’ll all climb up the walls.

Patrick had then suggested she put them in the car and drive to another park further away, for a change of scenery. She’d turned away and said maybe as he looked on worriedly. But she’s not going to do that. She’s not going to be afraid to use her own neighbourhood. And maybe she wants to talk to Erica. So here she is, sitting with the babies under a tree, a bundle of raw nerves. But there’s no sign of the attractive woman that her husband slept with a long time ago.

Finally it’s time to go home. She picks the twins up, one at a time, to put them in the buggy, lifting them up and down in the air and smiling at them, making them giggle. God, how she loves them. And every time she looks at them now she feels a clutch of fear at her heart – what will happen to their once-happy family? What if they’re all dragged through an investigation – what will that do to her and Patrick? Thank goodness the babies are too young to understand what’s going on.

Her cell phone rings – it’s Patrick. ‘Hi, what’s up?’ she asks anxiously. She’s always anxious these days.

‘I just heard from the attorney.’

She feels her heart rate shoot up. ‘What did he say?’

‘Erica did have a baby. But she gave it up for adoption, privately, after it was born.’

Stephanie tries to digest this news, the implications. ‘That explains why she never came after you for child support,’ she says after a moment.

‘Yeah, but even better, I don’t think it’s going to be so easy to prove it’s mine.’

She hears the relief in his voice and it sickens her.

She pushes the buggy home, feeling unbearably weary. At last they arrive at the house and she sings out to the twins, ‘Home at last! We’ll have some lunch and then—’ She stops in her tracks, her voice silenced. She’s staring at the front door.

It’s wide open.

Surely she locked it. She must have, especially after last time. And then she remembers that she’d forgotten her keys and run back in to get them. Did she forget to lock the door on the way back out? Did she forget to close it? Jesus. She has to be more careful.

She manoeuvres the buggy up to the bottom of the porch steps and unbuckles Emma and lifts her out. ‘Mommy is so tired and getting way too forgetful, Emmie,’ she whispers. She carries her up the steps and inside the front door, and screams.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

HER SCREAM FILLS the front hallway and startles little Emma into crying.

There’s someone inside, sitting in her kitchen. It gives her a terrible shock. Then she recognizes Erica and she can’t breathe.

‘Get out!’ she hisses when she gets enough air in her lungs, clasping the wailing baby to her chest. ‘Get out or I’ll call the police!’

‘Honestly, Stephanie. Calm down,’ Erica says, standing up and walking towards her, sounding perfectly reasonable. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘You broke into my house!’

‘No, I didn’t, the door was open. You should be more careful.’

For a moment, Stephanie is confused. She might have left the door open; she doesn’t remember. But she does know this woman has no business being in her house, even if she did leave the door open. ‘I know who you are,’ she says.

Erica nods. ‘Good. I wasn’t sure you would. I don’t know how much Patrick has told you.’

‘You were in here before – you stole my bag!’

Erica’s eyebrows go up. ‘I did not. Why would you think that?’

Stephanie doesn’t believe her. ‘Because Patrick saw it in your living room, through the window.’

‘He was at my apartment?’ Erica says, surprised.

Stephanie doesn’t answer that. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she insists.

‘Shouldn’t you bring the other baby in?’ Erica asks.

Stephanie steps back a few paces and looks out the door at Jackie, still buckled into the buggy. She stands in the doorway, not sure what to do. Erica is inside her house; she’s been waiting for her. Should she take the babies and flee? Should she grab her phone from her pocket and try to dial 911?

‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Erica says again calmly. ‘But there are some things you should know. About your husband.’

Stephanie hesitates. She remembers her earlier decision – this woman knows things about Patrick that she doesn’t. Erica knew him back then, when it happened. She wants to hear what she has to say, even if it might be all lies. She might learn something useful. So far she’s heard everything from Patrick’s perspective. She looks at the woman now leaning against her kitchen doorway as if she might be a friend, dropping by for a visit. Surely she isn’t actually dangerous?

She can’t take the chance. She’s not going to bring her twins into the house with this woman – who knows what she might do behind closed doors?

‘We can talk,’ Stephanie says finally. ‘Outside, on the porch.’ She turns away and buckles Emma back into the buggy at the bottom of the steps. She makes sure each baby has a toy clutched in a little hand and then sits in the chair on the front porch closest to the buggy. Her phone is in her pocket. She’s not really frightened here, where they can be seen; people go up and down this street all day long. But she is distraught.

Erica has come out of the house and seated herself in the other chair. ‘Nice neighbourhood,’ she begins.

Stephanie doesn’t say anything for a moment. She’s trying to gather her scattered thoughts – and her courage. Finally, she turns to Erica and says, ‘I know what you’re doing, and it’s not going to work. We aren’t going to pay you. I thought Patrick made that clear.’

‘Are you absolutely sure about that?’

‘You’re not going to get a dime out of us, much less two hundred thousand dollars.’

Erica gives her an annoyed look. She doesn’t speak for a moment, but then she bites her lip and says, ‘So he’s been telling you what’s going on? I wasn’t sure. He didn’t tell his first wife much.’

Stephanie feels a sense of revulsion overtake her. She says bitterly, ‘How would you know what he told his first wife?’

Erica turns and looks at her. There’s no hatred on her face, no venom in her voice. ‘You know we were lovers?’

‘He told me, yes.’