Chapters (73)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Prologue
- Part IAnnie
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Part IIHarry
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Part IIIAnnie
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Part IVHarry
- 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
- Part VAnnie
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Also by Linwood Barclay
- About the Publisher
Things were not all that great on the home front. He and Nadine had been married almost ten years now, and whatever spark there’d been in this marriage had fizzled some time ago. The truth was, they were never really meant for each other. They’d gone out a few times while both attending Middlebury College, had a few drinks one night, and a few weeks later Nadine broke the news to him that she was pregnant. They were both from religious families, and even though it was the nineties, supposedly a time when young people felt liberated from so many social conventions, they felt under pressure to do the right thing and get hitched. Wendell left Middlebury before getting his degree and found a job in Lucknow. With financial help from Nadine’s parents—her father ran a savings and loan—they bought a house. They had two cars in the garage and an apple tree in the backyard. A perfect couple, about to embark on life’s great adventure. They had it all except for the picket fence out front.
And then, in her third month, Nadine lost the baby.
It was a devastating time for Wendell and Nadine. They were enveloped in a great sadness, but that gave way over time to resentment.
But, as it turned out, Wendell discovered that he enjoyed being a husband. There was a sense of fulfillment in having someone to care for, in being part of a union. And if he didn’t love Nadine as deeply as he might have wished when they exchanged vows, he was hopeful that in time he would.
If only Nadine had felt the same.
She had married this man because she was having his child, and now she wasn’t. She never said out loud what she was thinking. That she wanted out. That she didn’t want to spend her life with this man if she didn’t have to. Some couples, desperate to have a child, would have tried again, but Nadine didn’t want to do that. But what could she do? Her parents had bought them this house. What would she say to them? She knew, at some level, she had disgraced them by getting pregnant, and to find a way to escape this marriage now would only make things worse.
Nadine resigned herself to this life. She would go through the motions, make the best of it. But she didn’t have to love this man. She didn’t even have to like him. She believed that she could tolerate him. Where was it written that you were entitled to be happy?