My Husband's Girlfriend - Sheryl Browne Page 0,106
‘She was driven, though.’ She’d choked back angry tears of frustration. ‘She buried Jacob to save her precious reputation.’
Sarah believed it: that a woman who had also cold-bloodedly sought to keep the truth from her daughter, the child’s mother – feeding her sedatives, robbing her of the right to grieve for her child, driving her almost to the brink of insanity – had been in full possession of her faculties when she’d carried him from the pool that dark night and dug him into the cold, clay-sodden earth.
She’d told Grant he’d killed him. He’d slapped him to stop his crying, it came out, left the poor frightened child wandering in the garden, where he’d blundered in the dark into the pool. Released from his purgatory to face a yet more terrifying one, Grant hadn’t been about to lie to the police for her. He’d said in his statement that Sherry had sworn she would keep his secret, stay by his side until death did them part. Death had parted them before prison could. Grant, Sarah supposed, hadn’t relished the idea of spending the rest of his life as a convicted child killer and paedophile, at the mercy of those who would dish out their own punishment. Laura’s only regret when she learned that he’d ended his miserable life before he could be brought to justice was that he’d never found out that his wife wasn’t the mother of his child; that he’d been duped into marrying her.
Rocking silently to and fro as she sat by her child’s grave, Laura placed a hand on her tummy. ‘I remember the first time I felt him kick,’ she recalled. ‘Gentle flicks, like soft butterflies. I was mesmerised … but terrified of her, even then.’ Her eyes were filled with long-suppressed anger and raw sadness. ‘She was parading proudly around the lounge, a hand pressed to her “pregnancy bump”, can you believe? I think she was hoping Grant would be more attentive. He wasn’t.’
‘How did she get away with it? I mean, how …’ Sarah trailed off. Surely he must have suspected something?
‘She made me wear baggy clothes.’ Laura anticipated the question she’d wanted to ask but hadn’t known diplomatically how to. ‘Shapeless monstrosities brought back from her trips. She’s made a point of bringing me unflattering, supposedly on-trend stuff ever since. She never was comfortable with me showing off my figure.’
Sarah felt disgust for the woman roil inside her. Laura had problems, major problems, which, given the determination Sarah now knew she possessed, she had no doubt she would do her best to overcome. The fact that she’d survived at all, though, to be the caring person she was, was a miracle.
‘She dissuaded him from attending the birth, obviously,’ she went on, fiddling distractedly with the arrangement of freesias and roses Sarah had brought. ‘I don’t think Grant was too devastated. They weren’t exactly a loving couple, always at each other’s throats. He never really had much to do with Jacob once he was born, could never abide him crying when he and Sherry argued, which was often.’
Burning anger rose thick in Sarah’s throat as Laura recounted the lengths to which Sherry had gone to get the man who would fund her lifestyle to marry her. ‘He was reluctant to commit,’ she told her falteringly. ‘He did, though, eventually, naïvely believing everything she told him. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how she could have been with a man who’d abused her own daughter. I think she must have always hated me.’
‘Because there’s something wrong with her, Laura. Not you,’ Sarah said forcefully.
Laura smiled, but the look in her eye said she didn’t quite believe it. Sarah prayed she would, in time. Laura had Steve, who loved her without question. Sarah was determined to be a friend to her. How could she not be to the woman who’d saved her child?
‘She was never going to go back to a life of poverty having tasted the good life.’ There was a hint of regret in Laura’s voice, as if she’d hoped …
Sarah had no doubt that that was the truth. That Sherry Caldwell had valued her lifestyle above her daughter. The price Laura had had to pay was obviously a small sacrifice.
‘I hope he burns in hell,’ Laura said. She hadn’t gone to Grant’s funeral. There hadn’t been many in attendance, Joe had said. But she had gone to see her mother – to try to lay her ghosts, Sarah assumed.