“What’s wrong?” He frowns. “Lottie? Are you OK?”
No, I’m not OK. The truth is so hideous, I can hardly contemplate it.
“It was me,” I whisper at last, feeling sick.
“What do you mean, it was you?” He looks blank.
“I always had scented candles in my bedroom!” I whisper savagely. “Remember? All my candles? I must have left them alight. No one else had scented candles. The fire was my fault!”
I’m so shocked and distraught, tears are starting to my eyes. My great moment of triumph … It’s all turned to dust. I wasn’t the heroine of the hour. I was the thoughtless, stupid villain.
I’m waiting for Ben to throw his arms around me, or exclaim, or ask me more questions, or something. Instead, he looks uninterested.
“Well, it was a long time ago,” he says at last. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?” I stare at him in disbelief. “Of course it matters! I ruined everyone’s summer! I ruined this business! It’s awful!”
I feel ill with guilt. And more than that—I feel as if I’ve been wrong, stupidly wrong, this whole time. All these years. I’ve been cherishing the wrong memory. Yes, I made a difference that night—but it was a disastrous difference. I could have killed someone. I could have killed lots of people. I’m not the woman I thought I was. I’m not the woman I thought I was.
I give a sudden little sob. It feels as though everything’s fallen apart.
“Should I tell them? Should I confess everything?”
“For God’s sake, Lottie,” says Ben impatiently. “Of course you shouldn’t. Get over it. It was fifteen years ago. No one was hurt. No one cares.”
“I care!” I say in shock.
“Well, you should stop. You go on and on about that bloody fire—”
“No, I don’t!”
“Yes, you do.”
Something inside me snaps.
“Well, you go on and on about sailing!” I shout, stung. “Where did all that come from?”
We glare at each other in a kind of shocked uncertainty. It’s as though we’re sizing each other up for a game but aren’t sure of the rules. At last, Ben launches in with a fresh salvo.
“Basically, how can I trust anything you say anymore?” he says.
“What?” I recoil in utter shock.
“You didn’t nurse me through the flu, but you let me think you did.” His gaze is unrelenting. “Why would anyone do that?”
“I was … confused.” I gulp. “I’m sorry, OK?”
Ben’s expression doesn’t alter. Sanctimonious bastard.
“Well, OK.” I launch a counterattack. “Since we’re doing home truths, can I ask how you’re planning to sail a season in the Caribbean when we’re moving to France?”
“We might move to France,” he retorts impatiently. “We might not. We were only knocking a few ideas around. Jesus!”
“We weren’t knocking ideas around!” I stare at him in horror. “We were making plans! I was basing my whole life on them!”
“Everything OK?” Sarah rejoins us on the veranda, and Ben instantly switches on his charming, lopsided smile.
“Great!” he says, as though nothing’s happened. “We’re just chilling out.”
“More coffee? Or Scotch?”
I can’t answer her. I’m realizing the awful truth: I’m basing my whole life on this guy sitting in front of me. This guy with his charming smile and easy manner who suddenly seems alien and unfamiliar and just wrong, like a guest bedroom in someone else’s house. Not only do I not know him, I don’t understand him, and I’m afraid I don’t much like him.
I don’t like my husband.
It’s like a clanging in my ears. A death knell. I have made a monumental, humongous, terrifying mistake.
I have an instinctive, desperate longing for Fliss, but at the same time I realize I can never, never admit this to her. I’ll have to stay married to Ben and pretend everything’s OK till the end of my days. It’s too embarrassing otherwise.
OK. So that’s my fate. I feel quite calm about it. I married the wrong man and must simply live with it in misery forever. There’s no other way.
“… great place for a honeymoon,” Sarah’s saying as she sits down. “Are you having a good time?”
“Oh yeah,” says Ben sarcastically. “Really great. Super.” He flicks an antagonistic look at me, and I bristle.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”