44
Later that evening, Madeleine and Tom sat across from their solicitor at their dining room table in Knockroe.
The couple looked tired and dejected, and Matt Townsend equally so. They had been conducting a postmortem on the day’s events, Matt continuing to insist that they could rebound from the Pitt disaster.
For her part, Madeleine stayed silent and Tom was visibly sheepish.
“I can’t believe I’m the one who found him,” he moaned. “I just... He spoke so well when I first contacted him. And his credentials were so impressive. He seemed so spot-on—I trusted him.”
“Well,” she said pointedly, “maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you read online.”
Tom, who had had his head in his hands, looked up at her and nodded tiredly. He had no color in his face and Madeleine noticed some new lines on his forehead.
“I really think that tomorrow we can regain some lost ground,” Matt insisted.
Just then, Clara entered the room and climbed into her mother’s lap. Madeleine encircled her daughter in her arms and breathed in her smell. She had just taken a bath and smelled like strawberries.
In the background somewhere, Tom and Matt carried on and she struggled to pay attention. She was thoroughly exhausted. Regardless of what their solicitor said, she had begun to consider the reality—face up to the fact they were going to lose once the judge ruled against them.
The scope of it was truly mind-boggling.
She had no idea what kind of damages amount Judge Dowling would award and whether or not, when it all came down to it, they would lose their house. She thought about their pension funds, their investments and savings and also about their kids’ college funds, wondering if they might be protected.
She could just about stomach the idea that her and Tom’s future would be irreparably damaged, but her kids were innocent in all of this—they shouldn’t be party to the damages, surely? Jake and Clara were still entitled to their own futures, weren’t they?
Maybe not. She was no longer so sure. It was hard enough to digest that if anyone felt wronged by another person, or was judgmental of their personal choices, they could simply take what didn’t belong to them.
Although, maybe it was better if she and Tom did lose everything—their house included. The last year had been bad enough and she didn’t know how she was going to go on living in Knockroe after this was all over with anyway. Madeleine couldn’t fathom the idea of bumping into Kate at the supermarket or outside the school afterward.
She suddenly tuned back into what Matt was saying. “So, if we focus the testimony of Dr. James—”
She cut him off. “No, Matt, I think we’re finished with experts. In fact, we are finished—full stop,” she said resolutely.
Tom and Matt both looked at her with confused expressions and her husband spoke first. “What do you mean, hon? We’ve only just gotten started.”
She pulled Clara closer and rested her cheek on her little girl’s head. “I mean, that up until this point, I have gone along with the strategy you two have laid out. I have exposed my children to ugliness, I have suffered through personal character assassinations, I have had it up to my ears listening to ‘experts’ who turned out to be complete crackpots and, frankly, I’ve had enough.
“Matt, with all due respect, I believe you are approaching this wrong and have been from the very start. You’ve approached it all on a legal and not a personal level. And, Tom, the last time I checked, you aren’t a solicitor. Neither am I. But if there is one thing I do know and have always believed, it is that it’s the personal—not the legal or medical—approach that is going to convince the judge, if we even still have a shot, that is. We need to show him—everyone—who Tom and I truly are, where we are coming from and why we’ve made the decisions we’ve made. And, to my mind, all of that talk about asking the other side to prove that Rosie picked it up from Clara feels wrong and is making us look even more unsympathetic.”
She paused for a moment and considered her next words carefully. “I felt it myself when that doctor explained what Rosie’s suffered and what she could be facing for the rest of her life. I physically felt the fear that Kate as a mother must have felt all the way through this and now. Right then, I would have ruled against us.”
The two men remained silent for a moment as her words sank in.
“What do you want to do, then?” Tom asked, his voice soft.
“I want to testify,” she said, her voice certain. “I know we hoped that Fiona would be enough, but I want to talk directly about our decision-making process—much like I tried to in that blog post you were so adamant I take down. I know you’re not keen on the idea, Matt, but I think I deserve a shot at explaining why painting us as monsters is just too simplistic and that we are not the villains everyone thinks. I want to explain that yes, we made certain choices for our kids, but there are so many factors involved here. Each day, the more damaging testimony I listen to, the more I myself think that maybe I am a terrible mother. But I know I’m not. And, as it stands, this is not justice. This is nothing more than a spectacle—which I never wanted, and quite frankly I don’t think Kate does, either.”
Madeleine kissed Clara’s head and whispered, “Time for bed, sweetheart.”
Then she rose, holding her daughter’s hand. “So that’s the way I feel, and that’s what we are going to do. I’ve stood by long enough being told by you two that we need to do things this way and that such and such is the best way forward. For me, it’s time to face the music. And I won’t take no for an answer.”
With that, Madeleine exited the room with Clara in tow.
As far as she was concerned, her long-ago imposed vow of silence was officially over.