The Marriage by K.L. Slater (any book recommendations TXT) 📕

‘It’s 17,’ Ellis said quickly. ‘But Mum lets me watch films that are 18. I’m not a baby.’

‘I bet a good action film has about the same amount of blood and gore in it,’ Tom remarked.

Ellis nodded. ‘It’s not real life, Nan. I’m not going to suddenly go out and kill someone …’ His voice petered out as he realised what he’d said.

Tom jumped in right away. ‘Tell you what, then. I’ve promised your nan I’ll put some flat-pack shelves up now, but next time you’re over, we’ll look at the PlayStation stuff online together. OK?’

‘OK.’ Ellis picked up his game again. Then he looked up at Tom and said grudgingly, ‘Thanks for the juice.’

Tom looked over and winked at me. This man was certainly full of surprises.

Twenty-One Jill

On the day of the dinner at Tom and Bridget’s house, I was completely incapable of concentrating on my book or watching daytime television. I’d already checked Bridget’s social media half a dozen times and there was nothing new. I was going to drive myself crazy, so I decided to start weeding the borders in the garden.

I used to garden regularly, loving the birds, the different seasons, the fresh air. When Tom was small, he’d sit with a sketchpad and pencil and painstakingly draw a flower or a ladybird. He’d focus and apply himself without me having to coerce him.

It had been a long time since I’d taken pleasure in the garden. Robert tended to put off the mowing until the lawn was an inch off resembling a jungle, but I didn’t have the drive for it these days.

For the first ten minutes of tidying the borders, I wanted to go back inside. It was bright but cold and I hadn’t really dressed warmly enough, but I kept at it. My back made its discomfort known, but I felt freer out here then I had felt for ages. I began to wish I’d turned to the garden, rather than away from it, during my most difficult times.

For the first five or six years of Tom’s sentence, I had found it virtually impossible to avoid scrolling through Bridget’s social media. Her Young Men Matter Facebook feed and the regular reposts of newspaper articles and magazine interviews she’d done, headlines such as:

When beauty dies – a mother’s meditation on the loss of her son

Learning to live without Jesse – Bridget Wilson reflects, five years after the manslaughter of her son

Jesse. Jesse. Jesse. Thrill-seeker, boy racer and promiscuous risk-taker. That had been the truth that had never made the headlines, the unpalatable facts that no one ever spoke about, least of all Bridget.

Startled by a noise behind me, I turned around to see Robert hovering.

‘Keeping busy, are we?’ he said in that patronising way of his that I’d made excuses for during most of our married life.

‘Somebody’s got to tackle this mess,’ I said coldly. ‘Might as well be me.’

‘Seeing as I’m working and struggling to pay the bills, I’ll let you take over the Monty Don mantle, if that’s all right.’

I stopped weeding and straightened up, massaging my lower back as it twinged in protest. ‘And why is that? Why are we short of money and struggling to pay the bills?’

‘The bills are high. It’s a big house and—’

‘But it’s always been a big house,’ I said, shaking clods of clammy dark earth from the trowel. ‘I can’t recall there being a problem before.’

He laughed. ‘I can’t recall you ever asking.’

‘You know, if you can’t think of anything constructive to say, may I suggest you bugger off back inside?’

‘There’s no need for that!’ he said, taken aback. ‘Look, Jill, this is not the outcome you expected, I know that. It’s not the fresh start you’d planned for Tom.’

Not we, but you. I was done skirting around the issue.

‘He’s your son too, or have you forgotten that?’ I knocked over the bucket as I stepped back, and the limp, dying weeds spilled out onto the grass. ‘You’re probably just glad he’ll be out of your hair.’

‘That’s hardly fair,’ Robert said, his eyes widening with surprise.

I bent forward and righted the bucket. ‘The prison service is to blame for this as much as anyone. Filling his head with this retentive justice nonsense when he’s so vulnerable.’

‘It’s called restorative justice,’ Robert remarked, stepping forward and surveying my handiwork. ‘Very fashionable in liberal circles at the moment, I understand.’

‘How can anything ever be restored to what it was?’ I demanded. ‘What happened happened. Sadly, Jesse died and Tom paid the price. The past can’t be airbrushed away or moulded into something else. It can’t be restored in any way at all.’

‘I’m not entirely sure that’s the concept behind it,’ Robert said, amused. ‘It’s more about forgiveness, about both sides moving on and healing.’

‘I keep coming back to the same question. What does a forty-eight-year-old woman want with a twenty-eight-year-old man?’

‘Aside from the obvious, you mean?’

‘The obvious?’

‘He’s fit, good-looking, ripe for the picking, or hadn’t you noticed that?’ Robert smirked. ‘Caged for all those years, I’m sure he must be like a frustrated stallion in the sack.’

‘Stop it.’ Bile rose in my throat. ‘I’m not talking about anything as simple or crude as that, Robert. I’m talking about something much darker.’

He looked baffled. ‘Such as?’

‘Revenge for Jesse’s death, for goodness’ sake! Think about it. Jesse’s gone for good, but Tom has done his time and now has a chance at building a good life. She can’t stand that and she’s planned to get close to him so that she’s well placed to destroy him.’

‘Honestly.’ Robert snorted and turned back to the house. ‘This is all getting a bit “TV thriller”, Jill. I’ll leave you to it.’

‘OK, so answer this. Why would Tom want her? That’s what I really don’t get.’

‘Well, he’s never had much luck with girls his own age, has he?’

‘You mean he was a bit shy?’

Robert pulled a face.

‘People around here know that what happened that night. It wasn’t straightforward and