Chapter 29
iris
‘It might not be what it looks like,’ Iris said.
They were sitting side by side on the end of Amy’s perfectly made bed. Iris had found her sister in the tiny walk-in closet off her bathroom, hiding in the dark. As soon as she’d viewed the doorbell footage on Amy’s phone, she’d understood why.
Mac hadn’t been giving the woman a peck on the cheek. He’d cupped the back of her head and pulled her towards him for the kind of lingering, intimate kiss that suggested this wasn’t their first time.
Of course it was what it looked like.
Iris knew there was nothing she could say to her sister to make this better. Betrayal cut through to your soft underbelly, because it came from those you trusted most. It was especially bitter when the one you’d take a bullet for was the person pulling the trigger.
Mac. Of all people.
And of all the women in the world, that he should betray Amy with her.
She felt bad for thinking this, but Jesse she’d have understood. Her husband’s moral boundaries were blurry at best. He’d never given Iris cause to doubt him, but a man who cheated on his taxes was easily capable of cheating on his wife.
Iris was the one who’d always been so hopeless at picking men.
Finn’s dad, Sean: not just married, but a coward who’d left Stowebury two days after Iris had told him she was pregnant, packing up the wife and the daughter Iris had known nothing about and skedaddling without leaving a forwarding address.
There’d been a succession of useless boyfriends after that, each worse than the last.
And then she’d met Jesse: not perfect, not by any means, but affectionate and amiable and so wonderful with Finn she’d been prepared to turn a blind eye if he strayed.
But Amy had always slightly looked down on Iris’s marriage, even if she’d never admit it. Amy had had the fairy-tale love story, the high school prince who’d swept her off her feet and whisked her off to the castle he’d built with his own two hands.
McAmy forever.
Iris’s marriage, on the other hand, was subtly but indubitably less than.
Not quite a marriage of convenience; Amy knew her well enough to know she hadn’t married Jesse for his money.
But it wasn’t a love story, was it? Iris and Jesse might love each other, but they weren’t in love.
They weren’t soulmates, destined for each other like Mac and Amy.
Iris loved her sister more than anyone on earth bar her children. She’d give her life to protect Amy, to save her sister from pain. And yet, deep in the darkest, most shameful part of her soul, was a small, goblin glow of pleasure.
It wasn’t Jesse who was cheating. Iris wasn’t the one sobbing on the floor of the closet.
‘We’ll figure this out,’ she said, squeezing Amy’s hand. ‘Whatever you decide to do, I’m right here. I’ll support you, whatever you need—’
She broke off at the sound of a car pulling into the gravel drive, getting up from the bed and glancing out of the bedroom window. ‘It’s Kate.’
‘I can’t,’ Amy said.
‘It’ll just be about prom—’
‘I can’t.’
Nicky called up from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Mom! Kate’s here!’
Amy covered her face with her hands.
Iris dropped to her haunches in front of her sister.
‘Amy, I’ll support whatever decision you make,’ she said, ‘and I’ll even help you bury their bodies in the woods if necessary, but I’m not going to let you end your marriage by default.
You’re not going to hide up here and let her win.
’ She pulled Amy’s hands from her face. ‘You’re going to put on your big-girl pants and figure this shit out. And it starts now. With Kate.’