Liam shifted in his seat. I’d never seen him so uncomfortable. It was odd. He was paler, too. Maybe he’d fired the guy. Benefited from his departure or something, or...
“Oh, come on, Liam,” Nancy said. “Surely you remember his name? You guys worked together for ages. I think it was Wilkinson. But I remember Olivia telling me she was keeping her maiden name. What was it...uh...”
“Nancy,” Liam said, smiling at her. “I don’t think anybody cares.”
She laughed, then looked at Abby and me. “Sorry. But don’t you hate it when you’ve got a name on the tip of your tongue? Argh. I can see it on the wedding invite. God, it’s going to bug me all night now. Brennan. No. Bre...Bre...” Nancy threw her hands up in the air, then let them settle in her lap. “I give up.”
“It’s getting late,” Abby said, despite the fact that it was only eight thirty. “We should probably go, Nate.” She pushed back her chair and got up. “Thanks so much for dinner. It was lovely.”
As we all shifted toward the door, Nancy snapped her fingers. “Brewer. Olivia Brewer.”
“Olivia Brewer?” I repeated, then looked at Abby. “You worked with an Olivia Brewer.”
“Really?” Nancy looked flustered for a second. “Surely it can’t be the same one? Wouldn’t that be funny?”
“Very. Did you stay in touch with her, Abby?” I looked at my wife, but she appeared to be drawing a blank. “Olivia. She had the jazzed-up Corolla and a bike?”
“Oh, that Olivia,” Abby said, as she smiled and patted my arm. “Brewster. That was Olivia Brewster. You and names, eh?”
I looked at Abby but couldn’t quite smile back. Because I remembered Olivia Brewer. Short, slim, dark hair. We’d met at Abby’s office a couple of times, and she’d dropped off some files at our house once, proudly showing off her Kawasaki Ninja and new pixie tattoo.
An uneasy feeling crept into my chest, twisted itself around my heart and squeezed.
Abby lying to my face was strike three.
NOW
NATE
I SAT AT my desk in the office after a packed lunch that had mainly gone uneaten. For the last hour or so I’d tried to focus on the sales reports Kevin’s assistant had sent me, but every few seconds my mind slipped back to last night’s conversation. For the umpteenth time I glanced at my Facebook account to see if the friend request had been accepted, then stood up and slammed my palms down on my desk, breathing heavily.
While I’d been an early social media adopter, I rarely posted anything. I’d never been a fan of sharing my life stories on the internet for everyone else to judge. For a long time I’d thought if people spent as much time caring about each other as they did posting their narcissistic selfies, the world would be a better place. But today? Today I thought I might be grateful for the “look at me” trend.
I hadn’t been able to shake last night’s uneasy feeling. When we got home Abby had said she wanted to go through her father’s letters again, then sleep on it and decide what to do in the morning. And after she’d taken the pile of envelopes and headed to bed, I’d fired up my laptop and searched. Within seconds I’d found a few people called Olivia Brewer on Facebook. The one I remembered practically zoomed off the screen—there she was in her profile pic, proudly sitting on a Harley, her arms even more colorfully decorated than I recalled.
That’s where my investigation came to an abrupt end because Olivia didn’t seem to welcome snoopers, and her privacy settings were tight. Except for the indication she was married, liked watching Friends reruns and reading mystery novels, there wasn’t much to go on.
I immediately sent Olivia a friend request, hoping she was, or soon would be, online. At three o’clock I admitted defeat and went to bed, tossing and turning next to my soundly sleeping wife until it was time to get up. And now I was at the office, hours later; my request still remained frustratingly unanswered.
Perhaps Olivia didn’t remember me. And perhaps I was being stupid. Maybe Abby had simply mixed up the names. It was possible, wasn’t it? But I couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling, no, the certainty that something was wrong.
I knew how organized my wife’s brain was. Her attention to detail had saved my behind, and Sarah’s, on numerous occasions when we’d forgotten appointments, birthdays, piano practice and homework. No, Abby wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.
As I rubbed my hands over my face my computer made a quiet ding, indicating a new message. It was from Olivia.
Hi Nate,
What a lovely surprise to hear from you! Such a shame we lost touch.
I remember thinking a while back I should look you and Abby up, but then—are you sitting down?—I found out I was pregnant. Can you believe it? I’m 43 and six months gone already. Needless to say my brain is mush and Francis is still in shock.
Actually, I don’t think you ever met Francis, did you? I was so disappointed when Abby said you couldn’t make it to our wedding. We’re still married (bliss) and live in Brighton now. We’ve got two kids already. Bobbi will be fourteen soon and Helena is twelve going on eighteen. They’re half-grossed out, half-delirious about the new baby coming.
How about you guys? Please say hello to Abby and let’s organize something soon (before I’m up to my eyeballs in baby wipes again). I’d love for us to catch up properly.
Hugs,
Liv xxx
I read her message, then went straight to her profile, looking through the photos. Nancy was right—Francis was a beast of a man who looked like he’d be more at home in a Mexican wrestling outfit than a suit.
I waded through the pictures, not exactly certain what I was looking for, but sure I’d know once I found it. I didn’t think it would be in the album marked “Florida vacation,” nor the one labeled “Biking gone bad,” but I went through all the photos anyway. Cheesy grins at Universal Studios, a serious case of road rash. By the time I’d been through four of Olivia’s folders I felt like we were BFFs.
My search continued. Scroll, click, scroll, click, click, scroll. Until I found an album marked “Throwbacks.” I leaned in, my nose almost touching the screen.
The fourth picture was a scanned, pre-digital snapshot of Olivia and Francis. He took up two-thirds of the frame with tiny, pint-size Olivia next to him, staring up in total adoration. She’d added a caption. “Best Hoskins team building event ever—Cotswolds.” Even labeled it “June 10–12, 1998.” My stomach lurched.
Click, scroll, click, click.
I wobbled the cursor across the screen as I continued flicking through the photographs. And then, three shots later, there it was.
Olivia and Francis in the same clothes as the first picture. I focused on the people standing behind them in the corner by a bar, apparently unaware a photograph was being taken.
And I recognized them. Both of them.
Much younger versions of Abby and Liam.
Abby and fucking Liam.
It could have been a business encounter, I rationalized. They’d spoken a few words, then gone their separate ways, but something told me that wasn’t it. The way they looked at each other, the way they stood so close. His hand resting on her shoulder, for fuck’s sake, and she was leaning toward him, smiling. And that look—it was the one she’d given him when I’d watched them from our bedroom window just days ago.
Abby had lied about Olivia last night, and years before she’d turned down their wedding invitation she’d never even told me about. My lungs reminded me to breathe, and I gulped in air. I hadn’t been paranoid. I’d been an idiot.
Abby and Liam hadn’t met when he moved in. They knew each other from before, way before. Whatever was going on between them hadn’t just begun. I wanted to scream as the wave of realization hit me in the gut. Nancy hadn’t been imagining things. How could I have been so ignorant, so goddamn trusting, so naive?
And as I sat there next to
a half-eaten sandwich and a sodding Kit Kat, the jigsaw puzzle pieces fell into place. I felt as if someone had removed a filter that had been in front of my face the entire time, but one I hadn’t even noticed was there.
I remembered Liam’s odd look when I told him Abby’s name. How she’d all but fled when she’d been introduced to him. And the next morning...the morning when she’d asked me, no, ordered me to fuck her. The recollection made my entire world cave in, burying me in the middle of my office as I finally understood Abby hadn’t wanted me.
Abby was a liar. She’d lied about not knowing Liam, about not liking him. About training for the mud run, selling it to me under the pretext I didn’t like her running alone. I imagined him, his six-pack glistening with sweat as he fucked my wife, her crying out his name, fingernails digging into his back. I heard them laugh at Nancy and me, at our trusty stupidity, saying how clever they were to be living next door to each other, fucking and fucking and fucking whenever they could.
How long had this been going on? How long?
And over and over I kept thinking June 1998. June 1998. June fucking 1998.
A loud bellow echoed around my office as I swept my hands across my desk, sending my phone, files, keyboard and lamp crashing to the floor. It took me a few seconds to comprehend that the howl—because it truly sounded like an animal’s—came from me. And finally the seed of suspicion I’d been carrying around in my belly for so long took over, digging in roots and spreading throughout my entire being like poison ivy.
Because I knew. Something I’d suspected but had chosen to ignore.
I knew.
Sarah wasn’t mine.
THEN
NATE
WHEN ABBY HAD set off for her work thing in the Cotswolds it had felt a little strange without her. Since she’d moved to Wembley we’d never spent a night apart. At first she didn’t like to be left alone, and I felt pretty sure her nightmares were always about the accident, although I suspected she sometimes pretended it had been something else.
At least she didn’t wake up crying or screaming as often as she used to, and over the years she’d stopped cowering at the bottom of the bed, shouting for her brother.
Six years had passed, and at times, the inner workings of my wife’s brain were still a complete mystery to me. She said she loved me, and I believed she did, in her own way. But after a few years of being together I’d accepted there would always be a part of her heart and a part of her mind that were out of bounds, completely closed off to everyone, including me.
Could I blame her? Not really. Her father had walked out. Her brother had died and her mother practically disowned her. It didn’t take a genius to work out there were abandonment issues, and I knew she still wrestled with the guilt of Tom’s death every day.
Pushing the thoughts aside, I fetched my tool belt. Abby didn’t know, but I’d managed to take two days off to do some work around the house. Things I’d been planning on doing since we’d moved in, but hadn’t got around to. From our last conversation it was pretty obvious we wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. I’d have to turn Kevin’s job offer down. It was a bummer, but then again, if Abby was settled, the sacrifice was worth it. There would be other opportunities.
Besides, I didn’t have time to dwell on that job. I had work to do. Yesterday, I’d repainted the bedroom in the off-white color Abby had pointed out in a magazine. And this morning I planned on redoing what she called the “family” room. As I opened the can of paint, it dawned on me having a family room implied one should have a family to put in it.
“Maybe it’s nature’s way of telling me not to procreate,” Abby had said over dinner one evening, after she’d told me things hadn’t worked out again for us that month.
“I don’t believe that for a second. You’ll be a great mum.”
She put her fork down. “But what if I’m not? What if I can’t take care of a baby, like I couldn’t take care of...?” Her voice trailed off.
I almost wanted to shout at her, say Tom didn’t have to define every bloody thing about our lives from his grave. Instead I said, “You’ll be great.”
But more months had passed, and I began to wonder if Abby not getting pregnant was in fact nature’s way of telling me not to procreate. And three weeks ago, I’d secretly made an appointment for a sperm test.
It had been a bit of a peculiar experience, to say the least. I’d imagined a room full of porn magazines and videos, fantasized about a hot receptionist offering to do a sexy striptease to get me in the mood. Instead, a hundred-and-fifty-kilo, possibly hundred-and-fifty-year-old woman named Bertha handed me an orange plastic cup.
“Do I have to fill it?” I said with a stupid laugh.
Bertha stared at me. “A larger cup helps with the aim. Sir.”
My face burned as she directed me to a room the size of a broom cupboard, filled with medical supplies. Not exactly what I’d had in mind. Once I’d closed the door I’d stood there for a while, thinking this was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.
What if the room had hidden cameras? Or what if someone walked in while I was standing there jerking off with my boxers around my ankles, caught out like a spotty teen? And then I thought about Big Bertha, who knew exactly what I was doing. I might as well have opened the door with my cock in my hand and said, “Ta-daaa!” like a magician at the circus. Not that magicians yanked their cocks out at the circus. At least I hoped they didn’t.
I swiped a tissue from the box on the shelf and dabbed my clammy forehead. Then I checked the door again, ensuring it was locked properly, and searched the dark corners, looking for cameras. Basically buying myself some time before I, inevitably, had to do the deed.
On the drive over to the clinic I’d decided not knowing if my swimmers were indeed swimming was good. Ignorance was bliss. Not getting your partner pregnant in months and months of regular sex was pretty common, wasn’t it? Not everyone got a girl knocked up in a drunken stupor at a party. There was nothing to worry about.
But then I’d told myself to man up, face reality head-on. Besides, I’d have to get tested eventually if I couldn’t get Abby pregnant, and then what would I do? Cough, stutter and feign surprise when the doc told us I had useless spunk? Or fess up and tell her I’d known all along, then risk her thinking I was some kind of weirdo who actually enjoyed masturbating into an orange plastic cup in a room the size of a shoebox.
I took a deep breath and decided I had to get on with it. Jackin’ the Beanstalk (as Paul had once so eloquently put it) wasn’t a massively regular occurrence for me, but it was always a pleasurable one. Hang on, had I thought about my brother? Damn it. This was going to be harder, or should I say more difficult, than I had imagined.
A knock on the door made me jump.
“Everything okay, sir?”
Shit! It was Big Bertha. How long had I been in there? Were her other clients...faster? What did she want? The last thing I needed was the image of her face looming over me.
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I’m, uh, fine.”
“Okay.” I swear I could hear a grin in her voice. “Take your time.”
I groaned, but not in a good way. Then I unzipped my fly and pulled out my penis, which seemed to be withering away faster than I could say Weed-B-Gon.
“Come on,” I said, looking down, willing it to cooperate and spring to attention. I cursed myself for not coming prepared with a handful of Playboys, preferably the one Paul had shown me with the centerfold of Nikki Schieler (man, she was hot and...shit, I’d thought of Paul again).
“Come on,” I repeated to my penis that hung limply in my hand. “Don’t let me down. We can do this.”
As I stroked and huffed and puffed for a bit I relaxed and thought about Abby. Her long blond hair, her elegant neck, her gorgeous eyes...and then increasingly dirty thoughts I’d never dare tell her about. Her firm ass slapping against
my thighs, my hands on her tits and then her going down on me, expertly teasing and playing, until I couldn’t wait any longer and...
“Uh-oh,” I yelped and held the plastic cup up to myself just in time, thinking if it were any smaller, I might have missed.
Back in the family room, I shrugged off the somewhat disturbing masturbation thoughts, remembered I was behind with my painting plans and finished the first coat in double-time. Abby would be home later that afternoon, and I wanted to get the furniture back where it belonged before she arrived. I was close to finishing the second coat when my mobile rang.
“Nate Morris.”
“Mr. Morris, this is Dr. Messer from the sperm clinic. How are you today?”
I cleared my throat. “I think that will depend on what you tell me.”
Dr. Messer half laughed. “Well, I’d like you to come in to discuss your results.”
“That sounds ominous. Why don’t you tell me over the phone?”
“We usually prefer couples to come together,” Dr. Messer said, “if that’s feasible? To, uh, discuss options, if need be.”
“Look, my wife doesn’t know I had the test done,” I said. “So I really would prefer if you told me what’s going on.”
“I see,” Dr. Messer said. “How...unfortunate.”
“I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”
“All right, Mr. Morris,” Dr. Messer said slowly and deliberately, as if he were talking to a child. “The test showed you have a normal sperm count, but I’m afraid motility is low.”
“Mobility?” I said. “As in...they don’t move?”
“Mo-ti-lity,” Dr. Messer said. His bedside manner clearly needed some work. “Yes, they move, but not the way they should.”
I sat down, leaned against the wall. “Can...can I have kids?”
“Almost certainly,” Dr. Messer said. “But doing so naturally will be difficult and may take a long time. The most common treatment in this instance is IUI or possibly IVF.” He explained each of them briefly, and both sounded like a bad science experiment. “This removes the need for the sperm to travel far or even at all, you see,” Dr. Messer concluded. “We give it a head start, so to speak.”
The Neighbors Page 27
