Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Books by Sheryl Browne
- Dedication
- KARLA
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Epilogue
- The Affair
- Hear more from Sheryl
- Books by Sheryl Browne
- A Letter from Sheryl
- The Babysitter
- The Second Wife
- Acknowledgements
Looking him over, I nod. He looks dreadful. He’s still wearing the clothes he had on when I left him deep in inebriated sleep in his office. He hasn’t shaved, and the dark shadows under his eyes, growing ever darker, indicate he hasn’t slept. Welcome to the club, I feel like saying. The dreams that have haunted me all my life have been relentless these last two nights, snatching me from fitful sleep whenever I manage to doze off. As I look at my husband, who I sense is leaving me as surely as my sister did, I feel it all over again: the empty loneliness of losing someone who is a fundamental part of you.
And then I am back there, living my nightmare, standing over the slim body that lies so still and cold. And I am inside, looking out. Silently, I ask myself, why did you lie for him? No breath escapes her blue-tinged lips, yet she breathes. Inside me, she breathes. We were independent, but one, inseparable. My father took her away from me, and I allowed him to. I allowed him to get away with the horrendous thing he’d done.
Jason and I are individuals. But we were one: a couple, a unit, a family. Now broken. I can’t allow the person who chipped relentlessly away at our marriage, who mercilessly destroyed two more lives, to escape the consequences. Not this time. When Sarah died, I was too frightened of our father to tell.
I lied for him. I lied to myself. I tried to convince myself that our father would never do such a thing. But he did. I tried to convince myself Jason would never cheat. But he has. The life I lived after she was gone was a lie. My marriage is a lie. Should I feel guilty, then, for continuing the lies, for pretending to be a person I’m not in order to open my husband’s eyes? Jason did love me – that is a truth I am sure of. He could still. If only he remembered all the pieces of me that make the whole. I can’t lose him.
‘You’ve cut your hair,’ Jason says, breaking the silence that hangs heavy between us.
Instinctively, my hand goes to my bare neck. I sense disbelief in his voice, rather than disapproval. I couldn’t believe it either, as I’d stared into the mirror, watching the hair Jason always claimed he loved fall to the floor. Little pieces of me. I won’t miss them.
‘It’s nice,’ he says. ‘Suits you.’
I don’t pursue it. I’m not after false compliments either.