He hadn’t asked Yvette anything about her whereabouts. She wouldn’t tell him where she’d fled to, he was sure, but that wasn’t why he’d resisted asking. Somewhere out there was more than enough now. He just prayed she’d found some happiness, some peace. Perhaps Billie was somewhere out there too. Poor Billie, who would probably remain a tragic unanswered question forever. Had Paul been wrong about Daniel’s role in her disappearance? It was possible, he now saw. They’d hated each other from a distance for too long, wasting energy, wasting their lives.

Paul slipped his hand into his wife’s and her fingers curled around his. All these years they’d been carrying similar burdens. Guarding their secrets, burying their pasts. It had almost lost them everything.

“You’re right,” he said. “I caused a death too . . . or thought I had. Someone I loved, and lied to. Someone I didn’t want you to know about.”

Steph closed her eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was with distress or relief at finally hearing this.

“I know what it does to you,” Paul continued. “How you want forgiveness but you don’t feel like you deserve it, only punishment . . . except you can’t ask for that either. And you want to tell the people you’ve been lucky enough to find a new life with”—he gripped her fingers—“but you’re terrified they won’t love you anymore.”

Steph’s eyes were still leaking. “Even when my punishment came, I didn’t recognize it straightaway. Now we’ve all been punished, Freya worst of all.”

“But we’re all still here.” Paul shuffled nearer to her, and they both looked at Freya again. “We can forgive each other. We have to, don’t we?”

Steph laid her face against his shoulder. Her hair, though unwashed in five days, still smelled faintly of vanilla. She was still the same person, despite the name change, despite the part of her life he hadn’t known—just as she’d been oblivious to a part of his. Paul felt a blast of sympathy as he pictured her as a frightened young girl, making a mistake that would haunt her entire life.

Of course, he knew what that felt like. They could have forgiven each other, maybe even themselves, a long time ago.

Freya’s eyelids fluttered and Paul was overcome with love. The memory of finding her at last, in that tiny locked room, kept bowling into him. Somehow he’d been given a third chance. And this time he wouldn’t squander it with half his head still in the past. He would be present. Grateful. Real.

He wrapped his arms around Steph. Their breathing evened out as they sat there, eyes closed, lulled by the musical beeps of their daughter’s heart.

70.

KATE

Twenty-three years earlier