Chapter 4 – Life Goes On
Angela woke up feeling nauseous and tired. It didn't help that she'd been drinking the night before; she really shouldn't, but the news she'd just received had thrown her even more off balance than she'd been in the last months.
The apartment she was sharing with her brother was a mess, empty bottles were littering the floor and the reek of cigarette smoke did nothing to help her nausea. Danny wouldn't be happy when he came back home, he was the one who took care of her now in spite of being the youngest between them.
A humorless laughter resonated in her throat. When Danny was a teenager she used to scold him for smoking and drinking too much, not to mention sleeping around. Now their roles had been reversed, as she desperately sought a way to numb the pain that never ceased to hunt her day and night.
She knew she would never get rid of the guilt over her daughter's death, and she wasn't even given the comfort of her husband's forgiveness. Nothing she could do was ever going to be enough; Patrick still rushed to her side when she needed help, only to leave as soon as he'd fixed things.
It was a small consolation that he hadn't asked for a divorce so far. Angela couldn't help but hope that he would forgive her at long last, pick up the pieces of the marriage that had been the only good thing in her life. Even as she threw herself at other men time and time again, the one that really mattered to her would always be Patrick, and Patrick alone.
Now that some unexpected news had come upon her like a bolt from the blue, she really didn't know what to do with herself. She stared at the crumpled piece of paper she'd been twiddling with for the better part of the night, then picked up her cellphone and hit the speed dial button.
xxx
They were in the middle of a case when Jane's phone rang; Lisbon knew who the caller was even before he answered. The frown on his brow was eloquent enough, only his wife had such an effect on him.
He excused himself and walked away from the crime scene, and she saw him arguing with the person at the other end of the line before he turned around a corner and disappeared from her sight.
She had a shrinking suspicion that Jane was going to take the next flight for Iowa, as he often did after his wife's calls. For all that he claimed he didn't care for her anymore, he was always ready to run to her side whenever she needed.
Jane was definitely the devoted husband, it was a pity that he and Angela had drifted apart after the death of their daughter. It was said that a trouble shared is a trouble halved, while they were hurting each other even more instead.
Even though she'd made some feeble attempts at addressing the subject with him, he still refused to talk about his wife and there was nothing she could do to help them other than praying.
xxx
Jane winced slightly as the door opened to reveal Angela's pale face. In spite of the heavy make-up she still looked a mess, and he wondered what she might have done this time.
In her last call she'd simply announced she needed to talk to him in person rather than over the phone, then refused to divulge any detail.
She gestured for him to sit down beside her on the sofa, but he only shook his head and waited for her to speak.
"There's something you should know," Angela murmured at long last, handing him a wrinkled piece of paper.
Jane blinked a couple of times when he realized it was the results of a pregnancy test.
"You should be showing this to the kid's father," he remarked bitterly. Of course he knew that his wife had been cheating on him, he'd figured as much even before Danny had confirmed his suspicions. However, it didn't stop the notion from hurting, especially since she was now carrying another man's child.
"I don't know even know his name," she admitted after a moment of silence, and he noticed that tears were rolling down her cheeks now, smudging them with mascara.
He fished in his pocket for his handkerchief and handed it over. "So you want me to help track him down?"
She shook her head, desperation and shame written all over her face. "I've slept with dozens of men in the last couple of months, most of them strangers that picked me up after a drink too many at the bar. How can I know who's the father?"
His eyes met hers at last, and he couldn't help a small pang of guilt over his wife's current predicament. He was the one who deserted her, it didn't matter if he'd had his reasons for doing as much. Deep down he'd always known that Angela was a weak woman, and that her faults were more a result of her upbringing than anything else.
And he was still her husband; he still had responsibilities towards her, he wasn't going to expose her as a cheater after all she'd been through.
She'd loved Charlotte dearly, and was suffering from her loss as much as he did. Perhaps he should have been more firm back then, made sure that she didn't meddle with the Red John business.
"I'm going to give the child my name," he said wearily at length. "That's all I can do for you."
Angela stifled a sob and lowered her gaze. "You always said you wanted another kid. This baby could be our last chance, Patrick."
"You seem to be forgetting that it's not mine."
"It would have been," and her voice trembled as she reached for a pack of cigarettes. "It would have been, had I had it my own way."
He snatched the unlit cigarettes from her fingers. "You're pregnant, Angela. You have to quit smoking, for the child's sake if not for yours."
"Please, stay."
For the briefest of moments his determination wavered, then the image of Charlotte's butchered body flashed before his eyes once again.
"I can't," he whispered, though it broke his heart as well.
The world would probably regard him as a cold-hearted bastard deserting his pregnant and broken wife, but he knew it was far from the actual truth. And he didn't care what other people thought of him anyway.
There were so very few things he'd really come to care about in his life, and one of them was lying under green grass. No child could ever take the place of his beloved daughter, no matter how much he might have wanted them to.