Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
‘Come on, then. Out with it.’
From his position on the lone armchair, Robert raised his eyebrows at her.
She still couldn’t believe that – less than a week after heart surgery – he’d been allowed home with nothing more than a couple of bottles of pills and strict instructions to rest. That said, in the last two days she’d had to chase him back from the kitchen twice and threaten him with divorce if he even tried to go into his email to ‘just keep a check on a few potential orders’. He wasn’t the most patient of patients.
His enforced rest had obviously left his mind free to observe.
Though she’d agreed with Lucy that she had to reveal her secret, now was not the time.
After keeping quiet for twenty-seven years, dropping the bomb on him in the weeks after he was recovering from major heart surgery would surely just be compounding her sin.
She kept out of his sightline by reaching behind him on the chair to reposition his pillow. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
They were alone in the house. Two days after Robert’s surgery, they’d persuaded Abbie to go back to university and Grace was at work.
Ellen’s attempts to get to the bottom of why her eldest daughter was upset had come up empty.
She was due to come for dinner tomorrow night, so she’d try again with her then.
Obligingly, Robert leaned forward to allow her to plump up the pillow that had been fine the way it was. ‘Oh, come on, Ellen. We’ve been married long enough for me to know when you’ve got something you want to tell me. Just hit me with it.’
The time for lying was over, but – despite what Mr Grayson had said about him being a ‘new man’ – she was genuinely concerned for the effect on Robert’s heart. ‘It’s nothing that can’t wait until you’re better.’
Mock indignant, he pointed towards himself. ‘What are you saying? That I don’t look fighting fit.’ He laughed. ‘I’m fine. I actually feel worse trying to work out what it is you’re keeping from me. My mind is going in all manner of directions. Are you having an affair with Mr Grayson?’
His customary humour in the face of great stress wasn’t actually helping today and she couldn’t reflect a smile back at him. ‘No, it’s not that.’
He frowned at her serious tone. ‘Just tell me, Ellen.’
This was it. The moment she’d been dreading for twenty-seven years.
It could be the end of everything. In the last week, she’d played it over in her head so many times.
Particularly the last two nights, lying awake next to Robert, watching the rise and fall of his chest in the same way she’d watched Grace breathing in her sleep as a newborn.
Why was it so difficult to find the words?
‘I’ll tell you. But you have to just listen until I get to the end. ’
He nodded. And she told him, haltingly, the same story she’d recounted to Lucy a week ago, this time adding the new information that Lucy had shared with her. It was physically painful to see the changes on Robert’s face. Confusion, fear…disgust?
‘You slept with Ian?’
She’d heard that question many times in nightmares and yet it pierced her painfully hearing it for real. ‘I think so. Yes.’
‘You think so?’ Robert’s face contorted with pain. ‘Surely you must know?’
‘I don’t remember anything. I never have. And now I know why. It’d be like asking you to remember what happened on the operation table. But I did wake up next to him. I did…I was…I think we did have sex.’
Even saying the words brought back those feelings. Disbelief at waking up next to him, the disgust that she’d pulled over herself like a heavy quilt, cold with damp.
‘I just can’t believe it. With him of all people. He wasn’t even nice to you. You hated him.’
Trying to explain what’d happened when it felt as if someone had hold of her throat was so hard, but she needed to make him understand. ‘I did hate him. I do hate him. It was never my choice, Robert.’
He couldn’t even look at her. ‘But you must have walked with him back to your room. You must’ve invited him in?’
Hot tears coursed down her cheeks. ‘I must have. But I don’t remember. I think he spiked my drink, Robert. I have no idea what state I was in when I left the bar.’
Robert’s face flushed with anger. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I could have done something. I could have…’
‘No.’ She reached out to touch him, but pulled back when he flinched. ‘I didn’t want you to know. I was ashamed. So ashamed.’
There was a battle being waged inside Robert, she could see it on his face. What was going on in his head? What was he thinking about her? Would he – could he – ever forgive what she’d done?
When he spoke again, his voice trembled. ‘And all this time? All these years? You’ve never thought about telling me?’
She’d thought about it a million times. ‘I was so scared.’
Tears spilled from his eyes. ‘I’m scared, too, Ellen. I just don’t know…I need some time to think about this.’
Carefully, he pushed himself out of the chair. Panic coursed through Ellen. This is why she hadn’t wanted to tell him until he was fully recovered. ‘Where are you going? You can’t leave the house. You need to rest.’
Having reached the door to the hallway, he paused but didn’t turn to face her. ‘I’m just going upstairs for a while. Don’t come up. I want to be on my own.’
As the door clicked closed behind him, Ellen bent forward and wept. What had she done?
For the next hour, Ellen stayed frozen on the sofa, terrified about what was going to happen next.
If Robert couldn’t forgive her for this – and who could blame him – how would she cope?
Like a festering wound, this secret had been hidden for so long that she was almost used to the pain of it.
But tearing off the bandage and exposing it to the air had been agony.
What had she expected Robert to do? Just accept it and move on?
He was a good man, a wonderful man, but this deception might be more than he could deal with.
Because it wasn’t even just a one-night infidelity.
It was the whole question of whether or not he was the father of their eldest daughter.
Though he’d asked to be left on his own, she had to go and check on him.
He was only a week out from major heart surgery and she’d rather risk his anger than the possibility that he might be in pain.
But when she went into their bedroom, he wasn’t there.
The bathroom door was open so he wasn’t there either.
Anxiety crackled at the edges of her chest until she pushed open the door to Grace’s bedroom and saw him sitting on her bed, a framed photograph of the four of them in his hand.
Ellen pressed a fist to her chest to ease the pressure there. ‘Can I come in?’
When he lifted his face to look at her, the anger had gone, but the sadness that had replaced it was palpable. ‘Yes.’
Not wanting to push herself onto him, she took the chair at Grace’s dressing table. It squeaked as she turned towards him. ‘I’m so sorry, Robert. I know that I’ve done a terrible thing keeping this secret from you.’
His voice was quiet, she had to crane her ears to hear him. ‘I think, on some level, I knew.’
Now it was her turn to be surprised. ‘How is that possible? What do you mean?’
He sighed deeply. ‘I knew something had happened that night we had the big argument. You were so strange afterwards. I knew what Ian was like. I mean, not the part of it that Lucy told you, but I knew how he was with women. And I didn’t call him out on it.
The way you were around him, there was always a suspicion that something had happened, but I guess I didn’t want to face it.
There was a moment – only a fleeting one – when you told me you were pregnant, that I wondered if, for sure, the baby was mine, but I pushed it down.
I wanted so much for it to be our baby that I refused to think that anything else was possible. ’
Listening to his side of this, her good, kind, loyal husband, brought tears to her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Robert. I’m so, so sorry.’
He reached out for her hand. ‘It sounds like it wasn’t your fault. If Lucy is right and that bastard spiked your drink.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t just mean about that. I mean about the lie. About not telling you. I was just so desperate for it not to be true. And then there never seemed a right time to tell you about it.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘I can understand that.’
She couldn’t believe how calm he was being about it all. ‘You must be angry with me?’
‘If this had come out six months ago, maybe I would have reacted differently. But this health scare has changed me. Made me realise how precarious life is. And how precious. It hurts like hell to think that there’s a possibility that Grace is not biologically my child, but she is my daughter.
She will always be my daughter. Nothing will ever change that. ’
A sob escaped from Ellen as she leaned into Robert’s arms. Relief, guilt, fear, love: it all poured out of her as she cried in his arms. She didn’t deserve to be as lucky as to have a man like him.
When her tears subsided, she stayed there, not wanting to leave the security of his arms, his chest, his warm beating heart.
There was more that she wanted to ask him, more reassurance that she needed to hear, but that was selfish. This was about him now. Him and Grace.
He must have been thinking about their daughter, too. With her head resting on his chest, his voice seemed to come from his heart. ‘We have to tell her.’
Of course, he was right, but the thought was unbearable. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to say.’
‘We’ll tell her together. One upside would be that she wouldn’t have to be scanned for the heart condition.’
His wonky smile brought fresh tears to her eyes. ‘That’s the only part of you I don’t want her to have. Everything good about her comes from you.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘Yeah, you’re right there.’
She pulled away and looked at that impish smile that she knew – and loved – so well. ‘I’m so lucky to have you, Robert. I was so scared that I was going to lose you.’
She felt the tears come again and he brushed them away with his thumb. ‘You will never lose me. I love you.’
Again, the question she wanted to know – would you have still married me if you’d known back then? – was too much to ask of him. ‘I love you, too.’
‘Is Grace still coming for dinner tomorrow? We can tell her then.’ His voice cracked. ‘I just hope that, if the worst is true, she doesn’t feel any differently about me.’
‘She won’t. I know it. You’ll still be the dad who played tea parties with her and drove her to school discos and listened to her practise the violin over and over and over.’
He nodded. ‘I loved that little girl so much. She was my world. She still is.’
Unable to speak, she nodded. Desperately hoping that this was going to end well.