She's Mine

by A A Chaudhuri

  As much as I am loath to admit it, we can’t turn Janine in. If we do, our personal lives will be splashed all over the press, and I don’t think any of us are strong enough to withstand that. Greg is fuming. He says her getting away with what she’s done is a crime in itself, and I know that he’s right. But I don’t doubt Janine’s appetite for revenge. She’ll do and say whatever it takes to justify her actions, whatever the cost to her and Heidi, and that’s not going to help you or Daniel. There will be no more notes, emails or packages, and so, with time, with no more leads to go on, the case will be closed once again. Miranda – who I just spoke to, and whose voicemail Greg listened to as we raced here – agrees with me. She feels equally humiliated but agreed that you and Daniel have suffered enough, that we must try and put all this behind us if the two of you are to have any hope of a peaceful future.

  As for Heidi, I need to let go of her. I thought being reunited with her would be the happiest day of my life, that it would make everything right for all of us. But Janine has inflicted such damage on my little girl – made her hate me so ferociously – there is no hope for us ever having a relationship. She is alive, but she might as well be dead, and I need to accept that. My priority now is to be here for you and Daniel, as I should have been from the day you were born. I just pray it’s not too late for me to salvage my relationship with both of you.

  Greg is barely talking to me. It’s understandable, and I expect he’ll divorce me eventually. Seeing Daniel in such a vulnerable state is too much for him right now. He blames himself even though he couldn’t have known Heidi was playing them both. For now, he’s sitting in the hospital waiting room, wanting to be close by if Daniel wakes up.

  I edge closer to Daniel’s bed, say, ‘Are you asleep, Ella?’ just because you are so still, and I can’t even detect the rise and fall of your breathing.

  Nothing. You must have dozed off. Which isn’t surprising. No doubt you’re shattered, and anyhow, it’s pushing midnight.

  Closer still, and I place my hand on your shoulder, then your head, and stroke your hair softly. No reaction. I go around the other side of the bed to see if your eyes are closed, which they are. It’s as if you’re locked in as deep a sleep as Daniel. I’m amazed because, even if you are tired, I would expect your sleep to be patchy, fretful, what with everything that’s gone on. Something feels wrong. I reach out with my left arm across the bed and gently shake your shoulder, but you don’t even stir. My heart accelerates and nausea overcomes me as I shake you once again, only this time more aggressively as I shout, ‘Ella, Ella, wake up!’

  But you don’t wake up, and as I come back round and roll you onto your back, you fall into my arms like a rag doll, and I see that your lips are blue and when I touch your cheeks they are cold. I feel for a pulse, but can’t make one out, and now I am panicking like crazy. I dash out into the corridor and scream, ‘Someone help me, my daughter’s not breathing!’ at the top of my lungs, a feeling of helplessness, despair and desperation taking hold of me.

  And then the room is suddenly a thoroughfare of doctors and nurses working to save your life, as I prop myself up against the wall, weak-legged and alone, wishing I could turn back time and do it all again.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Greg

  Now

  I will never forgive you for this, Chrissy, never. Even if our children recover, whatever was left of our relationship is over. There is no way back for us. You’ve inflicted so much pain on so many people; the person I met all those years ago, the person I thought you were, is dead to me. In fact, I’m not sure that person ever existed. Miranda was right about you all along.

  Ella took an almost lethal overdose of heroin, and experienced seizures and near respiratory collapse. We think she must have pocketed it from Daniel’s stash, along with a syringe, while waiting for the ambulance to arrive, perhaps out of desperation, or possibly a spur-of-the-moment thing when she wasn’t thinking straight, and then later, after hearing the full story from you, injected a dangerous amount into her bloodstream, for the same reason Daniel did. Because the person she loved had turned out to be a liar; because she felt like a fool and life for her had become unbearable. She’s lucky not to be in a coma like her brother; although it was a close call, she’s been fitted with an artificial airway connected to a respirator to maintain her breathing and circulation. Thankfully, the doctors managed to administer an antidote called naloxone in time, which reverses the effects of the overdose. It remains to be seen whether she’ll suffer any long-term damage.

  Although the consultant looking after Daniel says there’s always hope he’ll wake up – you hear of these one-in-a-million stories – my gut tells me my boy is dead and never coming back. Even if he does wake up, there’s every chance he’ll be severely handicapped, and I don’t want that for him. He certainly wouldn’t want it. I love my boy with all my heart, and I can’t help feeling responsible for his situation, even though I know it’s not my fault. I’d swap places with him in a heartbeat – my inclination to live is waning fast. I keep thinking, if I hadn’t been weak, if I hadn’t, like you, been driven by lust, I’d never have started an affair with Heidi, the biggest mistake of my life, and one which has led Daniel to be in this state. How can I live with myself, with this guilt, day after day?

  But then I look at Ella, and I realize I need to be there for her when she wakes up. She needs me. I can’t trust you to be there for her, and I can’t lose all three of my children, I just can’t.

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Christine

  Now

  September 2019

  We turned Daniel’s machine off yesterday. Within hours he was gone. Just like that. Although I resigned myself a while ago to the fact that he was lost to us, it didn’t make it any easier, and the finality of it all was almost too much to bear. Ella and I sat by his bedside, clinging to one another for support as Greg hovered in the background, barely able to look, poor man. And that was it. We’d lost another child, and our hearts were a bit more broken.

  Last week, Greg filed for divorce. I’d expected him to and I won’t contest it. There is no way back for us and he’s entitled to be rid of me after all the lies I have told. I pray, for his sake, that it’s not too late for him to find love, or at least companionship with someone kind and loyal. I don’t think he’ll find it with Miranda, though. She confessed to making prank calls and sending hoax messages to the police in the initial months of Heidi’s disappearance. I wanted to be angry with her, but to be honest I didn’t have the energy. Greg is refusing to speak to her, though. I can’t say I blame him. I wouldn’t blame him if he never trusted another woman in his life again.

  For myself, all I want is to work on my relationship with Ella and try and be the best mother I can to her now, even though I know it won’t make up for the past.

  The house is up for sale. Greg was happy for me to stay in it, but I need a fresh start. It holds too many memories and I don’t feel comfortable in it any more. I intend to move away from London, to the outskirts. I need to escape Janine, who’s got away with her crimes scot-free. I know I should hate her and that she should be made to pay for what she’s done, but I almost feel I don’t have the right to. She already had issues from her childhood, but my actions – my betrayal – turned her into the monster she is now, and I must face up to that. I just hope she can live with herself.

  And that she is a good mother to Heidi.

  Chapter Eighty-Six

  Heidi

  Now

  November 2019

  It’s been nine months since you learned the truth, Christine, and last week Mother and I moved back to Hong Kong. We achieved our goal, and although we’re almost certain you and Greg won’t turn us in, we feel more secure here. Hong Kong was our home for so many years, and it feels right to return, where we have permanent residency. I love my mother, but I am too used to my own space now, and so I am renting an apartment five minutes’ drive from her place.

 
Although we never meant for Daniel to do something so drastic, we don’t regret what we did. When I met him, he was already severely troubled because you’d been such a terrible mother to him, and he was always going to have issues, with or without me. I feel no guilt for sending him the photo of me having sex with his dad (I set up a camera in the hotel room where we used to meet regularly) because you are to blame for the way things have turned out. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. That’s what my mother tells me constantly.

  Right now, I’m at Mother’s. She’s not well. Got a nasty cold, and I’ve come round to see if she needs anything. Her eyes are streaming, her nose is congested, and she has a bit of a temperature. I watch her blow into a hankie, which looks sodden with gunk, then notice that she doesn’t seem quite with it. Like she’s spaced out.

  ‘Mother, are you OK?’ I ask. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  She’s lying on the sofa, weak and feeble, but still manages a faint smile in my direction. ‘A clean hankie would be good. Can you go and fetch one from my underwear drawer, dear? Chest of drawers next to the wardrobe.’

  ‘Sure,’ I smile.

  Up in Mother’s room, I’m not sure which drawer she keeps her hankies in, so I start at the top and work my way down. Mother’s a very methodical person, so I’m not surprised to find her underwear sorted into neat compartments. Pants and bras at the top, socks and tights in the middle, and then – bingo – hankies and slips at the bottom. Hankies to the left, slips to the right. But as I pull out a hankie from a pile of twenty or so, I notice something hidden under the pile. It’s a crumpled envelope, and the seal is broken. But the real surprise is that it’s addressed to me.

  I recognize the handwriting instantly. It’s my father Nate’s handwriting, and it just says, Heidi.

  I feel my pulse speed up, and I can’t resist pulling out the note, feeling slightly angry, but more confused as to why my mother chose to open the envelope and hide its contents from me. But then I tell myself to give her the benefit of the doubt. That perhaps it discloses something terrible she wanted to protect me from, and therefore she only had my best interests at heart.

  But as I begin to read, my anger takes over, and not for the first time, I feel like my entire life has been based on lies.

  Chapter Eighty-Seven

  Nate

  Before

  My darling child,

  By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. Please know that I am sorry for putting you through this, for not having the courage to tell you the truth years ago. I am not a brave man. I lack the strength to face up to the consequences of my actions, and I have always put my own needs first. Although I know I will go to hell for my sins, I can at least die with a clear conscience, knowing I have done all I can to put things right before it’s too late.

  When Janine blackmailed me into going along with her plan to take Chrissy’s child, I should have said no. But I was too scared and too selfish to do that. I loved my work, I loved the kudos and power that came with it, and I feared that my career would be ruined if our affair was exposed, and that I wouldn’t be able to withstand that. My work was what drove me every day. I also knew it would humiliate Greg and ruin his and Chrissy’s marriage. I didn’t want that. Greg’s a good man and he didn’t deserve that.

  But ever since that day, the day Janine took Chrissy’s child, my child, I’ve been racked with guilt. Not just because I went along with her plan to kidnap Heidi and make Chrissy suffer, but because I helped my deranged wife cover up another crime. A crime far more repugnant than kidnapping.

  Janine never brought my biological daughter to Hong Kong. She suffocated her with a pillow a few hours after she took her, then stripped her naked and set fire to her body in the woods. She couldn’t live with the fact that I’d fathered a child with her best friend, and she therefore hated Heidi with an intensity that knew no bounds; her hatred amplified by the fact that she couldn’t have children of her own. I honestly had no idea that she planned on killing Heidi – she was my daughter, for heaven’s sake – and I nearly committed murder myself when I found out what she’d done.

  If I’d known, I swear I would never have made that call to distract Chrissy or been a part of Janine’s heinous plan. I honestly thought that the plan was to kidnap her, then raise her as our own. I know I should have turned Janine in then, that you must think me a monster for not calling the police straight away. That any decent father wouldn’t have been able to live with the knowledge and pain of his daughter’s murder, would have done anything to bring her killer to justice in order to have some peace of mind. But the truth is, I was a coward. I knew I’d be treated as an accomplice, and at the time I couldn’t face going to prison, losing everything. And, while I’m being honest, I’ll also admit that Janine frightened the hell out of me. I knew she’d make sure the entire world knew about my and Chrissy’s affair, and I couldn’t bear the consequences of that. The humiliation and hurt it would cause Greg who, since the day he met her, worshipped the ground Chrissy walked on. And so, somehow, I lived with Heidi’s murder, told myself that moving to Hong Kong would help me to put it behind me. That a new life, a new environment, where I could bury myself in my work, would solve things.

  But killing Heidi wasn’t enough for Janine; even though I didn’t know it at the time. So utterly consumed by revenge, her plan was to take things further. It became a kind of project for her, one she could focus on and bring to fruition at some point in the future. She wanted Chrissy to suffer for the rest of her days, until she took her dying breath, and concocted a plan so warped – one I didn’t find out about until much later – I truly didn’t believe her capable of going through with it. Which is why I never took steps to stop it. Until now.

  We adopted you, Freya, (yes, that is your real name, the name your birth parents gave you) not long after moving to Hong Kong. You looked a bit like Heidi. Same dark hair, petite nose, big brown eyes, and I loved you like you were my flesh and blood from the first moment I set eyes on you. Janine kept you in the house because later she needed you to believe that you were Chrissy’s child, whom she had kidnapped and couldn’t risk being recognized. She told me at the time it was because she wanted to keep you safe from harm. She told the same to Mrs Bates. I didn’t argue with her, even though I thought it was unhealthy to keep you locked inside the house like a prisoner.

  You became the only silver lining to the black cloud my life had become. I could almost imagine you were Heidi, almost convince myself that what happened to her wasn’t real. Little did I know then, that Janine still wasn’t done.

  When you turned thirteen, she told you about Chrissy. I had no idea she was going to do this, and I was shocked when she told me afterwards. She told you that you were Chrissy’s and my biological daughter – the product of our illicit affair – and that Chrissy had never wanted you, had hated you from the moment we conceived you, and that this was why she lost you in a department store one day. She told you that Chrissy didn’t care about you, that you were a hindrance to her life. She made you hate a woman who had no connection to you whatsoever, and she brainwashed you into helping her destroy Chrissy and her family for good.

  I couldn’t believe she could do this to you, our adopted daughter, whom I thought she loved like her own. But, like I always feared, she said she’d implicate me in Heidi’s murder if I told you the truth. I had no choice but to keep quiet, even though I know that was gutless of me. But it killed me to see her twist your mind and turn you into a clone of herself. I know you never looked at me the same way after that day, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much that hurt. Your love, the way you used to look at me, hug me, adore me, was the tonic that kept me going despite what I had done, but when Janine poisoned your love for me, I gradually lost interest in life. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how I’ve lasted this long.

  I should never have cheated on Janine with Chrissy. I know it’s by no means an excuse, but all I can say is that we were irresistibly attracted to each other
, and we were too weak to repel that attraction. Looking back, I should never have married Janine. She idolized me from the first, and this fed my ego. After several failed relationships with various attractive, ambitious women, I knew she would be the devoted, loyal wife I needed, but I failed to reciprocate her love and devotion in the way she deserved. I took her love for granted, and my actions backfired on me in the worst possible way, and with tragic consequences. I also misjudged what a deeply troubled woman she is, although she did well to hide it. Her miserable home and school life seriously affected her, made her bitter, suspicious, but when Chrissy became her friend, and later I her husband, she believed things had finally come right for her. And so, when she realized we had betrayed her trust in the cruellest way possible, it drove her to the depths of despair and lunacy.

  My life has been a series of mistakes and tragedies, but since Heidi’s death you, Freya, are the one good thing I’ve had. You were never a mistake. Please believe that. And I know, in her own way, Janine loves you, even though she should never have lied to you about who you really are.

  I am sorry for not telling you all this before, Freya. I was weak, and that is why I can no longer live with myself.

  I know what you and Janine are planning, I’m not stupid, but I pray that now you know the truth, you won’t go through with it. It’s not right that Chrissy’s family should suffer for her and my mistakes. None of this is their fault, and you have no real cause to hate her. Because it wasn’t you she took her eye off and lost.

  I hope you receive this before it’s too late. Please forgive me. Please stop Janine from going through with her plan.

  Dad.