Cate turned to her mother, expecting tears, about to wrap her arms around her, but her mother’s face wasn’t full of tears; it was stretching into a smile. They’d been braced for him to arrive home drunk, his staggering footfalls on the verandah their alert that it was time to protect Ma, for her brothers to end up with black eyes for their efforts if he was in one of his drunken rages.

“You’re sure of it?” her mother asked.

“Oh, I’m sure. The police just came and said to pass on their condolences.”

“He’s dead,” Ma whispered. “Oh my Lord, he’s dead!”

She jumped up with a fervor Cate hadn’t seen in years, grabbing her by the hands and twirling her around as she screamed with joy.

“He’s dead! He can’t hurt us any more! The old bastard is dead!”

Soon her brother was dancing with them, like crazy idiots around the room, and before long her other two brothers had joined them, all singing and laughing as if they’d received the best news of their lives.

And it was only later, when they’d collapsed around the fire, her mother’s arms around Cate’s shoulders, that her mother had whispered in her ear.

“Don’t you repeat my mistakes, love,” she said. “Men will trick you and pretend to be something they’re not, just to get you to be with them. Your father pretended to be a good man, a kind man, and as soon as we were married I met his fist. He didn’t care whether I had a babe in my belly or in my arms, he hit me whenever he was feeling down about the world.”

Cate nodded, leaning into her, inhaling her mother’s familiar scent of perfume mixed with cooking.

“I won’t,” she promised. “I won’t ever let a man do that to me, Ma.”

As she pulled a blanket over her, shivering and crying still, she refused to believe that she’d repeated her mother’s mistakes. But Jack had hurt her; maybe not with his fists, but the pain was no less for that.

He’d known who she was, he’d known her fiancé, and despite everything they’d been through together, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to fully trust him again.

She imagined him upstairs, lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling maybe as he regretted what he’d done, what he’d kept from her. But as much as she would have loved to go back to him and curl in the crook of his arm, whispering her forgiveness to him, she knew she couldn’t.

Ma would never forgive me.

And she would never forgive herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY CATE

CHAPTER TWENTY

CATE
TEN DAYS LATER