Gabby looks at me for an answer, but I don’t have one. This is a whole other layer of deception, and one I was not at all prepared for.
‘I don’t know what to do, Janine. If I go to the police, it might help them find Alexa, but if Otis finds out Alexa was seeing someone else, it will kill him.’
‘Again, we don’t know she was having an affair,’ I say, but Gabby looks incredulous.
‘Secret weekly meetings and withdrawn money – what else could it be? I know this is a big accusation, but Otis and Alexa have been in a bad place for a while. Otis says they’re still in love, and with my luck they probably are, but grief makes people do things we wouldn’t expect. I mean, Alexa wouldn’t be the first person to find comfort in the arms of someone else during a hard time, would she?’
I try not to react, even though Gabby’s words burrow into the most insecure part of my heart. Kamal’s late nights flash through my mind. A client dinner could be something else entirely, and I would never know. With the way things are between us right now, could I blame him for wanting to be with someone else? Someone less prickly, less resentful.
‘Do you know who “S” could be?’ I ask.
‘No idea,’ Gabby admits. ‘I don’t know Alexa enough to know the people in her life.’
‘What about her phone? Did you look through her contacts for an “S”?’
‘I can’t. We gave the phone to the police. But I had an idea about how we could find out who they are.’
Before I can react to Gabby’s use of the wordwe, her index finger points to another weekly event in Alexa’s calendar:Families United meeting – 6pm – Saddleforth Community Hall.
‘Is that the support group Alexa attends?’ I ask, but when the name registers properly in my mind, it’s like I’ve had an electric shock.
Families United is a support group for parents who have experienced child loss. Kamal suggested we attend a session together when we first moved to Bramblethorpe, and I did everything but laugh in his face.
‘You want us to sit with strangers and share feelings we can’t even share with each other?’ I scoffed before walking out of the room. The conversation ended there, but it’s in front of me in black and white: Alexa Clarke attended those sessions. If I had taken Kamal up on his suggestion, I would have met her again.
Suppressing a shiver, I face Gabby head on. ‘What makes you think going there will tell us anything?’
‘You’ve heard it yourself – Alexa lived a reclusive life. The only place she could have met someone was at this meeting. And the Friday meet-ups only started a few weeks after Alexa started going to the meetings, see?’
When Gabby pushes the diary back to me, I take my time flicking through it. The pages are heavy with insights into Alexa’s life. Hospital appointments, gym classes, haircut reminders. At the start of the year, the plans are frequent, but then suddenly in April they stop. The U-turn is sudden, and stark.
She must have miscarried again around then, I think. I trace my finger over the empty days that come after, aching as if I’m looking at my own diary. Alexa Clarke and her grief, once again paralleling mine. The one difference is that Alexa attended support meetings tohelp navigate her grief. And after going to four of them, she began to meet the mysterious ‘S’.
‘We need to go to Families United,’ Gabby says decisively. ‘There’s no point taking this to the police if it’s nothing, and there’s no point me going to Otis and saying I think Alexa was having an affair if she wasn’t. He’s crushed enough as it is. I’ve left him sitting in the same clothes he’s been wearing for the last few days, watching the door and waiting for Alexa to walk through it. I can’t bear the thought of what this will do to him. We have to investigate ourselves first.’
Discomfort makes my spine wriggle. ‘But whoever “S” is, they might know what was going through Alexa’s mind before she left. They might have been with her. They might even have hurt her.’
‘Exactly, which is why we need to look into this.’
Kamal’s words of warning about the danger I have unwittingly waded into crawl across my skin like ants. ‘I don’t know, Gabby,’ I say, shifting awkwardly. ‘This is starting to—’
‘Please,’ Gabby says, reaching across the table for my hand in a move that surprises us both. ‘I don’t know what to do or who to turn to. All I know is, the man I love looks like he’s one bit of bad news away from breaking altogether. I don’t want to be the one to push him over the edge. I need to know what Alexa was doing. I need to know who “S” is and if there was something going on between them and Alexa. I need… I need your help.’
Her plea does what Gabby intends it to. It tugs at my conscience, my fear, my desire to find Alexa alive and well.
‘All we have to do is go to a meeting,’ Gabby coaxes. ‘Sit, listen, then ask around about Alexa at the end. As soon as we meet anyone with an “S” name, we dig deeper. It won’t be a big deal.’
My body peels away from the table, pressing back into my chair. ‘Do you really think it will be easy for me to listen to that conversation?’
Gabby has the decency to blush as what she’s asked of me hits home. ‘I don’t think it will be easy, no, but it’s the only way we can find out the truth. I need you with me, Janine. If I go alone and find out Otis was being cheated on, I’ll never be able to control myself. Besides, how can I convincingly talk about a grief I’ve never felt? I don’t have that life experience. You do.’
I try not to flinch as Gabby so casually outs the worst moments of my life.
Reading my face, Gabby softens. ‘The meeting isn’t until tonight,’ she says. ‘Take some time to think about it. Please, Janine. I can’t do this alone.’ Standing, Gabby nods at the diary. ‘I’m going to the bathroom. Look through the diary while I’m gone. Look and tell me I don’t need to be worried about Otis, or Alexa.’
Gabby leaves me, but her heavy departing words linger. In her absence, I leaf through Alexa’s diary once more, the sadness of the empty pages aching inside me. My eyes linger on her only lifeline: Families United. Six p.m., without fail, every Thursday.
A gulp gets trapped in my throat. Would it be such a stretch to imagine that Alexa met someone there? Someone she cared for, someone she could trust? Someone who listened in a way everyone says Otis no longer did?