Caught in the Web by Emmy Ellis

Author:Emmy Ellis [Ellis, Emmy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-05-17T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

“You have to know he was good,” she said. “I won’t continue until you agree with that.”

“I already said something along those lines, didn’t I, Mum. Things happen. Life takes weird turns, and Dad just happened to go down a road he shouldn’t have. Got lost for a while, shall we say. Like I said, wasn’t your fault, wasn’t mine, and maybe, mad as it sounds, it wasn’t his. All right, he had the responsibility of control, but sometimes we lose that. She might have enticed him, met him at a vulnerable stage in his life. What was he doing around that time that could have made him do such a thing?”

He couldn’t say it outright. What could have made him shag another woman? Talking sex with her had never been something they had done, Burgess finding out it existed through the kids at school and biology lessons. Discussing his father’s sex life in any form…well, that wasn’t the most comfortable of conversations, but it was on the way and had to be deliberated.

“When…when you were about five, we weren’t getting along, me and your father,” she said. “We argued about almost every little thing. God, I’ve been denying this for so long that speaking about it now feels surreal. Like it isn’t me, wasn’t us involved.”

“Go on,” Burgess said. “It’ll be all right. Might be good for you to get it all off your chest. Must be difficult holding a beacon for someone all these years.”

“Yes,” she said. “Quite. He…he was late home from work, the usual rubbish excuse, but his wages didn’t reflect the overtime. I remember looking at his payslip, the realisation that he was possibly having an affair hitting me hard.” She lowered a hand from her locket and held one of Burgess’ beneath the table. “So I asked him. Asked him outright. He denied it, of course, and we continued on as though nothing had happened, but it was always there, in the back of my mind. The overtime stopped at that point, and not another word was said about it—any of it.”

“How did you deal with that kind of betrayal?” Burgess asked.

“Oh, you know, you tell yourself it didn’t happen. How else can you go on?” She stroked her thumb over the back of his hand. “You pretend you’re happy when inside you’re crumbling, that sort of thing. All easily done. And I had you to keep me going. I didn’t want you living with just me, a broken marriage behind us.”

Burgess winced. That was his mother all over. Prepared to stick it out so she wasn’t shamed by having a divorce under her belt.

Although he’d signalled for Shaw to do the talking, Burgess found that it was all right, he could do it now. “What time did the woman come to the house? With her son. What time of day was that?”

She gasped. “I thought…I thought you’d forgotten.”

“Just answer the question, Mum. It’s important.”

“Morning. I remember it was half term and you were home.

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