fine. I’ll drive.’
‘You did all the driving up. I’ll drive home.’
He looks at her across the hood of the car. ‘No, really, I’m fine. You should nap on the way back.’
But she won’t take no for an answer. She walks around the front of the car to the driver’s side and says, ‘I’m driving. Look, you’re actually trembling. Believe it or not, I think you’re in worse shape than I am.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A WEEK HAS gone by since Patrick visited Erica’s apartment in the middle of the night. Erica finds herself growing more and more impatient. Nothing is happening. Specifically – nothing has happened to Stephanie, and she doesn’t like fucking around. She steps into the independent bookstore in downtown Aylesford. It’s a charming place, but Erica didn’t come here to be charmed. She knows what she wants. She spots the children’s section and heads there.
It’s time she bought a gift for the twins. She’s spent so much time thinking about them, she feels like she’s almost part of their little family now. She peruses the shelves, searching for something specific, something she remembers from her own childhood. It might even be her favourite story. For a moment she’s worried she won’t find it – that she’ll have to order it online somewhere, and she really wants to give it to the twins today. Patrick needs a nudge.
Ah – there it is. She recognizes the little book and plucks it from the shelf. She finds a chair and sits down and reads it all the way through. It’s just as she remembered it, and in spite of herself she is charmed by it, finds herself smiling as she reads, enjoying the familiar words, the illustrations, the moral. It’s perfect.
Patrick sees it first, the small gift-wrapped package topped with a bow, sitting at the base of their front door. They’re returning from an evening walk around the neighbourhood with the twins. He feels Stephanie come up behind him. She sees the package, wrapped in pale-yellow paper dotted with little lambs, and gives a cry of delight.
‘A present!’ she says.
Stephanie has always loved gifts – choosing them, wrapping them, giving them and receiving them. With a jolt, Patrick realizes that he hasn’t given his wife any thoughtful gifts lately, not even flowers. He must make amends. He’ll get her something soon.
Stephanie comes up the porch steps with him and reaches down to pick up the package, while Patrick unlocks the door. ‘Let’s get the babies inside and see who it’s from,’ she says.
They make their way in and set the babies down in the living room. ‘There’s a card,’ Stephanie says. ‘To Jackie and Emma. I wonder who it’s from?’ Stephanie says, sitting down on the sofa and opening the card.
Patrick is about to sit beside her when she flings the gift away as if she’s had an electric shock. She’s still holding the card in her hand, looking at it with distaste. Patrick feels a terrible misgiving. ‘What?’
She hands him the card – he sees that her hand is shaking. ‘It’s from Erica.’ She says the name with revulsion.
He grabs the card from her and looks at it with alarm. Inside is written, ‘A little gift for you and the twins. Erica.’
A feeling of dread sweeps over him. He looks at the package that Stephanie had thrown to the floor. It’s small and flat, like a book.
‘Don’t open it,’ Stephanie says.
He hesitates. He doesn’t want to open it either. Erica is sick and she’s trying to fuck with them. But all the same, he needs to know what it is. He walks over to the gift and bends down and picks it up while Stephanie shrinks back into the sofa. He glances back at her, as if for permission. She doesn’t say anything, so he rips the paper off. He lets his breath out in relief. He turns to Stephanie and says, ‘It’s just a book. A picture book.’
He comes back to the sofa and sits beside her, reading the title out loud. ‘The Little Red Hen.’
Stephanie takes it from him and stares at the book. ‘I know this one. It’s an old folktale. The little red hen has to do everything herself.’ She turns to the first page, and they glance through the book together, reading it quickly. It’s about a little red hen who finds a grain of wheat, but no one will help her plant the seed. The goose and the cat and the pig say no. So the