The Affair_A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

by Sheryl Browne

  ‘Sorry about forgetting to fill it up,’ Alicia said, for want of something to say, as she fumbled for her seatbelt. ‘I meant to do it yesterday, but I completely forgot.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ Justin started the engine. ‘You obviously have a lot on your mind.’

  Alicia felt her heart thud. What did he mean?

  ‘I did the same thing myself last week,’ Justin went on, clearly attempting to make her feel less incompetent, rather than make any insinuation. ‘It’s not a problem. I can catch up on my sleep later.’

  ‘I’ll have to pin a note on the fridge or put an alert on my phone or something. My head’s like a sieve these days. I swear pregnancy addled my brain.’ Plugging in her seatbelt, Alicia babbled inconsequently, desperate to stay on safe ground.

  ‘All done?’ Justin asked her, checking she had belted up. He was always attentive in that way, making sure she was safe. That Sophie and Lucas were. Alicia had hoped to do the same for him, keep him safe, when he’d been floundering after losing his family in the cruellest possible way. A hope doomed to failure. Part of her had known that the truth would come out, causing her world to unravel. She’d ignored it. Hoped it would go away. And now Paul Radley had come back. The lie she’d told was in danger of being exposed. She couldn’t ignore it. Not any longer.

  ‘Good.’ Justin went quiet, and then turned to glance towards the house, presumably checking for signs of Sophie.

  For a long second, silence hung heavy between them, like a yawning chasm, and then he turned back to her. The icy chill running the length of her spine told Alicia he was about to broach the subject she’d prayed he wouldn’t. She wasn’t ready. He wasn’t. He would never be. Her heart sank hopelessly. ‘Alicia,’ he started hesitantly, ‘about the other night, I was—’

  The passenger door being yanked open cut him short, allowing Alicia to breathe out the breath she hadn’t realised she was holding in.

  ‘God, what is it with this rain?’ Sophie moaned, throwing herself into the back seat. ‘It’s totally ruining my hair.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sophie, you’re still irresistibly gorgeous, even with totally ruined hair.’ Justin eyed her amusedly through the rear-view mirror as he pulled out of the drive. ‘But not as irresistible as your mother, obviously.’

  Alicia felt her heart drop as if down a lift shaft. ‘I assume there was some kind of innuendo in there?’ she asked him quietly.

  ‘What?’ Justin looked across to her, surprised. ‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘There wasn’t meant to be. Look, Alicia’ – he glanced again in his mirror, careful of Sophie in the back – ‘about the other night: I was out of order. Overreacting. A touch of the green-eyed monster, obviously. Can you blame me? You’re a beautiful woman.’

  Astonished by that, Alicia simply stared at him.

  ‘So, have you two kissed and made up then?’ Sophie asked, clearly aware of the awkwardness there’d been between them. ‘Only Luke reckons all this not talking to each other crap is really juvenile, don’t you, Luke?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Justin turned questioningly to Alicia as he slowed at the traffic lights. ‘Have we?’

  Alicia studied him, bewildered. How could he imagine she was beautiful? How could he ever have? Her heart felt too big in her chest, stuffed full of regret, of overwhelming love for this man, who actually had made her feel beautiful – even immediately post pregnancy, he’d told her she was gorgeous. Small lies, little white lies to make her feel better, whereas hers… Feeling as if it might be for the last time, she leaned towards him and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. She wished there was a way to tell him, before his love turned to hatred, how deeply she loved him.

  Justin reached to squeeze her hand, and then, a warm glint in his eyes, leaned towards her to steal a kiss of his own.

  ‘Urgh, cover your eyes, Luke,’ Sophie advised her baby brother. ‘The parents are doing lovey-dovey stuff in public. So embarrassing.’

  Alicia felt a laugh bubble up inside her. It felt good. For the briefest moment, everything felt normal. If only she could hold on to it. Never let it go.

  ‘Sorry,’ Justin mouthed, giving her an apologetic smile.

  Gulping back her heartache, Alicia smiled back and cupped her hand to his face, needing to feel the solidity of him. Soon it would be gone. Soon her man – her strong, dependable man – would recoil at her touch.

  ‘Er, excuse us, children present.’ Sophie sighed disapprovingly, and then said, ‘Dad, lights. You’re stopping traffic.’

  ‘Hell,’ Justin mumbled, checking the lights and then pulling hurriedly out.

  Alicia was still looking at him when her blood froze in her veins. ‘Justin!’ she screamed, clutching his arm hard.

  Instinctively slamming his foot on the brake, Justin swung his gaze to the side window. ‘Dear God…’ The words died on his lips as the full impact of the collision hit the family.

  Three

  JUSTIN

  Justin saw nothing but deep, dark red. Heard nothing. Felt nothing but numbness throughout his entire body.

  Then all his senses assailed him at once: searing pain in his ribcage, a cacophony of noise, too loud in his head. Horns blaring. People shouting. Petrol spilling. Sirens plaintively wailing.

  Alicia. Screaming.

  Sophie, her voice high-pitched, hysterical. ‘Dad! Oh God. Oh God. Dad!’

  Luke… No sound at all.

  Justin’s heart kicked hard. White-hot pain shooting through his shoulder, down his spine to his pelvis, he turned towards Alicia, registered the palpable shock on her face, the blood on her forehead, matted in her hair, tracing the contours of her face.

  ‘Justin! The children!’ she yelled. ‘Please, God, don’t do this. Not my children. Please! Not my children!’

  Justin was already fumbling with his seatbelt, grappling with it, tearing at it. Come on! ‘Fucking… fucking thing!’

  ‘Dad!’ Sophie’s voice was the terrified sob of a child as he twisted to face her. ‘Luke!’

  Jesus Christ, no. Please, no… Twisting back to his door, Justin reached for the handle, cursing again loudly as he realised the locking mechanism was engaged. Reaching to release it, he tried again, only to find the door was stuck. Justin shoved his shoulder against it, his whole body against it, pushed with all his might, finally spilling from his car to land heavily on the pavement.

  Blinking bloody sweat from his eyelashes, his breaths coming in short, sharp rasps, he planted his hands on the concrete, heaved himself up to all fours, reached for the buckled metal of the door to pull himself to his feet.

  His legs almost failing him, aware of the bedlam of traffic around him, the shocked faces of onlookers frozen in time, Justin groped for the rear passenger door.

  He was vaguely aware of other hands helping him to wrench it open. Justin couldn’t see whose. His focus was on Sophie. She was choking back sobs now, close to hyperventilating. Luke. He couldn’t get past her. Couldn’t make her hear him.

  ‘Sophie!’ He seized her shoulders as she attempted to climb out, locked his eyes hard on hers as she screamed over and over, petrified, soul-crushing screams of pure fear. ‘Keep still! You’re okay! Please…’ He moderated his tone ‘Don’t move, Sophie. You might have a neck injury.’

  Luke. Someone was reaching into the other side. ‘Don’t!’ Justin screamed it. He needed to get to him before they moved him.

  Swiping at the droplets of crimson clouding his vision, Justin galvanised himself into action and made his way around the back of the car. It took a second, a slow thud like a death knell, before he registered the impossible angle of the carrier.

  Four

  ALICIA

  Petrified, Alicia watched as a flurry of medical staff attended him, her tiny baby, lost on a hospital trolley made for an adult, monitors beeping and pinging around him. He looked so small, so fragile against the vast expanse of white sheet. His little face wasn’t damaged. He still looked perfect. Her perfect little boy, his softly curled ey
elashes brushing his cheeks as he slept. His perfect cupid lips. His little hands curled into fists. His tiny chest rising and falling. Breathing. He’s breathing. Squeezing her eyes closed, Alicia felt the room shift, breathed in and out with him. Please keep breathing, baby. Please keep breathing.

  She could hear someone talking about the positioning of his carrier in the car. Back passenger seat, forward-facing. The words reached her as if muffled by endless fathoms of swirling, icy water. Responsive to pain.

  Oh please, God, no.

  Folding her arms tightly across her midriff, Alicia felt the tear rip steadily through her heart, felt the tug in her womb where she’d carried him, kept him safe and warm until he was grown enough to come into the world. He was hurting! Her baby boy was hurting, and he wasn’t grown. He was tiny. He was hurting, and she couldn’t make it go away, couldn’t keep him safe. She needed to. She was his mother!

  ‘Please help him,’ she begged, her voice catching on the sob in her throat. She didn’t want Lucas to hear her crying. It would scare him.

  Swiping a hand across her face, she gulped back another wretched sob. ‘Please do something,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t let him be in pain. Please…’

  A nurse came to her side, speaking gently, as if cajoling a child. ‘We’re doing everything we can, Mrs Cole. Why don’t you come and wait in the visitor’s room?’

  Alicia felt the woman’s arms close around her shoulders, trying to coax her away.

  No! Did they think she would leave him? Did they think she would leave her baby? She needed to stay. She needed to talk to him. He would respond to her voice. He would respond. Oh God, she needed to hold him, feel his warm body next to hers, his tiny heart beating. ‘Please help him. Somebody, please help—’

  Justin. Her gaze shot to the resuscitation room doors as they crashed open.

  ‘You need to step away, Dr Cole,’ someone ordered, as he moved towards Lucas. ‘It’s too personal. You have a possible pneumothorax. You’re in no fit state to—’

  ‘He’s my fucking son!’ Justin shouted, struggling to get past two colleagues who were attempting to hold him back.

  ‘Pulmonary contusions evident,’ another doctor said, as he pressed a stethoscope to their baby’s small chest. ‘Get hold of paediatrics. Tell them—’

  ‘He won’t make it!’ Justin screamed. ‘He’s about to go into respiratory arrest. You need to intubate. Now!’

  The doctor looked towards Justin and then, his expression foreboding, back to the other medical staff gathered around him. ‘Tell paeds to stand by,’ he instructed a nurse, as Alicia’s heart slowed to a dull thud inside her. And then to another, ‘Get me an EZ-IO drill. And get the fast scanner here now.’

  Alicia knew what he was about to do. She couldn’t bear it. Didn’t think she could stand to hear the sound of the drill whirring and cutting.

  She felt Justin’s arm around her. Instinctively, she turned to him, felt his other arm enclose her, pulling her towards him. Guilt rose inside her, her mind screaming what she already knew. It was her fault. All of it, her fault! This was her punishment for the wicked thing she’d done, the dreadful mistake she’d made. But it was her mistake. The punishment should be hers, not her baby’s. Not Justin’s. Not Sophie’s. Her’s alone.

  ‘You shouldn’t touch me!’ She pulled away from him, feeling she might taint him. Everything she’d ever done had shaped his life, had brought him to this terrible place. He shouldn’t be with her. She should never have made him be. ‘You shouldn’t be anywhere near me!’

  Justin stepped towards her, tried to ease her back. ‘Alicia, don’t…’ He stopped, drawing in a harsh breath. Hearing the wheeze rattle his chest, Alicia looked sharply up, saw the agony in his eyes, the perspiration mingling with the salty tears on his cheeks as he looked towards his broken baby. He was hurting. Hurting so badly. How could he ever forgive her? How would she ever forgive herself?

  He would never come back from this. He would blame himself. He would never stop blaming himself if…

  ‘Blood pressure’s dropping.’

  Five

  ALICIA

  Feeling closer to him there, Alicia had stayed in the same place for two solid days since coming home from the hospital: sitting in the chair in the nursery. It was an antique rocking chair. Justin had bought it – to make feeding times easier, he’d said. Lucas had been easy to feed, a contented baby. It was a perfect chair for cuddling and snuggling him, though.

  Her heart squeezing painfully, Alicia caught a breath in her throat as she recalled how she’d woken from an exhausted sleep shortly after bringing Lucas home, panic immediately engulfing her when she realised it was past his feed time and he wasn’t crying. Her heart rate had slowed to somewhere near normal when she’d found Justin’s side of the bed empty; she’d crept tentatively along the landing to find her husband nestling his son in the crook of his arm, humming softly as he rocked him gently back to sleep.

  He’d done it many times since, when he hadn’t been working. Alicia accused him of quietly hoping she would sleep through, so he could spend precious alone time with his son, and Sophie made merciless fun of her dad getting in touch with his feminine side. Alicia had pointed out he’d taken his fair share of night-time feeds with her too, the only difference being they hadn’t had a rocking chair. At this, Sophie had bemoaned her deprived childhood.

  Alicia smiled at the memory, and then swallowed hard against the cold stone wedged like ice in her chest. Shivering involuntarily as Lucas’s wind-chime mobile tinkled the softest of sounds, she eased his patchwork quilt higher towards her face, breathing in the smell of him. His smell was everywhere: on her clothes, in her hair. She couldn’t bear to wash him away. He permeated every surface, every wall, every pore of the house.

  Looking towards the mobile, sure she could hear his delighted chuckles and gurgles as it jangled, she realised Justin was standing on the landing, watching her, not moving. He didn’t come in. He hadn’t come into the room once since he’d been discharged. Because he couldn’t cope with it. Because his pain was too raw. Alicia could see it. It was etched deep into his eyes.

  He needed her. He needed his family, his baby. She couldn’t bear it. Alicia looked away.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked hesitantly.

  Alicia shook her head. She couldn’t eat. Couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Some tea or hot chocolate?’ he tried.

  ‘We’d only just started weaning him,’ she said, for no reason other than she could see the confusion in Lucas’s beautiful summer-blue eyes when she’d first fed a spoon into his mouth. ‘He opened his mouth for the spoon on Sunday. Soft fruits. He liked soft fruits mixed with his milk.’

  Justin breathed in. ‘I know,’ he said throatily.

  Another minute stuffed full of silence passed by, then, ‘You should try and eat something, Alicia. At least let me get you some tea?’

  Alicia smiled sadly. Her mother had always gone for the kettle in a crisis. A tradition passed on from her gran. A ‘cure-all cuppa’, her gran had called it. It couldn’t cure this, couldn’t take away the ache in her chest where her heart should be. Her hand strayed to the soft round of her tummy. The emptiness where her baby had grown.

  She wished her mother was here. That God, in whatever infinite wisdom it was, hadn’t seen fit to take her away from her too. She would have judged her, no doubt she would have done that, but she would have kept loving her. It was selfish, but she needed that love. She desperately needed the love of someone who could know all there was to know and still keep loving her. To be held until her heart had stopped breaking and the unbearable pain went away.

  But it wouldn’t go away. Couldn’t. Ever.

  Justin, would he hold her? Could he bear to, now that he suspected? And he did. She could feel it. How could she let him? Only to tell him she’d betrayed him in the worst possible way a woman could betray a man? He was bleeding too, just as steadily as her, and she had no idea what to
do.

  She needed to try. Needed to help him get through this. Could she at least do that, before she broke him completely? Glancing away, she wiped a tear from her face. ‘I’ll come down soon,’ she said, though she had no idea how she would. She couldn’t bear to see Lucas’s things in the kitchen – his little bowl and his feeding cup. Couldn’t conceive the idea of throwing them out. Here she was, surrounded by his things, his tiny baby clothes, his toys, by him. There were no surprises, nothing that would leap out at her and force the air from her lungs.

  Alicia listened to the landing clock ticking, loud against the silence, as Justin nodded defeatedly and walked away. How she wished she could wrench the hands of the clock back, eradicate time, her mistakes – and the cruellest second of all, in which God had taken their baby away.

  Not God.

  Her. Getting unsteadily to her feet, she walked towards the window. She’d been responsible for Lucas’s death. If not for her lies, her weakness, none of this would have happened. She might have remembered to fill up her own car had she not been so distracted by Paul Radley. Justin wouldn’t have been driving her. If only she’d been honest, neither of them would have been distracted that day from what mattered most in the world: their family. Justin wouldn’t be facing pain after insurmountable pain. She should have told him the truth. It was too late now.

  ‘Where are you, baby?’ she whispered glancing up at the stars, twinkling brightly against a vast canvas of black. ‘Where are you, my beautiful baby boy?’ Closing her eyes, she pressed his little quilt close to her face and allowed her tears to finally spill over.

  She wasn’t aware Justin had come back until he reached for her. Alicia leaned into him as he eased her to face him. She couldn’t help herself. She didn’t deserve him, but she so needed him, wanted to morph into him, never let go of him. Knew, as the hand of the clock ticked past this moment, that he didn’t want to let go of her either.