The Second Silence Read Online Free PDF Page A

but that did it. Mary opened her eyes to find her mother standing stock-still in front of her, feet planted slightly apart as if squared against an oncoming blow.
    ‘I wish I knew,’ Mary said. But in a way she did. She knew perfectly well how a girl of seventeen could run out of hope, how she could feel desperate enough to …
    ‘Mary. Are you coming with me or not?’ Charlie spoke sharply, but his eyes pleaded with her.
    For a long minute she didn’t speak. Even Noelle was quiet for a change. Mary could only sit there, shaking her head while tears ran down her face, knowing that whichever way she turned, there would be no going back.
    In the end it was her father who pushed her into a decision. From the bedroom across the hall she heard him call weakly, ‘Mary Catherine, is that you?’
    Mary turned a tearful gaze up at her husband. ‘I’m sorry, Charlie.’ There was no need to say more. No need for explanations or white lies about how long she intended to stay. Whatever was written in her face she saw mirrored in all its terrible anguish on Charlie’s.
    He wouldn’t beg, she knew. He had too much pride. He stared at her in silence, his throat working. When he finally spoke, he sounded on the verge of tears. ‘I’ll call you in a day or two, okay? We’ll talk then.’
    She nodded. But they both knew that every day she remained under this roof would be another nail in the coffin of the life they’d foolishly imagined they could build together.
    Even so, listening to his heavy tread on the stairs, she wanted to run after him, reassure him that she’d be back—in a day or two, as soon as the baby was well enough. As soon as she herself was rested (at the moment Mary felt as though she could have slept straight through into next year). And she would have gone after him, yes, despite everything, if she’d known then what was in store: that she would spend the next thirty years, nearly twice as long as her entire life until now, running after Charlie in her mind, endlessly running down those stairs without reaching bottom, forever chasing the dream of what their life might have been.

Burns Lake, 1999

CHAPTER 1
    N OELLE HAD REHEARSED for days what she would say, the exact words that would set her free. Not just from her marriage but from the sense of obligation she now viewed as somewhat foolish, like her diamond ring that snagged on sweaters and pantyhose, and lately, because she’d lost so much weight, had a habit of turning on her finger. Once, when smoothing lotion over her leg, she’d even cut herself with it. A tiny cut, but it had drawn blood nonetheless.
    Now, though, face-to-face with her husband, none of those carefully worded phrases came to mind. Only the plain hard fact of the matter.
    ‘I’m not coming with you, Robert.’ She spoke as calmly as she could with her heart thudding like bricks being dropped one by one from a great height. ‘In fact, I’m not coming home at all.’
    They were standing outside her grandmother’s house, where she’d been staying for the past three weeks, since Nana got home from the hospital. But Noelle had run out of excuses. Also, there was Emma to think of. Their daughter deserved to know the truth.
    ‘That’s ridiculous. Of course you are.’ Robert spoke sternly, as if to an employee who had stepped out of line. He glanced in irritation at his watch. ‘Now come on, get your things. You’re supposed to be packed already.’
    ‘Did you hear what I said? Are you even listening?’ Noelle felt suddenly panic-stricken, as if at any moment she would be sucked like a twig into the swirling eddy of his insistence.
    ‘I know this was only supposed to be temporary, but I—I changed my mind.’
    Now Robert was stepping back to eye her warily, a tiny dent of uncertainty marring his perfect Simonized exterior. He stood with his back to the boxwood hedge: a well-built man in his forties who appeared taller than his actual height of five feet eleven inches, with