My Girl Read Online Free Page A

for the tape and play it… did I?
    Her memory was awful after she’d been drinking, like a broken film reel. Whole segments of time were missing, fuzzy, unsalvageable. In fact, her recollection of most her life seemed to be full of taunting gaps, so that she only had a handful of memories to look back on. She barely remembered her childhood, although she was glad she wouldn’t have to live it again. Maybe it was a good thing she couldn’t remember.
    But she had no recollection of putting the tape on to play.
    You live in this house on your own now. Who else could have done it?
    She smelt the pillow, hoping to find Chloe’s scent still there, and not replaced with the stench of stale cigarettes and wine. It was there, but it was faint. She got up before she did more damage and headed downstairs.
    She popped two pills for the wine-induced headache, made herself coffee and sat down on the sofa. It was half seven in the morning and still dark outside.
    ‘OPEN THIS DOOR, NOW!’ her father bellowed, as he banged on the front door with his fist.
    She jolted and spilled the coffee down her front. She rushed to the door and let him in. Anger seemed to radiate from him. She shut the door behind him.
    ‘What the
hell
were you thinking?’
    ‘
I’m sorry I left the therapy session, I couldn’t…’
    ‘It’s not about that. That’s the last thing on my mind.’
    It took her a moment to remember: the graveyard, the police station.
    ‘I’m sorry, I was—’
    ‘Drunk. Of course you were. You always are.’ He paced the room, shaking, breathing hard. ‘This has got to stop, Paige. You can’t keep going on like this. Do you want me to have another heart attack?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    ‘Then stop stressing me out!’
    ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I
wasn’t
thinking.’
    ‘Just because Ryan’s dead, it doesn’t mean that you get to put yourself at risk now. People still care about you.
I
still care about you.’ His whole frame was shaking. ‘I wake up some nights, wondering if you’re asleep in your bed or dead in a ditch somewhere. How would I know? How would anybody know?’
    Paige hadn’t seen her father so angry. Breathless, he rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out an inhaler. He pumped it twice into his mouth.
    ‘Dad, sit down.’
    ‘I don’t want to sit down.’
    ‘
Sit down.
’
    They sat on the sofa and she took her father’s hand in hers. Both of them were shaking.
    ‘What am I going to do with you?’
    He looked her at with such desperation in his eyes.
    ‘Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you got like this.’
    ‘Of course I do: you’re my daughter. I love you. I worry about you all the time.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    Paige rested her head on his shoulder.
    ‘How do you do that?’
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘Calm me down when I’m so angry with you?’
    She couldn’t help but smile; she rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb.
    The phone in Ryan’s office began to ring upstairs. Paige had disconnected it, meaning Greta must have meddled with it. Paige sat still, waiting for the call to end.
    ‘Aren’t you going to answer it?’
    ‘And tell every caller that my husband is dead?’
    ‘They need to know.’
    ‘And I need peace.’
    They sat listening to the phone ring until it stopped, and the house fell silent again.
    ‘You’re right. You do deserve peace. Let’s sort out his office – get rid of it all.’
    But he might need it
,Paige thought, before she remembered that Ryan wouldn’t be coming back.
    ‘I’ve got a good shredder at home. I could spend my evenings shredding all of the documents in those cabinets. It would give me something to do.’
    She didn’t feel up to it, but as she looked into her father’s patient eyes, she nodded.
    ‘Great. I’ll go for a slash and then we’ll get started.’
    Paige watched as her father climbed the stairs. The moment he was out of sight, she rushed into the kitchen, poured a glass of wine, and took two diazepam tablets.