Chapter 3
The following morning Naomi is drinking her second cup of coffee, enjoying holiday morning laziness. Andy is smart and clean from college and calls himself the shop manager. He has been working long enough to run the shop without her for a few days, and suppliers and orders can wait. The house is tidy now. Owen has gone, back to his deliveries, and although there is no one else there she can still feel the noise and warmth of the wake the afternoon before. In the two weeks since Adam died she has expected to miss him, but as she looks around her she can feel his presence watching her, unsettling her, as if his spirit hasn’t yet moved on.
She looks down at her iPad. A new email is in her inbox, from Adam, no subject line. She frowns, hesitates, her finger just above the glass. She touches it and the email opens.
Hi. Yes it’s me, Adam. Isn’t technology great? You can set these to be delivered at a later date – I thought I’d give you a couple of weeks.
I know we didn’t talk about it, but you must have guessed what I was planning. Perhaps it was the coward’s way out, but I couldn’t have faced months or years watching my body pack up, bit by bit. I didn’t tell you but when I went to the pool last week I nearly drowned. You know that you were my world. When we married it was the happiest day of my life. After what’s happened recently I know I would never be happy again, so better to go now while I can. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you, but it was essential that I did it while I could do it myself, and while you were out of the house.
You’ll have to manage the business without me, but I’m sure you’ll do fine. You were always the one with the ideas. I have done a bit of housekeeping to help things along – you’ll see.
You can say sorry to people for me if you like, pass on my love, but do it for yourself. It doesn’t matter to me now. Easter’s next week, you should have some fun. Don’t worry about the egg; it’s where it should be.
Your loving husband Adam.
She sits and looks at the screen, frowning, flicking the email up and down with her finger. Two weeks of nothing and then, out of nowhere, an email. A kind of apology, kind of explanation, but with none of the warmth or humour he used to have. She picks up her phone and texts Owen.
v odd just had an email from adam! delayed – he wrote it while he was planning his suicide.
what does it say
not much says sorry. come over? xx
sure x
She reads through the email again. Everything about it feels wrong. He would never have said sorry, would not have thought she’d guess. He had given out no signals. Or had she just missed them? Why did he have to kill himself? His illness had created an emotional space between them that she had found it impossible to close. He had become aggressive, cynical, wanting to do more as his body allowed him to do less. He had withdrawn from her as he had moved closer to his family, shutting her out. She looked again at the email. It could be a forgery – could someone have hacked his email account? Why would they? And the cryptic messages. What did he mean by housekeeping? What would she see? She rings the shop.
“Andy? It’s me.”
“Hi”
“Can you talk?”
“Not really – there are a few people in. It’s been quite busy.”
“But all OK?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, no, nothing. It can wait. I’ll probably pop in later. Call me if there’s a problem.”
“OK,” and he rings off.
She is still sitting at the kitchen table when the back door opens and Owen walks in. She looks up, and smiles, but her eyes are red from crying.
“I’m sorry it took me a while, I had a delivery.”
“Have a look at this.”
“Is that all I get? No hug? No breakfast?”
She says nothing, and looks back at her iPad – waving her hand towards it.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “Insensitive. Let’s have a look.”
He looks over her shoulder, resting his hand on the back of her chair, and reads through the email from Adam.
“Clever. Cool way to deliver a suicide note.”
“Assuming it’s from him.”
Owen reaches forward and touches on Adam’s name at the top, and it brings up the sender’s email address. “It looks like his email account. Can you go into it? We might be able to find out when it was written. Or at least find it in his sent folder. Do you know his password?”
”No, no idea. He was very private, we both were. We never swapped things like that. And it won’t be something obvious, he took security very seriously.”
“Well we should take it as being from him. A bit weird, not really like him.”
“I know. But nothing was like him recently.”
“What does he mean ‘housekeeping’?”
“I don’t know, but he did leave a will, nothing unusual. Recent, leaves everything to me. I’ve spoken to his solicitor, there’s some paperwork to sort out but all normal.”
“What about financial stuff? Do you know what assets he had? Was there insurance?”
“There’s no insurance – he killed himself. There’s a letter explaining everything about his finances. He left a package on his desk with the letters, the will, all the immediate things I’d need. I haven’t had the energy to start looking through his desk and his files, there’s enough money in the household account for now. He used to deal with the business accounts as well. I’ve checked, all seems to be OK. The business has been doing well.’
“Thanks to me. I guess you’ll have to wait and see. And what about the ‘egg’? What does he mean by that?”
“I don’t know; odd thing to say. ‘Egg’ was his nickname for the shop, but I don’t know what he means. And he refers to the business above.” Her finger touches the screen. “He says ‘don’t’ worry’; but I’m bound to worry. Perhaps he is referring to Easter.”
“That’s next week.”
“Until this morning I’ve been feeling that he was here, feeling his presence. Now I just feel cold.”
Owen reaches over and wraps his arms around her, pressing against her back. He kisses the back of her neck and she shivers. “I can help.”
“Not now. I need to get over this.” She pauses.
“Adam,” she says softly, looking back at her iPad. She touches the screen to wake it up. “What are you doing? Why didn’t you talk to me? We could have worked it out together.”
She presses the reply symbol and types in:
I’ve got your message. I don’t know what it means.
A second later a reply comes back.
Hi Naomi. You must realise that Adam is no longer using this email account.
She starts, closes her iPad, then opens it, looking at the screen. Confused, she touches her hand agains the message. She stands, leaning against her hands on the table, breathing slowly. “Adam,” she says.”How are you doing this? How long were you planning this?”
She shows the response to Owen, who shakes his head in admiration. “It’s like he’s speaking from beyond the grave.”
She replies angrily, “He should have spoken when he was here. He could have been here now. He must have enjoyed setting this up, but it’s too late now.”
“He’s not here now; it’s just you and me. It’s what we wanted, just not the way we planned it.”
“I never wanted this.”
“But you didn’t want him. Did you? This solves everything. We can run the shop together now without his old-fashioned ideas. I can supply you properly, it’ll make a huge difference to the profit margin. Adam’s approach just doesn’t work any more, you know that. People don’t have to know. Has anyone queried the new stock?”
“No. Sales are up. I was holding back in case he found out, but he didn’t.” She looks back at the screen. “Adam, what did you do?”
“He’s gone now, let it go.”