“Jesus, Libby. I was taking a piss after drinking the coffee. Why don’t you just attach a camera to me and be done with it.”

Her anger, constantly simmering just under the surface these days, flared. “Don’t you dare try and pin this on me. You brought it all down on yourself. If you want a hope in hell of me ever trusting you again, then this is part of it.”

For a moment Nick was silent. Then he sighed. “Libby, I haven’t met her. I haven’t spoken to her, texted or emailed her. I’ve had no contact with her since I told you about Leo. You know it’s the truth, because you’ve read her email sprays that include both of us. And none of your spies—”

“I don’t have spies!”

“Yes, you do! I see them in the street, at the school gate, the pub, everywhere. They look at me and scope out who I’m talking to.”

“I have friends who have my back.”

He grunted. “And none of them have reported anything back to you, have they, because there’s nothing to report. But despite all that, you’re still checking up on me half-a-dozen times a day. I hate living like this. It’s been two months, Libby! How much longer is it going to take?”

A combination of stewed rage and impotence battered her. She had no idea how long before the obsessive thoughts, the nightmares and the flashbacks would stop. Or when her hair-trigger responses to so many things would cease whipping her from fulminating anger to the depths of despair. How long before she could look at Nick without pain, loathing and misery and once again see the man she fell in love with at Bunga Arm? Did that man even exist anymore? And how long until Nick could look at her without shame, guilt and regret shining off him like a beacon?

Maybe it was impossible. Maybe their marriage had been in its death throes two years earlier, when Nick had turned away from her. Perhaps holding it all together was not only too hard, it was pointless. Was walking away easier than this half-life they were living?

Recently, Lucy had asked, “Mommy, why are you sleeping in this bed?”

The question had caught her off guard and she’d fought back the words, “Because your father’s hurt me in the worst possible way and I feel worthless and unlovable.” But it was her job to protect Lucy and Indi from the mess that was her and Nick.

“Daddy’s snoring keeps me awake.”

But going by the concerned phone call from Lucy’s teacher, her elder daughter was picking up on the anguished vibes in Burrunan and acting out in the classroom. Would it be better for the girls if she ended this agonizing impasse with a clean break?