back to the time when Jess would have been born. She looked young – early twenties maybe? Which would have made Kate barely a teenager. Those were the years when, during the school holidays, she used to accompany her father to his office, where he worked as a lawyer. She was adamant she’d follow in his footsteps, convinced she wanted to right people’s wrongs.
‘You’re a real-life superhero,’ she’d once said, watching in awe as he spent the morning fighting for a mother’s custody and the afternoon negotiating a fair divorce deal for a husband who had been cheated on.
He’d smiled modestly at her through crinkled eyes, but she knew her words mattered to him. As did everybody else’s whose lives he touched. He wasn’t how lawyers are so often cast; the epitome of a vulture preying on the vulnerable. He was an upstanding citizen who treated each and every one of his clients like a good friend. He had always been a superhero in Kate’s eyes.
Yet now, she dares to contemplate the possibility that he might have been the very opposite.
‘Why didn’t you tell her he was dead?’ asks Lauren, almost accusingly.
It takes a while for Kate to realize that she’s talking to her.
‘Because it’s none of her goddamn business,’ Kate snaps. ‘Though I suppose if it were up to you, you’d sit her down, make her a cup of tea and tell her the whole story.’
‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ says Lauren.
‘It means that this would suit you, wouldn’t it?’ Kate glares at Lauren. ‘You’d love nothing more than to have Dad’s memory tarnished.’
‘Why would I want that?’ asks Lauren, fixing her sister with a cold hard stare.
‘Because then you’d feel justified for treating him with such contempt for all these years.’
‘Girls, girls, please,’ says Rose, who’s still visibly shaking and wringing her hands in her lap. ‘None of this is helping.’
‘So, what are we going to do?’ asks Lauren.
‘Nothing,’ says Kate.
‘Don’t you think she deserves to be heard?’ asks Lauren incredulously. ‘You can’t just dismiss what she said and ignore her.’
‘That’s exactly what we’re going to do,’ says Rose icily as she stares at her daughters.
4
Lauren
‘Well, what d’ya know?’ Simon smirks, as soon as Lauren has strapped all the children into the back seat of the car and gets into the front. She exhales, letting out the breath she feels she’s been holding in for an eternity. She doesn’t want to talk about it, but she doubts her husband will give her the choice. ‘Do you think there’s something to it?’ he asks.
Lauren turns to look out the window, watching the pavement fall away as Simon pulls off. Jess’s sudden appearance is hard enough for her to get her head around. She hasn’t got the energy to face an interrogation from her husband.
‘Who knows?’ she says quietly.
‘Who would have thought it?’ Simon says, chuckling to himself. ‘The man who spent his life dealing with everyone else’s infidelities was up to no good himself.’
‘It might not be all that it seems,’ she says. ‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions until we know the facts.’
Simon snorts, and she knows he’s about to do exactly that. He’ll enjoy flying in the face of controversy, especially if it will give him a ringside seat.
‘All those times he spoke to me like I was a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe. All those times he tried to make me feel as if you were too good for me . . .’
Lauren bites down on her lip, to stop herself from saying, I am.
‘And all the while he was up there, in his ivory tower, he had a secret lovechild.’
Lauren takes a deep breath. It’s all very well having her own thoughts and feelings about her nearest and dearest, but she can’t bear to hear Simon saying them out loud. She’d never dream of airing her opinions on his own dysfunctional family, so she doesn’t expect, or want, to hear his views on hers. But she can sense he’s looking for a row, and she just doesn’t have the strength for another evening of arguments and sleeping on the sofa.
Although, if the truth be known, sleeping alone, even if it is on a second-hand couch, where no matter how she lies a spring sticks into her ribcage, is preferable to lying beside her husband right now. The admission saddens her, but these past few months it’s felt like every night has been a war zone which she’s had to navigate her