Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Victoria
Reese still hasn’t asked me about what happened at work.
I feel like we’re both having our strings pulled by Camilla, letting her make us dance to her tune.
The obvious solution is to talk to each other but I’m not making the first move.
I asked if I could come over and she responded by asking me about Ben.
I haven’t told Ed what happened at work.
I know he won’t be filled with sympathy but will rather take it as an opportunity to lecture me on my quick temper and my inability to think through consequences.
Then the fight we have will be epic and probably marriage ending because I know myself well enough to know that I will tell him every single thing I have been thinking about him since he made the ridiculous decision to quit his job and go back to studying.
Instead, when he asked me why I was home early, I told him that there was some kind of bug going around the office and Blake told me I should work from home for the day.
He didn’t question me, but then he probably wasn’t even listening to my explanation because he was busy with his keyboard and computer at the time.
In bed, I look over my grovelling apology email one last time before I send it to Blake.
Ed is snoring beside me because he had a very hard day of doing whatever he wanted to.
God, I’m so angry, I can feel the rage bubbling inside me, heating up my skin and burning in my throat.
I shouldn’t be in this position. Six months ago, if I had quit my job, I would have been able to take the time to find a new one.
Now the mortgage and the gas bill and our car payments have been circling in my head for hours.
Dear Blake
I want to apologise for what happened today.
I’m sorry I got so angry about your accusation.
I should have reacted calmly and explained that I would never, ever do anything to jeopardise the company and the work that we are doing.
I should have asked questions instead of reacting.
I really don’t want to leave this job as I believe I have a great deal more to offer the company and I hope you will accept my apology and allow me to start fresh tomorrow.
I want to vomit at how kiss arsy this is, how much I have humbled myself and the fact that I am apologising to someone who is clearly inferior to me, despite him being my boss.
But still, I really need this job. I press send and then lie down in bed, wishing that I had taken a sleeping pill so that this whole day could be wiped out in a few hours of dreamless sleep but it’s too late to do that now and I always worry I won’t hear it if one of the twins wakes up and needs me.
Closing my eyes I breathe deeply when I hear a message come in on my phone and I grab it eagerly, hoping it’s from Blake to say we can just start again, although that’s a ridiculous thought to have at nearly 2 a.m. It’s obviously not from Blake.
Instead, it’s from Camilla and it’s not an agreement to meet.
Jobless, probably friendless and maybe soon to be husbandless and childless.
I can actually feel my mouth gaping open and closed as I struggle to process her words.
The sudden noise of my car alarm going off jolts me out of bed, as the loud repeated beeping of the horn sounds through the house.
‘God, Victoria, can you stop that noise?’ Ed murmurs but he doesn’t get up as I run from the bedroom, my heart galloping in my chest, to the garage, grabbing my keys on the way.
‘Mummy, there’s a noise,’ I hear Dylan call, followed closely by Cash. ‘A noise, a noise.’
The garage is accessed through the kitchen and I dart through, switching on lights and then pulling open the door that I know I locked but that is now unlocked. Clicking my car alarm off, blissful silence descends.
The automatic garage door that leads to the street is open and I’m sure I closed it. We live in a nice neighbourhood but break-ins are not unheard of.
Has someone been in the house?
Shivering in the cold night air, I move around the garage checking if anything has been moved but everything looks exactly the same.
Closing the garage door, I go back into the kitchen, locking the interleading door and checking that twice.
I look around the kitchen as well, checking my purse in my bag that I leave on a shelf in the kitchen.
The fifty dollars I had there this morning is still there.
Maybe the stress over losing my job made me forgetful.
Thank God, it’s a safe neighbourhood. Although it wouldn’t have hurt Ed to check the house before he went to bed.
It’s just one more thing that he’s delegated to me over the years.
As I go to leave the kitchen, my hand goes to the light switch to turn it off when something on the fridge catches my eye.
I walk over, studying the whole fridge, wondering what it was that drew my attention.
Like the fridges of most families, ours is covered in the boys’ artwork from school, reminders about appointments, cards from our local plumber and electrician and magnets from places Ed and I visited before we had kids, like from Yosemite National Park in California.
It takes me a few moments of my eyes roaming over everything before I spot it, half hidden behind a hand-drawn picture of a cat, just a round body and a round head with lines for whiskers, done by Dylan.
My mouth is dry as I move the drawing and pull out the photograph.
It’s old and has developed that slightly sepia tone photos get when they age.
I instantly know where it’s from. A couple of weeks after our first meeting when we were all twenty years old, Reese, Camilla and I went to the beach together.
It was a hot day but there was a lovely breeze so we stayed longer than we should have. When we were all ready to leave, I noticed that my skin was stinging.
‘I think I got burnt,’ I said.
‘Didn’t you apply sunscreen?’ Camilla asked.
‘I did but we’ve been here quite a long time.’
‘Oh God,’ said Reese. ‘I can feel it now. We should have reapplied.’
We checked each other out and found that all of us had been in the sun for too long.
‘We are such idiots,’ Reese said and then she started laughing and then we were all laughing.
And a man walking past us stopped and smiled because we were three young women in bikinis obviously and Reese asked him to take a picture and he did.
Reese printed one out for each of us. Mine is buried somewhere in a box.
In the picture we are standing close together, our arms around each other, our sunburned skin obvious, large grins on our faces and the blue ocean in the background.
We discussed how sore we were for days afterwards.
Looking at the photo now, I can see the smiles on Camilla’s face and Reese’s face but not on my face, even though I know I was smiling just as widely as they were. Because my face has been scribbled over, the pen used with such force that some of the photo has been scratched away.
She was here. In my house. Near my children.
I cover my mouth with my hand so that I do not scream.
Before I can stop myself, I rip the photo into pieces, unable to tolerate looking at it. When I fling the tiny pieces into the garbage bin, I regret it immediately because I should have kept it to show to Reese and Ed and maybe even the police, but my reaction was visceral, immediate.
My heart is racing as I check the house again and then once more. Opening every door and switching on every light.
In the boys’ room, Dylan and Cash are in one bed, both curled up with their favourite soft toys but they seem to have gone back to sleep.
I check their window and then I do one more round of the house and return to bed where Ed is deeply asleep.
And I may never sleep again.