The Dilemma by B.A. Paris
SUNDAY 9TH JUNE
3.30 A.M.
Livia
It’s the cooling bathwater that wakes me. Disorientated, I sit up quickly, sploshing suds up the sides, wondering how long I’ve been asleep. I release the plug and the drain gurgles, a too-loud sound in a silent house.
A shiver pricks my skin as I towel myself dry. A memory tugs at my brain. It was a sound that woke me, the roar of a motorbike in the street outside. I pause, the towel stretched over my back. It couldn’t have been Adam, could it? He wouldn’t have gone off on his bike, not at this time of night.
Wrapping the towel around me, I hurry to the bedroom and look out of the window. The guilty beating of my heart slows when I see, behind the marquee, a yellow glow coming from his shed. He’s there, he hasn’t gone to settle scores. Part of me wants to go down and check he’s alright but something, a sixth sense perhaps, tells me not to, that he’ll come to me when he’s ready. For a moment I feel afraid, as if I’m staring into an abyss. But it’s just the dark and the deserted garden that’s making me feel that way.
Turning from the window, I lie down on the bed. I’ll give him another ten minutes and if he’s not back by then, I’ll go and find him.
Adam
I race along deserted streets, scattering a scavenging cat, cutting a corner too tight, shattering the night’s deathly silence with the roar of my bike. Ahead of me, the slip road to the M4 looms. I open the throttle and take it fast, screaming onto the motorway, slicing in front of a crawling car. My bike shifts under me as I push faster.
The drag of the wind on my face is intoxicating and I have to fight an overwhelming urge to let go of the handlebars and freefall to my death. Is it terrible that Livia and Josh aren’t enough to make me want to live? Guilt adds itself to the torment of the last fourteen hours and a roar of white-hot anger adds to the noise of the bike as I race down the motorway, bent on destruction.
Then, in the mirror, through the water streaming from my eyes, I see a car hammering down the motorway behind me, its blue light flashing, and my roar of grief becomes one of frustration. I take the bike to one hundred mph, knowing that if it comes to it I can push it faster, because nothing is going to stop me now. But the police car quickly closes the distance between us, moving swiftly into the outside lane and, as it levels with me, my peripheral vision catches an officer gesticulating wildly from the passenger seat.
I add more speed but the car sweeps past and moves into my lane, blocking my bike. I’m about to open the throttle and overtake him, taking my bike to its maximum, but something stops me and he slowly reduces his speed, bringing me in. I’m not sure why I let him. Maybe it’s because I don’t want Livia to have even more pieces to pick up. Or maybe it was Marnie’s voice pleading, ‘Don’t, Dad, don’t!’. I swear I could feel her arms tightening around my waist for a moment, her head pressing against the back of my neck.
My limbs are trembling as I bring the bike to a stop behind the police car and cut the engine. Two officers get out, one male, one female. The male strides towards me.
‘Have you got a death wish or something?’ he yells, slamming his cap onto his head.
The second officer – the driver – approaches. ‘Sir, step away from the bike,’ she barks. ‘Sir, did you hear me? Step away from the bike.’
I try to unfurl my hands from the handlebars, unstick my legs from the bike. But I seem to be welded to it.
‘Sir, if you don’t comply, I’m going to have to arrest you.’
‘We’re going to have to arrest him anyway,’ the first officer says. He takes a step towards me and the sight of handcuffs dangling from his belt shocks me into speech.
I flip up my helmet. ‘Wait!’
There must be something in my voice, or maybe they read something in my face, because both police officers pause.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s about Marnie.’
‘Marnie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who’s Marnie?’
‘My daughter.’ I swallow painfully. ‘Marnie’s my daughter.’
They exchange a glance. ‘Where is your daughter, sir?’
THE DAY BEFORE
SATURDAY 8TH JUNE
8 A.M. – 9 A.M.
Adam
Leaving Livia sleeping, I move from the bed and stretch quietly in the warm air coming through the open window. I stifle a yawn and check the sky; not a single sullen raincloud in sight. Liv will be pleased. The weather is just about the only thing she hasn’t been able to control for her party tonight. She’s been on top of everything else for months, wanting it to be perfect. But the relentless rain of the last few weekends was beginning to get her down.
I watch the steady rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps, the tiny flicker of her eyelids. She looks so peaceful that I decide not to wake her until I’ve made coffee. I find the clothes I was wearing last night and pull on my jeans, flattening my hair as I tug the T-shirt over my head.
The stairs creak as I go down to the kitchen and Murphy, our red merle Australian Shepherd, raises his head from where he sleeps in his basket by the wood-burning stove. I crouch next to him for a minute, asking him how he is and if he had a good sleep, and tell him that mine was disturbed by a nightmare. He gives my hand a sympathetic lick, then puts his head back down, ready to sleep the rest of the day away. He’s fifteen now and not as energetic as he used to be, which is just as well because neither am I. He loves his daily walk but the days of our long runs together are a thing of the past.