I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,43

still hard.’

‘It must have been.’ I feel tears forming in my own eyes. Genevieve and Nathan had been married for over thirty years. I can’t imagine what it would have been like for her when he died.

‘Yes… But you’ve been there yourself, haven’t you? I remember you talking about Nick. How much you missed him after he passed. I didn’t understand at the time.’

‘I still miss him.’

‘You were going through all that when you started at the school, weren’t you?’

I nod. I’d been struggling so much to hold everything together after losing Nick, but I’d still worked as hard as I could, trying to put my all into teaching.

‘Do you think that contributed to your mistakes?’

So this is what she wants to talk about after all. I’m not sure I can face her judgement.

‘The coffee’s good here,’ I say.

She looks me in the eye and takes a deep breath. ‘I want to say I’m sorry for what happened to you. You were a good teacher. One of the best. You understood your students. I didn’t want things to turn out the way they did.’

I stare into my coffee. Her words are a relief. ‘I thought you hated me. I was so ashamed when I lost my job.’

She reaches out, touches my hand. ‘I was angry, of course, when it happened. But even at the time I knew your heart was always in the right place.’

I think about how much her words would have meant to me if she’d just said them back then. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that at the time?’

‘I couldn’t. I had to keep the details of the investigation confidential. I couldn’t maintain any kind of relationship with you. Not in my position. Teaching was my life’s work.’

I nod. ‘And mine. But you let me fall by the wayside.’

‘You were young. I thought you could start again, doing something different. I was so upset when I heard what happened to you afterwards. Your breakdown. Your time in the hospital. I so desperately wanted to visit you, to try to help. But you know I couldn’t. I had to cut ties for the school’s sake.’

My only friends had been other teachers at the school. When I was under investigation they couldn’t speak to me either. ‘You knew I didn’t have any close family and that I’d recently lost Nick. I didn’t have anyone to watch out for me. Spending all that time on my own with my thoughts drove me mad. I even started to think I was being followed. But it was all in my head.’

I had no reason to get up in the morning, nothing to do, and I’d slowly become delusional, thinking everyone was out to get me. After a while I stopped leaving the house at all. Eventually I’d had a panic attack when a food delivery came, and lashed out at the delivery man. Oscillating between terror that I’d be attacked and fear I’d end up hurting someone else, I’d admitted myself to hospital and they’d treated me for my delusions, made me see they weren’t real. I wince at the memory. I’d been so confused back then, and so afraid.

‘I’m sorry. That’s why I wanted to have coffee with you. Now I’m retired I’m not tied to the school anymore. I don’t have to stay away from you. I thought maybe we could be friends again.’

‘I’m not sure,’ I reply. She hurt me, cast me adrift. But so much time has passed, and I do need a friend. After everything that happened I’ve been wary of people, relying on Richard and not forming my own friendships. ‘But maybe we could meet up again,’ I concede eventually.

‘That would be great. You look really well. You’ve blossomed. I’m so glad to see it.’

‘Thank you. I’m a therapist now.’

‘Oh, that’s brilliant. I can imagine you’d be an exceptional therapist. You were always so good at listening to the kids. You really helped them. Particularly the ones who were struggling.’

We say goodbye an hour later, and I feel weightless, as if the past has finally been put to rest. I’d felt so guilty about what happened to my teaching career, but all along Genevieve had known I did care about the kids, that I was a good teacher. I think about how scared I’ve been recently about my job, worried that I might be investigated again, just for going round to Danielle’s house. Maybe that’s paranoia. After all, I’m convinced I did the right thing, trying