The Woman Outside My Door

by Rachel Ryan

  “Georgina.” Emma looked, for the slimmest second, absolutely terrified. Then she plastered a wide, Stepford-wife smile across her face. “How are you?”

  The two women looked at each other, frozen.

  Georgina had often imagined running into Emma. She had never sought her out (she was not naturally confrontational, and the only person she held responsible for Bren’s actions was Bren himself), but she’d scripted it in her head. The perfect cutting one-liner, the devastatingly sharp remark, the flawless retort she would use should her path ever cross Emma’s.

  She had never imagined she would be paralyzed by a lifetime of small talk and social anxiety. She had never imagined her lips would move automatically and reply, “Good, you?”

  “Not bad, not bad.” Emma’s smile was fixed, her eyes too wide. She was already moving towards the door, still babbling as she did so, as if pleasantries could construct a protective bubble around her. “I was really sorry to hear about your mother. Bren told me.”

  Georgina’s mouth was beginning to catch up with her mind. She did not allow the automatic “Thank you” to leave her lips.

  “I better hit the road.” Emma backed through the door. “See you, Georgina.”

  And with a swish of her dark hair, she was gone.

  Georgina stared after her.

  What just happened?

  Had she just been civil to the woman who’d slept with her husband?

  And there was something else.

  Bren told me.

  When the hell had Bren been speaking to Emma about Georgina’s mother? He had sworn to her that he’d had no further contact with Emma since that night.

  “Wait.” Georgina hurried out of the shop. “Wait!”

  But Emma was already far up the street, speed-walking away, a slim figure in the distance. She glanced back once before disappearing around a corner.

  Georgina stared after her. What had Emma been doing around here in the first place? She lived, as far as Georgina was aware, on the other side of the city.

  Georgina walked home quickly. A cat darted across her path, a garage door slammed with a bang, things that would have caused her to start nervously earlier—but now she was driven by a steadily building anger that overrode everything else.

  Bren had lied to her. Again. That bastard.

  The car was parked in the driveway when she arrived at the house. So Bren and Cody were back from their day out.

  “Mom!” In all the zoo-related excitement, Cody had forgotten his grudge. He never could hold one for long: beneath his cheekiness and spirit, he was an achingly sweet child, eager to give and receive love. He tumbled into the hall now, holding a stuffed tiger. “We saw a real tiger at the zoo and it came right up to the glass! And we had sausages and chips.”

  “Did you? Sounds lovely.” Georgina held out her arms, and Cody rushed into them. She hugged him hard, his little arms around her neck a balm to all her rage.

  “Cody, come with me for a minute, sweetie.” She gripped his hand.

  “Where are you going?” asked Bren. Georgina ignored him.

  She led Cody outside and over the low wall that separated their garden from Vera’s. She rang the doorbell, and Vera answered.

  “Hiya, Georgina. Hiya, Cody.” Vera looked tiny in an enormous knitted cardigan. Her round glasses hung on a string around her neck; she put them on and beamed at them both. “Well, this is a nice surprise. Come on in.”

  They were ushered into the narrow hall covered in photographs of Vera’s grandson. Georgina said in a low voice: “Vera, would you mind taking Cody for a few minutes? Bren and I need to have a quick chat.”

  Cody had gone marching into the kitchen of his own accord. “Do you have any banana bread, Vera?” he shouted.

  “Not today, love,” Vera called, “but you can have a Kit Kat and watch some TV with me, how does that sound?” To Georgina she said: “Of course. You know he’s always welcome.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Vera. Thanks.”

  Back in her own house, Bren was waiting in the hall. “Where’s Cody?”

  “Vera’s looking after him for a bit.” Georgina walked past him. “So you and I can talk.”

  They took up stations in their old battleground, the kitchen: him leaning against the counter, her standing by the door. When he looked at her, a kaleidoscope of emotions crossed his face. Anger, guilt, concern, confusion, love.

  Georgina understood. She felt the same.

  “We do need to talk,” he agreed.

  “Yes.” But not about what you think. She watched him closely as she continued: “We need to talk about who I saw in the shops today.”

  “What?” Bren blinked at her, wrong-footed. “What d’you mean? Who?”

  “Emma.” She couldn’t bring herself to say your Emma, though the phrase did jump to her lips. “Emma Gilligan.”

  His head jerked a little, involuntarily. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

  When a few moments had passed without Bren managing to speak, Georgina continued: “And she said the strangest thing.”

  “You were talking to her?” Bren’s voice came out in a rasp. He was definitely off the offensive now. He coughed, cleared his throat.

  “Yes. She offered her sympathies about my mother.” Georgina wanted to sound calm, but she could hear how tightly she was speaking. “She said you told her all about it. When were you talking to Emma about my mother, Bren?”

  One of Bren’s hands had begun tapping nervously on his thigh. Georgina continued, keeping her voice as steady as she could, “Because you told me you haven’t spoken to Emma since that night.”

  He opened and closed his mouth and looked around the room desperately as though hoping the perfect answer would swoop down and save him.

  “Bren. Answer me.”

  “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Do you?” she said coolly.

  “It’s not— Nothing’s been going on. A few months after, Emma called me again. She said she wanted to talk. I told her no, no way, I could never see her again and she wasn’t to keep calling me. That’s all the contact we’ve had, I swear.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me she’d called?”

  Bren looked utterly miserable.

  “It was just after Rose died. You were— You couldn’t even get out of bed. I thought the last thing you needed was to be reminded of…”

  “You’re saying she only called you once?”

  “Twice,” he said instantly. “Twice, and the second time I got snappy with her. I guess I took my own guilt out on her. I told her your mother had just died, and we had enough on our plate. Basically I told her to get lost. Haven’t heard from her since.”

  Georgina said nothing, letting the silence drag out.

  “What’s she doing around here anyway?” Bren muttered.

  “That’s what I was wondering,” said Georgina evenly. “She lives on the other side of the city, doesn’t she? Rathgar? Rathmines?”

  “Rathmines, I think,” said Bren.

  “You think? You’ve never been to her house? She’s never been here?”

  “No. Georgie, I swear to God. She knows we live in this area, but I never met her around here. It was one time. She wasn’t here because of me. Unless…”

  Georgina understood what was unsaid.

  “What, you think she’s doing her shopping on the other side of the city on the off chance she might run into you?” Georgina heard the mocking edge that crept into her voice. “She just fancies you that much, does she?”

  Bren looked embarrassed and unhappy.

  “Georgina, I don’t expect you to believe anything I say right now, but this is the truth. There’s nothing going on between us. I haven’t seen Emma since that night. She called me. Her relationship with Christopher was breaking down, and… I think the breakup made her wonder if she’d made the wrong choice when she left me for Christopher all those years ago. I think it was more nostalgia than anything else. The whole thing was
stupid.”

  “And you couldn’t tell me about it.”

  “I thought it was the right call to make at the time. And looking back, honestly, I think I’d still make that call. You were in a bad place, you could barely function, you were—”

  “All right.” Georgina got the picture. “You could’ve told me about it later.”

  Bren shrugged helplessly. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I didn’t. I just… Everything was so difficult, and…”

  “And you’d gotten away with it, so you didn’t want to risk bringing it up again.”

  Bren had nothing to say. Georgina turned away.

  She could imagine how the breakdown of a ten-year relationship could make a person look back at their only other serious romance through a rose-tinted lens. It was plausible that Emma, in her loneliness and confusion, had idealized Bren, especially after their stolen night together. It was plausible that Bren hadn’t told Georgina about the phone calls because he’d wanted to protect her when she was at her most fragile. It was all so plausible.

  But was it the truth?

  Chapter 25

  Between his trip to the zoo, the impromptu visit to Vera’s, and the Kit Kat, Cody was overstimulated. He was practically bouncing up and down when Georgina brought him home. When his repeated requests of “Can I play a game on your phone, Mom? Please?” became too much to bear, Georgina gave him her phone—which she had taken out of her pocket with the express purpose of doing some Googling and sleuthing—just to shut him up.

  With Cody quieted and playing on her phone in his bedroom, Georgina opted to use Bren’s MacBook. Her laptop was downstairs and going to get it would mean interacting with Bren. But the MacBook was on their bed and she knew the password.

  She settled cross-legged on the mattress, opened Google, and typed the words ways children deal with grief. There were 59,400,000 results. Maybe there’d be something on here about kids creating imaginary friends to replace lost loved ones.

  In the aftermath of the Bren/Emma saga, Georgina was strangely calm. The anger towards Bren had, oddly, cleared her head. Sitting here now, she felt able to focus on what mattered most: Cody.

  She was going to get to the bottom of this. She was going to concentrate.

  Though something was niggling at her, a troubling feeling that there was some important detail she had missed… something someone had said? But no, the half memory was fading. She couldn’t catch it… It was gone.

  Turning her attention back to the computer, she added the words imaginary friend to her search.

  It is completely healthy for children to have imaginary friends…

  Imaginary friends can help children deal with stress, anxiety, or bullying…

  One sentence tugged at her attention.

  Children often imagine they have seen the person who has died. They may search for them, hoping to find them if they look hard enough.

  Could this explain Cody’s behavior?

  To read more, she had to download the file.

  Georgina clicked Accept and then opened Bren’s download folder. It took her a moment to find the document, but there it was, alongside a number of other files.

  Files Bren had downloaded himself.

  Files with titles like:

  How to win custody—for fathers.

  Prove you’re the better parent in court!

  Child custody: how dads can win.

  The disorientation Georgina experienced was not dissimilar to the feeling of waking up in a bed other than her own.

  Prove you’re the better parent in court!

  Her fingertips hovered over the keypad. She glanced at the half-open bedroom door. She would hear Bren coming up the stairs.

  She double-clicked.

  She read furiously, skimming as fast as she could through pages with sections like Dirty tricks & tips: how to get the upper hand in court and Top 5 strategies a father can use to win. She could hear Bren downstairs, moving around in the kitchen. Heart pounding, she opened another document:

  In cases of mental illness…

  When the mother can be proven an unfit parent…

  Mentally ill or unstable…

  Georgina tried to make sense of what she was seeing. Theories were forming, but she pushed them away. They belonged to different marriages, different lives. Not to her and Bren. The man who stroked her hair and made her carrot soup when she was sick. Who picked her up when the weight of life threatened to crush her to the floor. The man who said, “Please go to the appointment I’ve made for you with the therapist. You know I have your best interests at heart.”

  A small voice in the back of her mind whispered: Of course, if you do go to that appointment, it’ll be on record that you’re currently seeking mental health treatment.

  A louder voice interrupted loyally: Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not possible. Bren would never do anything like… like what this suggests. There has to be an innocent explanation. Such as…

  But the loud, loyal voice could not, at that very moment, think of any innocent reason Bren would have these resources on his laptop. The small voice came back in, probing, needling: Once you would’ve sworn he’d never cheat on you.

  Can be proven an unfit parent…

  Mentally ill…

  She thought of all Bren’s encouragement that she seek professional help. The self-doubt he had planted in her head. She fought waves of nausea, disbelief, and, worst of all, the urge to run to Bren’s arms and beg him to make it better with a nicely packaged explanation, to stroke her hair and tell her everything was fine.

  But the words were right there in front of her.

  Unfit parent…

  Dirty tricks…

  How dads can win…

  “Georgina?” Bren was coming up the stairs. Her jump of shock almost knocked the laptop onto the floor. Frantically she began clicking and closing documents, then slammed the computer shut.

  “Georgie?” He was on the landing now. Georgina sat back on the bed and tried to look relaxed. Was it obvious her heart was pounding? Her breathing irregular?

  “I’m thinking of ordering food,” Bren said, almost apologetically, the tone of a man who knew he was in the doghouse. “Indian, maybe. Would you like anything?”

  “My usual.” Did her voice sound too high? Was it noticeable?

  “Korma? Naan bread?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Anything to drink?”

  She shook her head. Bren gave her a mournful look, obviously assuming her silence was intended to punish him, and shuffled off. Georgina observed the exaggerated slump of his shoulders, his I know I deserve it puppy-dog face.

  Was it all just an act?

  Was he planning on leaving her? And taking Cody?

  Unbidden, images came to mind of Bren and Emma, like a terrible highlight reel she was powerless to stop. Clandestine meetings. Elegant hotel rooms. Emma’s green eyes. Bren pulling his T-shirt over his head, his taut stomach above Emma’s. The two of them curled up in bed afterwards, laughing at Georgina, at her naivete.

  Bren and Emma on a sofa, Cody between them.

  Dizzy with it all, Georgina put her head in her hands. Amidst her confused thoughts, she again experienced the strong sense that she was missing something. For a moment, she almost had it, her grasping mind nearly closed on the memory, but—

  “Georgina, I’m hopping in the shower.” Bren came back into the room. “If the food gets here, there’s cash on the table to tip the driver.”

  Georgina made sounds of agreement, but she was on autopilot. Bren was undressing in front of her, grabbing a towel. Bren, her husband, the father of her child.

  Men leave their wives for their lovers all the time, the small voice inside her head said. Spouses file and fight for sole custody all the time.

  Yes, said the loyal part of her, but—

  Yes, but not in my marriage? the small voice mocked. All the time, but never to me?

 
; There was a roaring in her ears.

  Then the small voice said suddenly, clearly: Leave.

  Her mind went racing ahead of her. She could see herself throwing some clothes in a bag while Bren was in the shower, grabbing Cody, driving to her father’s…

  Crazy, said the loyal-to-Bren voice. Paranoid. You can’t just run out while your husband’s in the shower. You have a child, you have a job, you can’t—

  She stood up, decisive.

  There had to be an innocent explanation for the documents on his computer. Bren had failed her in the past, yes, but he was only human. Sleeping with Emma was a very human mistake. This was something else altogether. It couldn’t be right. It couldn’t. He wouldn’t—

  Wouldn’t what? Gaslight her? Convince her she was losing her mind? Try to take her son away?

  She would ask him. It was that simple. She would ask him tonight, when Cody was asleep.

  But somehow, she never did manage to ask Bren about the documents that evening. Instead, as they ate their Indian food, as he ruffled Cody’s hair and made jokes, she just watched.

  Watched, and took note.

  Chapter 26

  The next day was a Saturday, but, to Georgina’s relief, Bren had been called into work. Grateful for the reprieve, she put Cody into the car and drove to her father’s house.

  Jimmy didn’t comment on his daughter’s puffy face or the purple shadows under her eyes, didn’t bombard her with questions she wasn’t ready to answer. He just welcomed her in and put the kettle on, distracted Cody with stories and allowed Georgina some space.

  She lay down on the sofa in the conservatory, mentally exhausted.

  “Tea or coffee, Georgie?”

  “I’m grand, Dad, thanks. I just want to rest.”

  “Cody”—Jimmy turned to his grandson—“d’you have that super purple whatchamacallit gun with you? How about you and me go out the back and have a game of war?”

  Georgina watched through the window as Cody and Jimmy played in the garden. Cody shooting plastic animal bullets around, his grandfather pretending to be mortally wounded. She experienced a rush of appreciation for her father, comforting as a cup of tea on a cold day.