My back is sore and stiff when I wake up in the police cell. It really is as uncomfortable as it looks on the television. The panic that seizes my chest is almost overwhelming. This isn’t my bedroom. This isn’t my house, my one safe place in this world of danger. I throw up in the tiny sink, before crawling back to the cot, pulling myself into the foetal position.
A police officer comes by to give me a glass of water, which I gulp down before throwing up. My head hurts almost as much as my chest and back. I lean forward and sob into my hands, remembering everything that happened the day before.
“You know, you can really sleep.” The door opens and PC Baker walks into the cell. “I’ve been waiting all night to question you.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” I ask.
“Figured I’d let you sleep it off. Come on. Time to have a chat,” he says.
I hold out my hands for the handcuffs but he just smiles. “No need for that. Just follow me. Have you eaten yet?”
I shake my head.
“Want to eat?”
I shake my head again.
“We’ll get you some more water. This way.” He leads me down the corridor and into a sparse interrogation room.
My eyes trail the grey walls, trying to find the two way mirror, or camera, or whatever else is there to record me.
“You were arrested for assault yesterday, Hannah. Do you remember that?” he says. He nods to PC Ellis as she steps into the room. I can’t shake the feeling that when they’re dealing with me, they both talk to me as though I’m a child.
They think I’m mentally ill. The realisation is like a slap to the face. They don’t just believe I’m a busy body or an idiot, they actually think there’s something wrong with me. And, really, are they incorrect? Can I really dispute the facts?
“Yes, I remember.” I stare down at my hands. They both tremble, partly from the panic still holding tightly onto my chest, partly from the hangover. Breathe, Hannah.
“Hannah, can you tell us why you’ve been harassing the Mason family since they moved into Cavendish Street? They don’t seem to have done anything to you, and yet you’ve reported them to the police twice, you’ve created multiple Facebook accounts to stalk Matt Mason, and you’ve been repeatedly calling Laura Mason.”
“You shouldn’t ask me, you should ask their daughter. He’s hitting her, and… and maybe more, I don’t know. I saw him in a pub with a student girl who looks like April. He has a type, you see—”
“Hannah, the girl you saw Matt Mason with in the pub is a student, yes, but she’s his personal trainer client.”
“No, I say. Students can’t afford that.”
“This one can,” the detective says. “She’s from a wealthy background and very health conscious. There’s no law breaking going on there.”
My heart drops. What if I’ve been wrong?
“April Mason admitted to holding the sign to the window. She said it was a prank. I’m afraid the girl is quite troubled, but we don’t believe there is any abuse going on. Nothing has been reported from medical professionals. Neither Laura or Matt have any previous convictions. We’re going to keep an eye on them from now on, but there’s no reason to arrest Matt Mason,” PC Ellis says. She leans forward and her voice changes. We’re back to that tone. The careful tone used for vulnerable and unpredictable people. “Now, Hannah, I understand that seeing the sign from that young girl must have been quite distressing. We’ve looked into your past—”
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes,” she says. “And I’m afraid that your behaviour makes a lot more sense after finding out what happened a few years ago. I’m talking about the accident.”
“Please don’t.” There’s no air in here. I can’t breathe.
“We know you had a breakdown after the accident. We know that you spent some time in a psychiatric unit. Have you been taking your pills, Hannah?”
I can’t speak. I can only shake my head.
“It must have been very difficult seeing April Mason in distress after losing your own child like that.”
“Stop it.” I put my head in my hands. The air is thick, it’s like breathing in mud.
I want her to stop talking, because every word takes me back there.
Get through the next ten seconds.
The glass. The crunch of metal.
“Community service, a driving ban, and a fine. It doesn’t seem like much for what you did.”
I shake my head. My mouth opens to speak but the only sound that comes out is a desperate gasp. I move my hands down to my throat, where the air is stuck, like a hard lump. My vision starts to blur as the dizziness takes me over. I long for home where it’s safe, where I know I can avoid the memories.
I scream when I see the blood and I never stop screaming.
She’s right. It was all my fault. I was arguing with Stu again. This time it wasn’t about what he did, it was about being late. I was supposed to be ready when he got home, but I wasn’t. We had to rush. He didn’t want to drive. It was his big night and he deserved a drink. I agreed to it this one time, because it was a special night. He was supposed to collect an award for bravery. He was a fireman, and he’d saved a family from a terrible fire. We’d decided to take our three-year-old with us…
Cold seeps over my skin. I don’t see the police officers, or the interrogation room. I see the broken glass and the blood.
“Ms Abbott, are you all right?”
Then the floor is coming up to meet me.
“Someone get a paramedic in here. Call an ambulance.”
"Fuck's sake, Hannah. How long are you going to be? I got changed at work so I wouldn’t be late. You were supposed to pick me up with Emma.”
“How many more times. I’m sorry,” I shout from downstairs while scurrying across the bedroom with a pair of high heels in my hands. I can hear Emma start to cry followed by Stuart comforting her. If he knew what a nightmare it had been this afternoon. He doesn’t understand how hard Emma can be. He doesn’t understand how much attention she needs because he’s never here. He’s either at work or…
A hard lump forms in my throat. I can’t think about her tonight. I won’t let her spoil it. Stu had a blip, but he came back to me and that’s what matters. I might still be carrying baby weight, have wrinkles around my eyes, and constantly smell like a sticky toddler, but I am his wife. The woman he said he would love for the rest of his life. She was some cocky young rookie at the fire department. She was a petite piece of temptation that he fell for at his weakest point. I always knew that he had a hard job, and that’s why I made allowances for him. I allowed him to play football rather than babysit Emma at the weekends. I allowed him the nights out and the hangovers. But this was too much. It almost ruined everything.
“Hannah!”
The urgency in his voice hurries me up. I almost trip coming down the stairs. In the hallway I jam the shoes on my feet, glance once more in the mirror, and grab my clutch bag.
“All right, I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Mummy pretty.”
“Thank you, darling.” I crouch down next to my daughter and pull her into a tight hug. The smell of her, the warmth of her, eases the tension in my body. I let out a laugh that’s almost a sob. Even after three years she surprises me with how generous and loving she is. I pull back, and brush her hair away from her face. She’s almost all Stuart in features, but me in colouring, with my brown eyes and brown hair.
“You’re driving,” Stu says. “I’m going to need to have a drink after all.”
“Oh,” I reply, straightening back to full height. We’d talked about this. We’d talked at length and I thought he was on the same page. We agreed that he was going to cut right back on his drinking. It was that—he says—that caused the affair in the first place.
They were on a night out after a hard week. They’d lost a child to smoke inhalation. Stu never coped well with the losses. He wanted to save everyone. That’s why I fell in love with him. The
team went to the pub. They needed it. They needed the comradery. They needed each other. I was fine with it. I just wanted my husband to heal, that’s why I never had a problem with him going out with the lads. That was before I knew about her. Lucy. I can say her name. I’ll have to see her face in about half an hour so I can say her name in my mind.
Lucy was all over him. At least, that’s what I imagine. Stu hasn’t gone into detail, he’d just told me that it started that night. They kissed. The next day they laughed it off to the drink and the hard work, and they got on with their lives. But while I was taking care of our child—and trying to edit for my clients on the side, basically spending all my time working—Stu started lying about his shifts. He was seeing her instead. And that’s when they developed feelings for each other.
“It’s my night. I need to have a drink to celebrate. You don’t mind do you? We won’t be staying late, we have Emma with us.” He ruffles our daughter’s hair and smiles down at her. Emma beams up at him.
“Why don’t I stay at home with Emma and then you have all night to get pissed?” I snap.
Stu doesn’t react for a moment. He’s been allowing me some grieving time after I found out about him and Lucy. But it’s been six months now. We’ve still not made love. I only started allowing him back in our bed a month ago. I know he’s waiting for me to get over it and move on. He’s waiting for forgiveness, but I don’t know if I can give it.
Stu gently takes hold of both arms. He looks me dead in the eye. “I want you both there to see this, because I want you to see I can be a good man.” Then he bends down and picks up Emma, planting a big kiss on her cheek.
Oh, and the words pull on my heart so hard that I could cry, again, right there. I’m lost in his blue eyes, like I was the first time we met. I’ve never met anyone with eyes so blue and yet so warm and inviting. He’s still handsome, even after the marriage and the child. He hasn’t lost even the smallest bit of his sparkle. Whereas I’ve lost mine, and that’s not me being negative, it’s real. I’ve lost it, and I can feel that I’ve lost it, but I don’t know how to get it back.
“Come on,” he says. “You prefer driving anyway.” He glances at his watch. “Hannah, we’re really late.”
I snap out of it. He’s right, we have to go. Stu carries Emma down the drive as I lock the front door. It takes a couple more minutes to get her into the car seat before I make my way around to the driver’s seat.
“Shit,” Stu says, pulling on his seatbelt. “I can’t believe it. I’m going to miss it.”
“You’re not,” I say, pulling out of the drive.
It’s a cold November, and the night is dark. I flick on the headlights and pull out of the drive with a screech of the tyres.
“Hannah the badass!” Stu exclaims approvingly.
But I take the edge off the accelerator so as not to go above the speed limit as we pass our neighbours. We chose well when it came to houses. It was just before the prices went sky-high. We got a good sized house in a sought after neighbourhood. We almost had it all, but then Stu ruined it with Lucy. I shake my head, trying to force the thoughts out of my head. But the truth is, I’m on edge about tonight. It’ll be the first time I see her since I found out and it makes my stomach churn.
“Come on, Han, put your foot down.”
I take a right at the end of the street towards the town centre. Parking is a nightmare around the City Hall where the event is being held. It’s already 7:30 and the event started at 7. Sure, there’ll be time for drinks and chatting at the beginning, but Stu can’t miss his own presentation. I change gear and try to speed up a little. I’ve never been a confident driver. I was overcautious enough to get a minor for slowing down when I should have sped up during my driving test. I’ve never taken risks, I don’t live like that. Whereas Stu, he loves adrenaline.
“I’m hurrying, okay, I can’t do much more.”
“I’m going to miss it.” He lets his head fall back onto the headrest. “The one good thing that’s happened this year and I’m going to miss it.”
“The one good thing?” I say, aghast. “What about the things your daughter has done this year. Don’t they count? What about teaching your daughter how to kick a ball, taking her swimming, helping her paint pictures?”
“You know what I mean, Han. Don’t make a big deal of it.”
“At least you have one good thing happen. It’s been a year of nothing but shit for me this year.”
Stu’s jaw tenses. “I know, you’ve told me. It’s not like I can go back and erase it all, can I? It’s just you won’t fucking move on.”
Emma starts crying in the back seat. I cluck my tongue. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Yeah because everything’s my fault, isn’t it? I cause everything to go wrong.” His voice raises a fraction.
I grip the steering wheel, my fingernails digging into the leather. I press down on the accelerator and take a sharp left. It’s starting to rain and the road is slippery. I can’t help it. I start to cry. I try so hard not to, but all I can think about is our wedding day and how it felt so full of promises, so full of wonderful opportunities to come. Where did they all go?
“Hannah, for fuck’s sake, you’re going to miss the turning.”
“What?” I’m pulled back to reality, with a screaming child in the back and a husband shouting next to me.
I swerve to the right, barely able to see the turning through my tears and the rain. The car swings around, but the water on the road makes it slide out beneath me. I don’t see the headlights until it’s too late. The van smashes into the side of the car, breaking the windows and scattering glass everywhere. The air bag hits me in the face, and pain explodes from my nose.
The car comes to a screeching halt. Completely bewildered, I search around me, trying to work out what has happened. The car is trapped between a van, and a barrier on the side of the road. Then I turn to my left and see the blood.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hannah
“They say you’ve not been taking your pills.” James regards me beneath his heavy lids. My brother always had a habit of appearing bored when he was talking to you. For a while, I just saw it as his shtick. I never believed he really was bored. But when we drifted apart, it began to annoy me. I felt like it was real.
“You got fat,” I reply, letting my gaze drift down to his beer belly. His face has expanded, too. He’s not obese, but James was always pretty vain about his looks, so him putting on weight is a big deal.
“Turns out you can’t eat what you want when you’re forty,” he says with a shrug. “Jill doesn’t mind.”
“I bet she does,” I say. “She just won’t tell you.”
He laughs. “Probably.”
I adjust my weight on the hospital bed. I hardly remember them bringing me in. There wasn’t much they could do except administer a sedative to calm me down. Panic attacks are more complicated than a broken arm or an infection. It’s my mind that needs to heal, not my body.
“Are you going to tell me what’s been going on?” He leans forward and places a fist under his chin, squashing the loose flesh there.
The softness of his words is what catches me off guard. I want to cry again. The tears prick at my eyes. I can only shake my head.
“The police are letting you off with a caution. That’s good.”
I’d already been given the lecture from PC Baker. I knew this. I wipe a tear away from my eye and try to avoid James’s gaze. Not since the accident have I felt so low. Every part of me is tired of fighting. I’m so exhausted from trying to just continue.
“Can you take me home?” I ask.
“Of course I can,” he says. “But I want to know what’s been happening first. Even when you went through the breakdown you never hurt anyone. You’re not a violent person, Hannah. I don’t understand why you would attack anyone.”
“It’s complicated.”
“The police told me that you’ve got some sort of obsession with
the family across the street. You’ve been stalking them on Facebook and phoning them. None of this is anything like you. I don’t understand.”
“And you don’t have to understand. Just take me home.”
“Is that a good idea? You’re only a few feet away from them. Why don’t you come and stay with me for a few days. We’ll get you back on your pills. Once they’ve kicked in, and you’re all evened out, you can go home.”
“No. I won’t be a zombie again. That’s what they do to me. They stop me feeling anything. I don’t want that anymore. I want to remember. I deserve to keep feeling the pain after what I did.” I drag my fingernails along my jeans, pressing hard into my flesh.
“No, you don’t deserve that. It’s time to move on now. It could have happened to anyone. I mean it. We all break the speed limit sometimes. You didn’t even take the full blame in court. The driver of the van admitted not looking both ways. It is not all your fault.” He sighs in frustration because we’ve had this conversation before. James has always tried to let me off, but I won’t have it. I killed my husband and baby daughter. Their blood is on my hands.
“I want to go home. James, please take me. I promise I won’t go anywhere near the Masons. I just want to go home.”
But James is in his own world, shaking his head. “They have what you might have had. You’d have that family now. That’s what it is, isn’t it?” He comes back to the room, meeting my gaze with his hooded eyes. “You have to see them every day, living the life that was meant for you.”
I put my head in my hands in time to catch the tears that fall. The sobs rack through my body, but I manage to speak in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. “They don’t treasure it. They’re throwing it all away. And I know they are hurting her.”
*
Every nurse seems to stare at me as we leave the hospital. Every patient or visitor does, too. When we pass the canteen and gift shop on the way out, more faces focus on us. I hang my head, sure that they can see my guilt written across my face. This has been my life since the accident. I’m the woman who killed her family in one split second. I had everything, then the glass smashed and I had nothing. Now they see me. Broken, hollowed out, pathetic. I’m the woman stalking her neighbours out of jealousy and spite. I’m dirty. Disgusting.
Saving April Page 11
