punishment for being deceitful, her parents had removed her bedroom door. She had no privacy, not even to get dressed.
Miserable, Susanna could see no way out. Then, one lunchtime, she’d gone to her usual sandwich bar and been approached by a man who was so good-looking he gave her goosebumps. Danny told her he worked in some offices along the street. She told him she worked for her father’s business. He’d asked her out, later saying he’d fallen for her the first time he’d seen her. He was the epitome of joy and freedom and his charm was an ointment for her damaged self-esteem. Susanna had sneaked out on dates for three months, always nervous as hell that her parents would find out, as she was certain they’d disapprove of him. Just when she thought she couldn’t take the pressure of lying to them any longer, he proposed. They were only twenty, but of course she said yes.
Her parents had been apoplectic, but Susanna knew they couldn’t stop her. Not when she felt so empowered now Danny had promised to look after her. Before long she was pregnant. Abby was born and Danny was disappointed at how his in-laws refused to help financially. They struggled on his salary, with Susanna then out of work as she was no longer welcome at her father’s company. The early devotion Danny had shown her quickly evaporated and he became more absent, no longer returning for bath time and spending his weekends doing overtime at the office.
Ben came along a year later and Danny was overjoyed at having a son. For a while, to Susanna’s relief, things between the two of them got a bit better. Then Danny was passed over for a promotion and they had been counting on the salary increase. It was a real blow. Danny returned to working late and Susanna hated being in the house alone. Worse, she hated the feeling that he was avoiding her. She tried to tempt him back, made sure she didn’t complain when he rolled in at ten at night, smelling suspiciously of booze. She still gave him sex when all she wanted to do was curl under the covers and pass out with tiredness. Once, as he climbed into bed, she thought she could smell perfume on him, but when she tentatively asked him about it, he snapped and produced a bottle from his jacket pocket. A gift, he’d said, a surprise he was saving for her. She’d immediately felt guilty but wondered why he hadn’t given it to her straight away. She also wondered why he would have sprayed the testers on himself; it seemed out of character to her – he was too image-conscious to put women’s scent on his own skin. But by now she was pregnant again and terrified of being left alone. She still had no contact with her parents and was struggling with two demanding children, one of whom had recently been ill.
One day Susanna got home from taking Abby and Ben to the park and found a note from Danny on the kitchen table. He said he ‘couldn’t handle it’. She tearfully begged him to reconsider when he phoned, but he became embarrassed, didn’t want to have anything more to do with her. He wouldn’t tell her where he was living and said something vague about staying on a friend’s sofa, of it not being suitable for young children. He said that once he was ‘settled’ he would arrange to have the children for visits. She couldn’t argue, not when he sent monthly bank deposits. They kept her afloat – it wasn’t enough to feel flush with cash but it kept them with food and clothes and a roof over their head. She often felt guilty that Danny must have been struggling to survive himself – with the amount he was sending, she thought it would be impossible for him to afford his own place.
Then tragedy hit. Ben died and Susanna was devastated. It hit Danny hard too but still he wouldn’t come back to her, wouldn’t comfort her. At the funeral, Susanna learned why. He turned up, face reddened with tears, clutching the hand of a woman who was a decade older and owned an immensely successful recruitment business. Susanna had always pictured him sleeping on a crusty old sofa, no space or privacy, whereas he’d been living in a six-bedroomed mansion the whole time. She was dumbfounded. All that time he could have taken