Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Spending time with Mollie – just the two of them – had been the absolute right thing to do, but Erica had been nervous about Andrew collecting Ben without her. Whether Ben would resist leaving with Andrew when he was expecting her and how he was going to cope with the hour-long journey when he was already tired. Though it had been the right thing to stay with Mollie, again she felt the impossibility of providing what they both needed.
Thankfully, when they arrived at the house, all seemed well. Underneath his favourite warm dark-green hoodie, Ben was still wearing his planets pyjamas. The rest of his clothes must have been in the bag that he was clutching to his chest. She reached out for him. ‘Hey, Ben. Good job trying the sleepover. I’m so proud of you.’
Ben let her put her arms around him but didn’t put down his bag. He probably thought they were going to leave soon for their apartment. Andrew kicked off his shoes and dropped his keys onto the hall table with a clatter. ‘He was all ready for me when I turned up, weren’t you, buddy?’
After releasing him, Erica held Ben at arms’ length; he looked absolutely exhausted. ‘We’re going to stay over with Daddy and Mollie tonight. Is that okay? I’ve made up your bed in your old room. Mollie’s going to take you up there. Do you want to go now?’
Over her shoulder, Ben smiled at Mollie and she grinned back at him. ‘Let’s go up, Ben.’
Surprisingly quickly, Ben made for the stairs. She’d been expecting much more resistance to staying here. ‘Do you want me to come up with you?’
Mollie shook her head. ‘No. We’ll be fine. Once Ben’s settled, I’m going to go to bed myself. I’m shattered.’
She kissed Erica, then Andrew, goodnight and turned to go upstairs. Erica watched Ben follow her. It was way past his bedtime: he was almost asleep on his feet. Despite the emotional upheaval of today, it felt good to have both of her children under the same roof. Once they were gone, she joined Andrew in the sitting room where he was pouring himself a glass of red wine.
He held up the bottle to her as she walked in and she nodded. ‘Yes, please. Just a small one.’
He brought the glasses over to where she was sitting on the sofa. ‘What a day, eh?’
It felt like a week had passed since finding out Mollie had disappeared. ‘I’ve definitely had quieter afternoons. How was Ben when you picked him up?’
Andrew took a large gulp of his wine and she watched his Adam’s apple move in his throat. ‘A little confused to see me rather than you, I think, but I told him Mollie was waiting and he couldn’t get in the car quick enough.’
Despite the familiar sweep of guilt at keeping them apart, that made her smile. ‘What did they say about him getting upset? Was it my fault for just leaving him like that?’
He shook his head, took another gulp of his wine. ‘The woman I spoke to was very kind. She said it’s common for it to take a few attempts for some children before they’re comfortable staying the whole night. She said we can try again with a sleepover for Ben whenever we’re ready.’
She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready. She liked to have him with her, where he was safe. ‘It’s strange all being back here together. Nice, but strange.’
Andrew nodded. ‘Yes, I think Mollie has really missed living with Benjamin. I don’t think I’d really considered how close they are.’
‘Well, they are twins.’
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
She wanted to ask him if he’d missed living with her. But, bearing in mind the arguments that had punctuated their last months in the house together, she was afraid of his answer. She sipped at her wine. It was strong and fruity. She drank so rarely these days.
Andrew broke the silence. ‘Do you remember that first holiday we took them on? When they were only a few months old?’
In her mind, a picture postcard of rolling Yorkshire hills from the windows of their car, tea and cake in small gingham-clothed cafés in picturesque villages, a visit to the James Herriot Museum where they’d bought each of the children a toy lamb. ‘Yes, of course. It was lovely. Just the four of us.’
It hadn’t even mattered that Benjamin had woken them up at 4a.m. each morning, that they’d taken it in turns to sit up with him, bleary-eyed and coffee in hand, so that the other one could catch another couple of hours sleep before Mollie joined the party. The faraway look in Andrew’s eyes suggested he was remembering it the same way. ‘I thought we’d won the jackpot, you know. One of each, first go. I remember looking at the two of them in that double buggy and thinking we’ve cracked it.’
Erica swallowed down the lump in her throat which the memory of her two babies in that double stroller had brought. She’d felt the same, basking in the admiration from strangers on the street: everyone was interested in twins. And her babies had been beautiful. ‘I know what you mean. It was hard work, but…’
Andrew raised an eyebrow. ‘Not as hard as it is now, right?’
She knew what he meant but didn’t want to agree that fast. ‘It’s just different.’
He frowned at the deep burgundy wine as he swirled it in the glass. Whether it was the relief of finding Mollie or the fact of him collecting Ben or just being here in this warm familiar room with a glass of wine, there was a connection between them that she hadn’t felt in a very long time. He was still, two decades after they’d met, the man she found most attractive in this world. She thought about that picture in Mollie’s room of Celeste and fear crept into the edges of her contentment. She took a larger sip of her wine. ‘Mollie was asking about the fire.’
He didn’t look up. ‘Was she?’
She needed to work up to asking him about the telephone call that Mollie had overheard. ‘Yes. We had a long conversation on the beach about it. I explained why I had to get Benjamin out. And why I couldn’t get back in to her.’
Was he even listening? He’d barely moved. Did he still not understand what’d happened that day?
She kept talking over his loud silence. ‘She understood. I mean, I had to explain what’d happened because she didn’t remember it, but it made sense to her. I think she’s forgiven me.’
When he spoke, his voice was harder. ‘Has she?’
Surely, he knew how important this was to her? He knew how guilty she’d felt about that night. How she’d relived it again and again. ‘You can imagine how that feels for me.’
Finally, he looked up at her, but his eyes were dark and unreadable. ‘Of course I know, Erica. I was there when you woke up with a loud gasp in the middle of the night for months afterwards, listening while you talked about it – relived it – over and over again. Do you not think I felt it, too? That guilt. That I hadn’t protected you – any of you?’
The force of his voice was a shock. She knew that he’d taken it hard when they’d discovered that the fire had been started by a young boy he’d arrested the year before. He’d found out where Andrew lived, where his family lived, and thrown a firework through the letterbox of their old house. He’d never talked about this though. Never spoken about feeling guilty the way that she had. ‘I didn’t know you felt?—’
‘And I was angry, Erica. So angry at you.’
She put a hand to her throat; it was hard to breathe. ‘Angry? At me?’
‘How could you have let go of Mollie? She was so tiny and fragile. How hard could it have been to just drag her behind you?’
‘I told you… I had Ben… and…’
‘Of course you had Ben. Those scars down her arm are a constant reminder of the fact that you saved Ben first. That you always put him first. I was just thankful that Mollie didn’t remember much about the fire afterwards. But I did, Erica. And that night – sitting beside her as she sobbed with the pain of having her burns dressed – I swore to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again.’
Hot tears pricked the back of Erica’s eyes. How many times had he told her not to blame herself. That it had been an impossible choice. And now he was saying that his anger against her had smouldered all of these years? She couldn’t speak; she could only watch as he unleashed all the words that had festered unsaid in the last five years.
‘I tried to do it your way, Erica. I tried all the strategies you came up with. But then, that day in Aldeburgh, when Ben gave Mollie a nosebleed…’
‘He didn’t mean to do that. He was so upset?—’
‘I know he didn’t mean to do it. Do you think I’m a monster? But it still happened. She was still hurt. Again. Mollie just keeps on coming off worst. For me, it was the fire all over again.’
The fire. Clearly, they couldn’t move on from that day, either of them. Thinking back to Mollie’s explanation of how she’d found out what had happened, it was time to ask him outright what was going on. ‘Why were you talking about the fire on the telephone a few days ago, Andrew? Who were you talking to?’
That made him turn towards her with a start. ‘How do you know about that?’
‘Mollie told me. She overheard you.’
He returned to gazing at his fingers, picking at his thumbnail. ‘We don’t need to talk about that right now.’
Her heart thumped in her chest at the way he was avoiding her eyes. ‘I want to talk about it. Who was on the other end of that call?’
He took a deep breath and then looked at her. ‘If you really want to know, I was speaking to a lawyer. I was asking what I needed to do to file for a divorce.’