Chapter 43
BETH
Not again. Please. My eyes well up. I try to move, but it’s too much of a struggle.
This illness is taking its toll by the day.
Granted, some days are better than others, but right now, I feel as though I could curl up and die.
Wave after wretched wave of nausea. The incessant itching.
The rawness from all the scratching. This dizziness.
A mélange of pain that I’m forced to endure every damn minute of every damn day.
This is no way to live. There’s not a moment’s reprieve. And now a pain has appeared in my leg.
If Immy knows what’s good for her, she’ll listen to me. I turn over. Blue sits up in his bed by my side, his ice-blue eyes gazing at me, asking me if I’m OK. I go to stroke him but roll back. The effort’s too much. He whimpers. I look at him. ‘What would I do without you, boy?’
Connor enters my thoughts. I can’t believe Justin got him back here. What a waste of time. Even if Justin had gone to London, we didn’t need Connor here. Our boy has his life to lead. Not worrying about us. I close my eyes, remembering when he was young. I was at my happiest then.
I must have drifted off as Chopin’s first movement comes to an end, the opening melodies playing all over again. I’m right. It’s all happening again.
The sleep has done me good, though. I roll over and grab my laptop from under the bed.
Justin loaded a video of his Edinburgh talk onto our company files.
I said I’d edit it for a clip to use on our corporate website.
I always edit the videos of him speaking at conventions.
When I fell ill, he tried to take over this job, but he was rubbish at it.
I open my video editor and find the file I loaded at the hotel.
I click on the recording. There he is, Marcus Aurelius, smartly dressed, headset on, strutting along the brightly lit stage like a peacock, working the audience with confidence and charisma.
I raise the volume. His hands gesture purposefully when he emphasises a point, and his voice is clear and imposing.
I watch intently, making mental notes where I can cut certain bits to make the perfect clip.
Question time comes around. He always takes questions sitting down.
He places a palm on each knee and nods at the helper standing at the side of the audience.
She zigzags around the crowd, passing a microphone to people who have a hand raised.
Blue approaches the bed, nudging my elbow.
‘Hello, beautiful.’ I stroke his fur, thinking back to the day Justin brought him home for me.
It was just after the first girl. The first of six that he brought back here, each one I can still see when I close my eyes.
Should I have known what he was like from the beginning?
I was na?ve, vulnerable in my own way. None of it is an excuse.
He is, and always has been, so utterly manipulative.
It started when he found out about my past. All of it.
The opportunity he crafted for himself. The opportunity to take full advantage way beyond the oaths we made to each other on our wedding day.
That first momentous event that changed the course of our lives.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was trapped before I knew what trap I was in, with Blue the peace offering.
I should’ve left him then. My beloved Honey, the best horse there ever was, came next.
His way of saying sorry for what he’d put me through.
I thought it would end there. Silly me. I should’ve left him right there and then. But he had me. And he knew it.
I had Connor to consider, too. He loves his father.
Idolises him. But he doesn’t know what I know.
If I’d left, way back when all this started, I’d have had to leave Connor behind, too.
There’s no way Justin would’ve let me take him, just as much as I couldn’t abandon my son. And then I had to go and get ill.
Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps he has changed. I stare at the ceiling. Chopin’s first movement loops back to the beginning. I stare at my husband commanding the screen of my laptop.
No.
I’m not wrong.