3. Milly
Chapter 3 Milly
It still shocked her to wake up and find herself alone in the bed, even though she’d been doing exactly that for eighteen months. It was her worst time of day, those early moments when she was alone with reality before she threw herself gratefully into the demands of life.
It was the stillness she noticed first, the almost unnatural silence that greeted her every morning. She still slept on the right side of the bed, her side, and the emptiness of the left side seemed to encapsulate everything that had happened to her. There was something about that stretch of smooth, untouched sheet that made her indescribably sad.
It might have been easier to cope with if she understood, but she didn’t understand. She’d thought she and Richard were happy, and the fact that he’d been unhappy enough to have an affair and leave and she hadn’t even known he’d felt that way left her with an even greater sense of failure.
He’d loved her once, she was sure of that. You’re everything to me, Milly. You’re exactly what I need.
Richard was twelve years older than her, which at times had felt like a lot, and at other times like nothing at all. She’d met him when she was twenty-one, and he’d seemed so sophisticated compared to all the men of her own age whose idea of dressing for a date was to pull on a clean-ish T-shirt.
Richard worked in pharmaceutical sales and had just had a promotion. He wore suits and drove an expensive car that smelled of leather. He took her to dinner and sent her flowers. He made her feel safe.
Right from the beginning their relationship had been comfortable and easy and right. They weren’t just lovers, they were friends. Good friends. He’d taken her for weekends away and proposed to her under the Eiffel Tower on a trip to Paris. For their honeymoon he’d whisked her off to Greece. They’d swum under a sky so blue it dazzled, in a sea so clear you could see right down to the bottom where shells nested in the sand. At night, her skin warmed by the sun, she’d worn strappy sundresses and sat across from him feeling beautiful and loved as they’d dined on plates of creamy tzatziki while watching the sun go down over the Aegean. The setting had been perfect, but they’d agreed that they didn’t need a Greek beach or gourmet food to be happy. Their surroundings didn’t matter. All that mattered was each other. In this crowded world, this massive sea of people who inhabited the planet, somehow they’d managed to find each other, and it felt like a miracle.
And it was true that their marriage hadn’t been perfect every day, but whose was? Richard had been away for work so often that she frequently felt like a single mother. He never seemed to be available for the boring bits of parenthood, like doctor appointments or visits to the orthodontist, but she was mostly fine with that because her job was more flexible than his, and anyway she adored being with their daughter. There were times when Richard annoyed her, and she was sure she annoyed him, but that was part of marriage, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just showing up for the candlelit dinners and laughs, it was weathering the tough stuff. The parts that weren’t dreamy.
Her conviction that their relationship was solid made it all the harder when it ended. She hadn’t seen it coming. Just as she hadn’t seen it with her father.
She’d been twelve years old when her father had walked out, taking her sense of security with him.
Her mother hadn’t seen that coming either, and for months she’d operated in a daze, convinced that he’d return once he realized what he was missing.
He loves you, Milly. Even if he wanted to leave me, he’d never leave you.
Milly had clung to that, feeling a weight of responsibility that she didn’t entirely understand. When he hadn’t returned, Milly had taken it to mean that even if he did love her, then he didn’t love her enough .
She’d been looking for someone who would love her enough ever since, and she thought she’d found that in Richard.
With a sigh she sat up in bed. She had to stop dwelling on it. Churning. She hadn’t wanted this to happen but it had, and now she had to find a way to live with it. What she needed was a clean break from him, but when you had a child together, that was not an option. How was she supposed to move on when she was forced to talk to him and see him in person and bite her tongue when he was unreliable?
This new version of Richard was nothing like the Richard she’d married, but she was determined to keep things calm and civilized for Zoe, so she’d been careful to avoid conflict. The result was that she stewed and boiled inside.
Not having Nicole there to talk to had been one of the hardest things about the past eighteen months, and seeing her in person the night before had made it even harder because Milly had been reminded of what they’d lost.
After that tense car journey she’d felt so exhausted and vulnerable she’d almost thrown her arms around Nicole and forgiven her for not being there for her, but something had stopped her. Self-preservation? A desire to be less of a pushover? Maybe it was fear of rejection, although she should be used to rejection by now. She’d experienced enough of it.
And she still didn’t really understand why Nicole was here.
She reached for her phone and did the one thing she’d resisted doing up until this point. She looked at the news reports that Nicole had mentioned. They weren’t really news reports of course, because the sex life of an actor, even a Hollywood star, wasn’t news, it was gossip. It had no relevance to the public beyond morbid fascination, but that didn’t stop the story dominating, probably because it provided light relief from the flood of grim stories that populated the headlines.
All the versions of the story seemed to be saying the same thing. That Nicole had tried to destroy one of the longest and most enduring marriages in Hollywood. There were pictures of her and Justin Fisher looking loved-up on a beach somewhere, and then a short blurry video presumably shot by a fellow diner showing Justin Fisher’s wife storming into a restaurant in Malibu where Nicole and Justin were dining together. After a few minutes of shouting (excruciating to watch!), Justin’s wife had picked up the water jug and poured the contents over Nicole’s head.
Milly winced. She watched the video five times, pausing it in some places, and what she noticed was that in the few seconds before Justin Fisher’s furious wife interrupted them, Nicole had looked happy. Genuinely happy, not acting happy. She was smiling at Justin as if they’d just shared a joke that only the two of them could possibly understand. There was an energy between them, a chemistry that even a wobbly camera had captured.
Was Nicole in love with him? The idea of it threw Milly because it had never occurred to her that Nicole might lower her guard sufficiently to let anyone that close.
Was that why she seemed so fragile? There was a time when she would have known because Nicole would have shared it with her in one of their late-night email sessions or video catch-ups.
But now she didn’t have a clue. She had no idea what was going on in her friend’s life.
She closed the video and flicked through the rest of the coverage. Almost every piece she read included old photos of Nicole with other men, those images presumably provided to prove that she had form , a history of seducing other women’s husbands.
She switched off her phone. She knew that plenty of those rumors weren’t true. How true was this one?
Something about this situation wasn’t making sense to her.
Nicole had been the subject of lurid headlines before and never tried to hide from it. She’d shrugged it off as part of the job.
What was different about this? Why the urgent need to hide away?
There was something Nicole wasn’t telling her, but that might have been Milly’s fault because she hadn’t exactly encouraged conversation.
With a sigh she forced herself out of bed.
She knew what Nicole was like. She went from man to man, searching for something that she couldn’t find inside herself. Some sort of validation. And because no one could give her what she needed, the relationships inevitably ended leaving hearts scattered underfoot like pieces of broken glass.
She didn’t want to think about that now. Whatever had happened was done. Justin Fisher was reunited with his wife, who was clearly willing to forgive his transgressions. Would Milly have taken Richard back if he’d knocked on her door and said he’d made a mistake?
No way.
She turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat. The only way she might consider taking him back would be if it felt like the right thing for Zoe. But since he was showing no signs of regret, it wasn’t a dilemma she was likely to have to face.
She stepped into the shower and started her routine for the day. It felt like an effort, but she knew that once she got going she’d be fine. The day would be busy because every day was busy. She had a staff meeting at ten o’clock, and before that she was going to head to her mother’s house so that she could take Zoe to school. That was one part of the day she refused to miss, a routine she’d been following since Zoe’s first day at school.
She worried endlessly about Zoe, about what impact the divorce would have on her, about what was going on in her head. Remembering how she’d felt when her father had walked out, Milly had been determined that her daughter wasn’t going to suffer those same feelings of worthlessness. She’d been careful to emphasize that Richard’s decision was his own and had nothing to do with Zoe. That Zoe bore no responsibility for his choices. And Zoe always insisted that she was fine, and oddly enough in the beginning she did seem fine—better than Milly—but over the past few weeks something had changed. Milly had noticed her shoulders were a little more slumped, her eyes a little more tired and the little frown between her eyes more prominent.
All she could do was make sure she gave Zoe the opportunity to talk if she wanted to. She couldn’t make her confide. She wished she could have a conversation with Richard about it, but she knew he’d tell her she was fussing and that she worried too much. He didn’t seem to worry at all, and she wasn’t sure whether that was because he’d totally abdicated responsibility for anything other than the so-called fun aspects of childcare (Why does Zoe need an asthma review? Hasn’t she grown out of it?) or because he was afraid of being forced to acknowledge that his actions might be having a negative impact on their daughter.
She was basically alone with the problem. And now she had Nicole in the mix.
But she’d figure out the whole Nicole problem later. For now, her friend was going to have to stay in the cabin out of sight.
She dressed quickly in what she now thought of as her hot-weather uniform: cropped linen trousers with a loose shirt. She fastened the trousers and grimaced as the button strained against her waistline. Some people lost weight when they were unhappy. Not Milly. Misery didn’t put her off her food, it made her hungry, although it was more complicated than that.
Cooking was her favorite form of relaxation. Some people smoked or reached for a glass of wine to relieve the tension of a long day. Some went for a long run. Milly’s sanctuary was the kitchen.
There was an almost ritualistic quality to preparing food, and she found it soothing. She loved the process, from the selection of the freshest ingredients to the presentation on the plate. It used all the senses, took her mind off her problems and left her with a sense of well-being. She loved the sound of mushrooms sizzling in hot oil, the scent of garlic, the sweetness of strawberries, the feel of a ripe mango as it gave a little under the pressure of her fingers.
It took her back to her childhood and cooking with her mother and Nanna Peg, her grandmother, who had lived with them for a while after Milly’s father had left.
Her love of baking had started with them. Some women dreamed of spa days, but for Milly nothing surpassed the soothing quality of beating butter with sugar until it turned into a soft, creamy fluff.
She’d known from an early age that food was about more than simple nutrients. The way food tasted, the whole dining experience, the way it made you feel , was the reason some people would spend a small fortune on a meal out in a top restaurant.
Milly knew all about feelings. Sometimes she wished she didn’t know quite so much. She pictured her emotions as powdered sugar sprinkled over the surface of a cake, vulnerable to the elements instead of being buried deep where they might have been harder to reach. But over the years she’d learned to handle those feelings, and cooking helped. It calmed her and conjured up happy memories of those days in her grandmother’s kitchen when they’d stirred and sifted and she’d been bathed in a warm conviction that life, while unstable and frightening a lot of the time, was ultimately going to be okay.
Since Richard had walked out she’d cooked more than ever before, and once she’d baked something it was impossible not to sample it.
She started every day full of good intentions, and then gradually the stress mounted and those intentions evaporated. One upsetting phone call from Richard (and there had been far too many of those lately) was all it took to have her reaching for her mixing bowl. Word had spread, and now she often made cakes for special celebrations, and she’d even done a couple of weddings. That would all have been fine if she could only stop eating what she cooked.
Was that why Richard had left? Because of the extra inches around her middle?
The woman he’d left her for (her name was Avery, but Milly usually thought of her as the woman because it made it easier to cope with somehow) was a yoga instructor with perfectly toned abs and smooth long hair that never seemed to curl however humid the weather. She was twenty-five, more than two decades younger than Richard, and Milly wondered if he was trying to rewind time, as if being with someone that young might somehow hold back his own aging process. And in a way the whole thing was Milly’s fault because she was the one who had suggested yoga when Richard had complained he had backache from spending too long sitting at his desk and in the car.
Now she wished she’d simply poured him a large gin.
Dispirited, she chose a pair of bold silver earrings that would hopefully draw attention away from her waistline and headed downstairs to the kitchen.
She made herself a cup of strong black coffee and took it out onto the deck.
At this time of day, the only sound came from the birds and the soft lapping of water against the shoreline.
A sense of calm wafted over her, and she felt the tension in her shoulders ease. Plenty of things in her life were difficult, but not living here. She loved it here. Who would have thought it?
When Richard had forced the sale of the family home, she’d felt bereft and also angry because the house was Zoe’s one piece of stability in the earthquake of parental separation. Milly had felt like a failure for not being able to afford to keep the house. It was another loss for both of them. Another major change in which Milly had been given no choice.
It was her mother who had suggested they move into the boathouse, and Milly had known from the day they moved in that it was the right decision.
In their old house, memories had lurked in every corner, many of them painful. She’d walk into the kitchen and be reminded of the moment Richard had told her about the affair. In the small garden she’d be hijacked by a memory of seeing him taking phone calls from his lover while trying to hide behind the hedge. Instead of being a safe haven, the house felt like a stage where a dramatic ending had played out.
But the boathouse was a haven, and it was hers . Richard had no presence here. He’d never set foot inside the place, and on the rare occasion he remembered to come and pick up Zoe, Milly was careful not to invite him in.
This was her space, and she protected it fiercely. She’d learned over the past few months how important it was to have something that was hers and not a leftover of what had been theirs.
She leaned on the balcony rail and stared across the water.
She rarely had a chance to savor the view from her new home because she was always in a rush to make breakfast and get ready for the day, but with Zoe staying at her mother’s, she had a little time, and she allowed herself a rare moment of indulgence.
The surface of the lake was still, the reflection of the trees that surrounded it stretching across the water. Behind were the fells that she loved so much, their contours accentuated by the bright morning sunlight.
Her eyes were gritty from lack of sleep, and she took a sip of coffee.
It took a moment, and a prickle of instinct, to tell her that she wasn’t alone.
She turned and saw Nicole curled up asleep on the porch swing that had been a housewarming gift from her mother.
Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She looked young and vulnerable and not so far from the girl Milly had befriended on her first day at school.
Milly still remembered the intensity of that connection and the bond that had only deepened over time. The strength of their friendship had felt like a superpower, an invisible layer of protec tion from everything life might throw at them. They’d been invincible, and yet here they were behaving like two polite strangers.
How had they reached this point?
They’d both had hopes and dreams, and some of those had come true. Milly had gained the family and stability she’d wanted, and Nicole had achieved fame and success. But neither of them had expected things to turn out the way they had.
A divorced woman and a fugitive.
Was it possible to get back what they’d lost?
And how was she supposed to conceal the fact that Nicole was staying with her?
No matter how careful they were, eventually someone would discover she was here, and then what?
With a sigh, Milly went indoors to fetch a blanket for her friend.