Read Something to Hide for Free Online Page B

How could she possibly tell him what she had done?
    The website had disappeared overnight. She had looked up
internet fraud
and found it was a common scam, called phishing. How could she have been so stupid? Ever since then she had moved around like an elderly person, frail and sick. The kids noticed nothing, but they never did. And nor, it seems, did Todd.
    â€˜Hey, baby.’ Todd was squatting on his haunches behind her. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’
    She froze. ‘What’s that?’
    â€˜I’m thinking the kids won’t be back for an hour.’ His hands kneaded her breasts. ‘How about we go upstairs and have ourselves a little horizontal workout?’
    She paused. ‘I’m not sure …’
    â€˜Hey, hon.’ He pressed against her, speaking into her hair. ‘Like the old days, remember? When the kids were having their nap.’ He chuckled. ‘Remember Dean walking in with his diaper round his ankles?’
    His voice echoed from miles away, across the gulf. Lorrie felt desolate. Not for their early marriage, but for the lost era that stretched right up to Tuesday, when she had sat at her computer and with a click of the keyboard divided
then
from
now
.
    â€˜Or still got your period?’ he asked.
    She had used this excuse on the first night, when he had tried to make love to her. Shaking her head, she said: ‘It’s OK now.’ She thought: I’ll have to act natural or he’ll suspect something’s wrong.
    Todd took her hand and led her upstairs. Lorrie had always been faithful to her husband but now, as she closed the door, she felt like an adulteress. Todd grinned at her and sat down on the bed. He hunched his shoulders, pulled off his T-shirt with one hand and threw it at the chair. It was such a familiar gesture and the normality of it pierced her heart.
    Lorrie sat beside her husband and lifted her arms. He pulled off her sweatshirt and flung it across the room. He was a wiry, hairy man and she had once joked,
It’s like you’re a monkey crawling all over me.
They were naked now and lying side by side. Today, however, she kept her eyes closed. As she stroked his skin with her guilty fingers she thought,
This is how women fake it
, and was filled with misery.
    He slid his hand between her legs. She stiffened. He murmured: ‘Oh huggy-bear, I do love you.’
    He moved on top of her. Treacherously she let him enter her and now she felt like a whore, moaning and urging him on, willing him to finish. But this only excited him further. Afterwards he flung himself back on the pillow, panting. ‘Wow, baby. Where did
that
come from?’
    She kissed him on the forehead and sat up. But he gently pulled her back.
    â€˜Lorelei, I got something to ask you.’
    Her mouth went dry. He never called her Lorelei unless it was serious. ‘Yes?’ she whispered.
    â€˜What do you say we have another baby?’
    He looked at her, eyebrows raised. There was a silence.
    â€˜We always talked about it, right? When we first got together. And now Angie’s in first grade … And we both love kids …” He was propped up on one elbow, searching her face. ‘What do you say, honey-bun? We’ll have a new home soon.’
    Still she didn’t reply.
    He said: ‘It’s what we always wanted, right?’
    The two of them were buying a turtle for Angelina’s birthday. Their daughter was too young for a pet but she had set her little heart on one. Todd was keen for her to have a creature to care for and turtles, he’d heard, were no trouble. Lorrie had her doubts but she was agreeing with everything her husband said these days. Her secret, still undiscovered, had made her desperate to avoid any friction or upset him in any way. How compliant she had become in her guilt! During these weeks she treated Todd with tenderness, as if he were an invalid.
    They hadn’t spoken again about the