SATURDAY, AUGUST 10, 2013
MORNING
I wake early. I can hear the recycling van trundlingup the street and the soft patter of rain against thewindow. The blinds are half up—we forgot to closethem last night. I smile to myself. I can feel himbehind me, warm and sleepy, hard. I wriggle¹ myhips, pressing against him a little closer. It won’t takelong for him to stir, to grab hold of me, roll meover.
“Rachel,” his voice says, “don’t.” I go cold. I’m notat home, this isn’t home. This is all wrong.
I roll over. Scott is sitting up now. He swings hislegs over the side of the bed, his back to me. Isqueeze my eyes tightly shut and try to remember,but it’s all too hazy³. When I open my eyes I canthink straight because this room is the one I’vewoken up in a thousand times or more: this iswhere the bed is, this is the exact aspect—if I sit upnow I will be able to see the tops of the oak treeson the opposite side of the street; over there, on theleft, is the en suite⁴ bathroom, and to the right arethe built-in wardrobes. It’s exactly the same as theroom I shared with Tom.
“Rachel,” he says again, and I reach out to touchhis back, but he stands quickly and turns to face me.
He looks hollowed out, like the first time I saw himup close, in the police station—as though someonehas scraped away his insides, leaving a shell. This islike the room I shared with Tom, but it is the onehe shared with Megan. This room, this bed.
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This waswrong.”
“Yes, it was,” he says, his eyes not meeting mine.
He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door.
I lie back and close my eyes and feel myself sinkinto dread⁵, that awful gnawing⁶ in my gut⁷. What haveI done? I remember him talking a lot when I firstarrived, a rush of words. He was angry—angry withhis mother, who never liked Megan; angry with thenewspapers for what they were writing about her,the implication that she got what was coming to her;angry with the police for botching the whole thing,for failing her, failing him. We sat in the kitchendrinking beers and I listened to him talk, and whenthe beers were finished we sat outside on the patioand he stopped being angry then. We drank andwatched the trains go by and talked about nothing:

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