ANNA

SUNDAY, AUGUST 18, 2013
EVENING
She’s on the floor in the kitchen. She’s bleeding, butI don’t think it’s serious. He hasn’t finished it. I’mnot really sure what he’s waiting for. I suppose it’snot easy for him. He did love her, once.
I was upstairs, putting Evie down, and I wasthinking that this is what I wanted, isn’t it? Rachelwill be gone at last, once and for all, never to return.
This is what I dreamed about happening. Well, notexactly this, obviously. But I did want her gone. Idreamed of a life without Rachel, and now I couldhave one. It would be just the three of us, me andTom and Evie, like it should be.
For just a moment, I let myself enjoy the fantasy,but then I looked down at my sleeping daughter andI knew that was all it was. A fantasy. I kissed myfinger and touched it to her perfect lips and I knewthat we would never be safe. I would never be safe,because I know, and he won’t be able to trust me.
And who’s to say another Megan won’t come along?
Or—worse—another Anna, another me?
I went back downstairs and he was sitting at thekitchen table, drinking a beer. I couldn’t see her atfirst, but then I noticed her feet, and I thought atfirst that it was done, but he said she was all right.
“Just a little knock,” he said. He won’t be able tocall this one an accident.
So we waited. I got myself a beer, too, and wedrank them together. He told me he was really sorryabout Megan, about the affair. He kissed me, he told me he’d make it up to me, that we’d be OK, thateverything would be all right.
“We’ll move away from here, just like you’ve alwayswanted. We’ll go anywhere you want. Anywhere.” Heasked me if I could forgive him, and I said that Icould, given time, and he believed me. I think hebelieved me.
The storm has started, just like they said it would.
The rumble of thunder wakes her, brings her to. Shestarts to make a noise, to move around on the floor.
“You should go,” he says to me. “Go back upstairs.”
I kiss him on the lips and I leave him, but I don’tgo back upstairs. Instead I pick up the phone in thehallway, sit on the bottom stair and listen, thehandset in my hand, waiting for the right moment.
I can hear him talking to her, soft and low, andthen I hear her. I think she’s crying.