Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Five Years Earlier
EMILY
The house is quiet. The quality, thick carpet that swallows sound, soft-close cupboards that never slam, the double-glazed floor-to-ceiling windows that shut out the world. It’s the kind of silence you pay a premium for.
I pad downstairs barefoot and stop for a second in the kitchen doorway, taking in the granite worktops. The pale oak cabinets. The bi-fold glass doors that look out on to a garden we pay someone else to keep looking perfect.
Oliver is at the island in a crisp dark shirt I chose, the sleeves rolled up and collar open.
He’s holding a mug of coffee and looks like he’s auditioning for a lifestyle advert.
He looks up when he hears me and his face changes—that quick warmth of being glad to see me that still catches me off guard, even now.
‘Morning,’ he says. ‘Coffee?’
I nod and go to him.
He reaches for me automatically, his palm at my waist, pulling me in hungrily like he used to when we first moved into our tiny, rented flat years ago. We were always desperate in the mornings to steal another few seconds together before we’d have to leave for our respective jobs.
He kisses the top of my head, and I lean into him, allow myself to sink into that feeling of closeness. This is the thing I couldn’t articulate to anyone: how easy it is to love him. How the world goes quiet around the edges when I’m in his arms.
On the counter beside us are our car keys and, outside, on the drive, our two cars sit under a thin veil of fresh morning dew, their black paint gleaming like it’s been freshly applied.
We used to dream about these things. A house with space, money in the bank and the ability to breathe.
It was a dream where we found contentment, where the future no longer felt like a threat.
And now here we are. We’re the Suttons now. A few months ago, Oliver insisted we change our surname and move from Yorkshire to the East Midlands to leave all the crap behind us there. Not to stop the cons, but to start again with the added protection of the name change.
Oliver needed a whole new identity; to become someone nobody could trace back. I just needed the camouflage of a deed-poll name change to match.
We got new documentation, new everything. Courtesy of Oliver’s ‘contacts’—that was the only explanation he gave.
‘It’s layered,’ he’d said when I pressed him. ‘Not just plastic cards. There’s a footprint. It all lines up.’
‘How?’ I asked.
He gave me that look. The one that means he’s already five steps ahead.
‘Dormant identities,’ he said. ‘People who won’t be needing any more.’
‘You mean dead.’
Oliver shrugged. ‘No close family. No one checking in. It’s nice and clean.’
My stomach tightened.
‘The clever part,’ he added, ‘is that we kept our first names. Makes it easier. No hesitation when someone calls you across a room—there’s no chance of slipping up. Just a different surname and a different postcode.’
I didn’t like it, but I understood it was safer.
He smiled. ‘We don’t have to become different people. Just . . . relocate who we are.’
I remember staring at the driving licence in my hand, at my own face printed beside a new surname.
‘It’s watertight,’ he said. ‘It would take specialist access and a reason to dig. And no one has either.’
Yet, increasingly, I can’t shake the sense that we’re on a moving walkway and Oliver has no intention of stepping off.
He hands me a cup of coffee. then slides his phone across the counter.
‘You’ll like this,’ he says, grinning. ‘Take a look.’
I pick it up and stare at the photograph on the screen.
It’s some middle-aged man in a grey suit I don’t recognize.
The picture has been snapped when he is mid-laugh, his hand clamped on Oliver’s shoulder like they’re old friends.
The restaurant behind them has linen tablecloths, wine glasses and silverware.
It’s the kind of place where nobody worries about the prices.
‘Who’s this?’ I ask.
‘It’s Stephen Boothroyd,’ Oliver says. ‘You know. The one with the software company I told you about. The one who thinks he’s clever because he wrote a piece for the Economist.’ He takes a sip of coffee, pleased with himself.
‘He’s invited us to his birthday bash in a couple of weeks. His wife wants to meet you.’
‘Oh, really?’
Oliver’s smile sharpens. ‘We’ve arrived, Em. Everybody wants a piece of us. It’s all working just as we planned it.’
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling, too. I can’t help it.
There’s something magnetic about him when he’s on form, when the confidence sits on his shoulders like it’s always been there.
A few years ago, he used to hesitate before he spoke to people like Stephen whatever-his-name-is.
His cheeks would flush. He’d overthink. Now he walks into rooms as if he belongs there. Like he has the right to be in them.
And it’s partly because of me.
You must look like the kind of man people find it easy to trust. That’s what I told him back then.
And now he does. Completely.
The thought should make me proud, but instead, it makes me cringe, because there are days I can’t tell where Oliver ends and the act begins any more.
His phone buzzes again. He glances at it, and his smile flickers, almost imperceptibly.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Nothing for you to worry about.’ He flips the phone face down.
‘But I do worry,’ I say. ‘I feel like this thing is running away with us. I’d like to put the brakes on for a while.’
He reaches for my hand, squeezing my fingers. ‘Don’t start, Em.’
His voice is gentle, but there’s a warning behind it not to ruin everything we’ve built here.
So I let it go. Like I always seem to do lately.
Because I love him, and when he looks at me like I’m the only person in the room, I can still convince myself that’s what matters. For years, it was just us two against the world, and it’s so hard to stop being loyal to that version of us.
There was a time when I thought we were doing this for something. A family life. A baby. The word sits in my mind like a cold stone.
We tried, briefly about a year ago. Not long enough to make it an ordeal, not long enough to really get hung up on it. Just a few months of allowing ourselves to consider a new life and nurture some secret hope.
I remember the quiet excitement that made ordinary evenings feel charged. Then, after a short time, the waiting. The disappointment. The sense of time ticking on without anything changing. The tests.
Oliver hadn’t asked any questions. He’d made one joke about him firing blanks and I’d laughed because it was easier than crying. But after that, something changed.
Oliver threw himself even harder into the things he could control. The conning. The planning. The chase. It was as if he wanted to prove he was still a man by winning big in other things.
People cope with life’s challenges in different ways, I know that. But sometimes I look at my husband and feel like I’m standing on the edge of a glittering, fast-running river, watching him wade in deeper just because he can. Too deep for me to follow him blindly any more.
I keep telling myself that, soon, he’ll realize there’s no need to prove himself and he’ll turn around and come back to me. But there’s no sign of that happening anytime soon.
My phone rings and the name on the screen makes my breath snag.
I haven’t spoken to my mother in months. Not properly. Not since the last clipped conversation where I wanted to tell her we were trying for a baby and she reminded me, again, that she has ‘enough on her plate’ without my drama.
I swipe to answer. ‘Hello?’
There’s a pause, then my half-sister’s voice—one of the twins. Bright and controlled.
‘Emily. It’s me, Loren. Look, this isn’t easy, but I . . . I’ve got something to tell you.’
My skin goes cold. ‘What is it?’
Another pause, then something rustles, as if she’s covering the phone.
‘It’s Mum. She’s . . . she died.’
The words don’t make sense at first. They sound like a foreign language.
I hear myself say, stupidly, ‘What do you mean, she died?’
She exhales. ‘It was quick. They said it was her heart in the end . . . we did what we could.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me sooner?’ My voice emerges thin and sharp.
‘We thought you wouldn’t—’
‘You thought I wouldn’t what?’ Oliver is watching me now, his body going still. I put a hand on the counter to steady myself. ‘You thought I wouldn’t care?’
‘Don’t do this,’ she says wearily. ‘It’s been a lot, Emily. We’ve been dealing with everything. The funeral . . .’
‘The funeral?’ I repeat faintly.
There’s a beat of silence that tells me everything.
‘You’ve already had the funeral,’ I say carefully. ‘Without me.’
Loren sighs, impatient now. ‘We didn’t know where you were.’
‘But you managed to find me by calling my phone.’
‘You haven’t been in touch for ages. And Mum . . . if you must know, Mum didn’t want—’
‘Mum didn’t want me there,’ I finish for her, so she doesn’t have to say it. My whole life has been made of the things the three of them don’t say.
‘Well, anyway, it’s done now,’ my half-sister says. ‘And I’m calling because Mum left the house to me and Beth. Everything, really, so it’s all being sorted. The solicitor is dealing with . . .’
My ears are ringing so hard I can barely hear her.
It isn’t the money that hurts. It isn’t the house. I don’t care about that stuff.
It’s the way the decision is so final, so cold and complete. Even in death, Mum has found a way to make me the piece that doesn’t fit.
The one you don’t think to invite. The one you forget to tell.
I can’t breathe properly. I feel Oliver’s arm around my shoulders.
‘I have to go,’ I manage to say.
‘Emily—’
I end the call and stand there, staring at my phone. My chest tightens, tightens, tightens, until it feels like it might burst open.
‘Em?’ Oliver’s hand gently cups my face, warm and solid. ‘Talk to me.’
‘My mum is dead,’ I say, and my voice breaks. The words still feel unreal in my mouth. ‘She . . . she died and they didn’t tell me. They’ve had the funeral and . . . now it’s all done. Everything is sorted.’
Oliver’s eyes flash with anger and disbelief. ‘What?’
I laugh, a sharp, ugly sound. ‘Mum left everything to them. All of it. It’s like I never existed in the first place. Like they finally airbrushed me out.’
‘Jeez.’ He pulls me to him, so close I can feel his heartbeat. ‘I’m so sorry, Em. You don’t deserve this. Those . . . those bitches.’
I cling to him, shaking.
‘It’s not about the money or the house,’ I whisper against his chest. ‘It’s never been about that. It’s . . . it’s that even at the very end, she didn’t want me. I wasn’t worth as much as them and I didn’t matter enough to tell. I didn’t matter enough to—’
‘Don’t do this to yourself,’ Oliver interrupts. ‘You are very wanted and very loved. And you matter so much to me, Em. Whatever they do or say, nothing can change that.’
My throat closes. I can’t respond.
Oliver tips my chin up with his finger and looks at me. His eyes are fierce and bright with grief and anger on my behalf.
‘That is not about you, Em,’ he says, voice low, certain.
‘This is about them. About your mum, and about whatever was broken in that family. And now she can’t blame you any more.
’ He wipes my cheek tenderly with his thumb, as if I’m something precious that could easily crack.
‘You matter,’ he says. ‘To me. You matter more than anyone has ever mattered.’
Something inside me unfurls and I lay my cheek against him. It’s pathetic, to need to hear those words so much. But I do. I need someone to choose me. To keep on choosing me.
Oliver presses a kiss to my forehead. ‘We’ll sort it. We’ll go up there and have it out with them if you want. We’ll—’
‘I don’t want to,’ I say, and the shame of it floods me. ‘I don’t want to stand in that house and feel like a stranger ever again.’
‘Then you won’t.’ He wraps his arms around me, anchoring me. ‘You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do any more. They can’t hurt you now and, one day, someone will make them feel like they have made you feel. Then they will know.’
His voice is so steady and so protective that, for a moment, the entire universe shrinks down to the space between his arms. I feel safe and validated in a way I haven’t felt since I was a child, before my grandmother died.
And I realize that this is why I will always stay. Not because I’m na?ve, or blinkered. Not because I don’t see what he’s becoming. But because in the moments that matter—when the floor drops away—Oliver is there to catch me.
He catches me every time.
Later, when I’m calmer, when I’ve had a shower and pulled myself together, he sits beside me on the sofa, one arm around my shoulders. His leg bounces with restless energy, but he stills it when he notices me looking.
‘How much is going to be enough for us?’ I ask quietly.
He turns his head. ‘What?’
‘How much money do we need to be happy, Oliver?’ I say. ‘We have this house. The cars, even some savings. We could stop, sell up and move away. We could even change our names again and . . . just breathe.’
He stares ahead, his jaw working, as if he doesn’t want to hear what I’m saying. I let the silence sit there.
‘Not much more,’ he says finally. ‘Just a bit bigger financial cushion, so we can feel safe. We’re nearly there, Em.’
I watch him, and I know—with the same cold certainty I had over something else on the phone with Loren—that we will never reach this fabled place. We’re always going to be nearly there.
Oliver feels my gaze and looks back at me, softer now, and I see his love shining there still. Real love. And that’s what makes it so complicated, what makes it hurt harder.
I take his hand.
‘That great big hole inside you,’ I say gently, ‘the one caused by the neglect and the lack of love . . . money is never going to fill it.’
His face changes. A flicker of pain and possibly irritation, before the shutters slam down.
‘Don’t psychoanalyse me,’ he says by way of a quiet warning.
‘I’m not. I’m just asking you to recognize it.’
For a moment, he looks like he might just let the mask drop and admit he’s scared, admit he’s empty. Admit he doesn’t know how to stop chasing the next win because he’s addicted to the high of feeling capable and successful.
Because it helps him feel safe.
Then he smiles in that charming, easy way I’ve come to fear and adore.
‘We’re fine, aren’t we, Em? We’re good.’ He traces a finger down my cheek. ‘I’m doing this for us. All you have to do is trust me.’
Outside, the garden lights glow softly over a lawn that looks perfect even in the dark.
Inside, curled against the man I love, I can feel the future shifting. Not with a dramatic bang but with a slow, almost imperceptible turn. Like a wheel that’s begun to slip.