If I could have given my life for you, I would.

Chapter 58

Audrey

Audrey opened her eyes and blinked her tears into the bright light of the afternoon sun, her head throbbing with remembrance.

She took a moment to get her bearings. A foreign city. Boaters on a lake. Water flanked by trees and buildings. And on either side of her, sitting on the bench, two sisters who had been estranged for over two decades because of the secret she had kept from them.

She thought back to the evening of Zoe’s funeral: she and Edward sitting silently on the sofa, only a single table lamp illuminating the darkness, neither of them able to muster the energy to clear the plates of curling sandwiches and lipstick-marked paper cups that guests had left behind. Lily and Jess had been in bed already and Audrey had wished she could not be far behind but had known there was little point because for the ten days since Zoe’s death sleep had been elusive and the only thing Audrey could now be sure of when she climbed under the duvet and shut her eyes was that she would be greeted by the memory of Zoe’s body, encased in her arms, as the life had ebbed out of her.

She remembered glancing across to where Edward was sitting, staring straight ahead. She had felt guilt clawing at her throat like rats in a cellar demanding to be let out, and eventually she had found the courage to tell him what she had done.

He had looked at her—unblinking, disbelieving—but she had seen the realization spread across his face like the tentative light of an early dawn.

How could you? How could you make that decision and not even tell me? She was our little girl, ours. Not yours. It wasn’t your decision to make. You had no right, Audrey, no right.

His words had brimmed with rage and she had not known what to do to calm the tempest of his fury. But then he had turned to her and his voice, when he had next spoken, had been quiet, barely more than a whisper.

You killed her, Audrey. You killed our little girl.

His eyes had glimmered with anger but there had been something beyond that, something that had made Audrey flinch even though she did not, at first, understand why: he had looked at her not just with disbelief but with contempt.

She had placed a hand on his arm in the hope that they might begin to find their way back to one another but the violence with which he had shaken her off had made her recoil.

Don’t touch me, Audrey. I mean it. I don’t want you near me. How could you? How could you have done that? I will never, ever be able to forgive you.

I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. You know that. The last thing I’d ever want is to hurt you or the girls. You must know that.