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

We’d loved each other’s sons and so we definitely had things to say to each other.

I’d grasped the phone so tightly that day, my fingers hurt. My skin pulsed hot and damp, my mind swirling with a maelstrom of powerful emotions I didn’t know what to do with. My entire body felt limp with hopelessness one moment, while the next, adrenaline coursed through my veins so forcefully I struggled to control my rage.

Over the years, Jill had always seemed to have lots of acquaintances, friends and neighbours – people who I knew would rally round to support her. She had Robert. For all his faults – and she had always talked as though there were many – he was there for her. And most important of all, she still had Tom. He was still alive and they would be together again one day.

‘I just need to talk to you,’ I’d whispered. ‘I’m going mad, stuck in the house on my own. I need to make sense of it all, and you’re the only person who knows what I’m going through.’

‘I warned you about the danger for years. I told you Jesse was out of control, that it was going to end badly, but you refused do anything about it.’ Even now, after all this time, just thinking about how coolly she’d said those words made me shiver. ‘This might have all been avoided if you’d listened.’

‘Hang on! I—’

‘He was your son, Bridget, your son. Not your best friend, or someone to have a laugh with or hang around with.’ The bitterness in her voice gave her words a tinny, harsh edge. ‘You had a responsibility to Jesse, and to the people around him, to rein him in. And you failed on every single count.’

‘Please don’t tell me how I failed as a mother when it’s your son that’s charged with—’

‘Jesse had a knife that night and he threatened my son …’ Jill’s voice cracked, and I imagined her closing her eyes and clutching her hands into fists the way she did when she got angry. ‘Tom only lashed out because he’d felt forced to defend himself. And now his life is in ruins and Jesse is dead.’ And then she’d put the phone down.

I’d called her back immediately, ten, twenty times, but of course she didn’t pick up.

I’d rampaged around the house like a banshee. Smashing, tearing, breaking things.

Finally I’d folded myself up into a small ball and sobbed until my throat felt raw, until my limbs ached and my chest burned.

Her cruel words had taken root in my head. The way she’d spoken about Jesse as if he’d brought his death on himself. I tried to speak to her about it a few months later. I went to the house but Jill shut the door in my face.

And now, ten years later, here we were.

In a matter of hours, I’d be starting a new life with my young husband. The man who had loved Jesse like a brother but also taken his life. Tom and I had agreed that his parents would pick him up on his release and he would tell them when they got back to the house.

We were under no illusions. Getting Robert and Jill Billinghurst to understand the decision Tom and I had made felt like an impossibility.

But they had two choices.

They would accept that we were a married couple and we’d all try to get along; or they’d refuse to do so. And if that was the case, then so be it.

Tom and I were in full agreement. They would forfeit being part of our lives at all.

Six Jill

‘You shouldn’t be here this morning!’ Audrey scolded me lightly when I got to the shop just fifteen minutes after she’d opened. ‘I’m sure you’ve got enough on your mind with Tom being released.’

‘I’m not stopping,’ I said. ‘I’ve got all morning to kill and I just came to get away from Robert’s negativity. I feel better popping by just to check you’re coping OK with the new deliveries.’

‘Listen to me.’ She enunciated her words with comical exaggeration. ‘I can manage fine without you!’

‘I’ll make you a coffee before I leave; at least let me do that. It’ll help allay my guilt.’

Audrey laughed. ‘Fine, if it makes you feel better. Make yourself one too and we can have a quick chat while it’s still quiet.’

Second Chances charity shop was situated right in the middle of town on a busy side street off the main pedestrian shopping drag, West Gate. We enjoyed a steady buzz of custom most days. Audrey was a choosier manager than most, and I laughingly collected her worst opinions about stock. ‘We don’t want any old rubbish,’ she’d tell people shortly if their donations fell short of her expectations. Last month there’d been a toe-curling rebuttal for a customer trying to offload a well-worn mac: ‘If you think it’s too tatty to wear any more, what makes you think our customers would want it?’

Cringeworthy comments aside, the obvious advantage of her candour was that our stock was of consistently good quality, always keenly priced, and we now had a small army of regular customers who came from far and wide to browse, hoping to grab a bargain. Audrey was at the stage where she knew some of our regular buyers’ tastes and would even call them if we had something come in she thought they might be interested in.

At that moment, a customer entered the shop, so I went through to put the kettle on. There were three rooms back here: a kitchenette, the staff office and a small cloakroom. I filled the kettle and set it boiling, then went into the office. It surprised me to see the lights already on in there, with the computer monitor displaying a spreadsheet and paperwork spread all over the desk. Audrey had an inherent dislike of admin, particularly anything involving numbers, and usually left any updating of the stock inventory or