No More.
Emma couldn’t refuse her friend because there was a time when that friend had been her greatest support: when Emma had a car accident and was bedridden in the hospital for six months, it was her friend who stayed by her side while her then-fiancé, now husband, Ben, visited only twice—once immediately after the accident, red-eyed with tears, and once on the day she was discharged. So when Charlotte called and asked if she could stay with them for a while, Emma agreed.
“Are you out of your mind?” Emma’s mum exclaimed when Emma told her that her friend would be living with them for about a month. “Will she be parading around in front of Ben in her dressing gown? Just watch, in a month you may be out looking for a new place!”
“Mum, it’s my flat, you made sure of that—I’m not going anywhere,” Emma replied soothingly. “Charlotte helped me so much back then, I can’t say no to her now when she’s having a hard time. She got laid off, her boyfriend dumped her, and he even swindled her out of money… Let her stay, we’ve got plenty of space.”
Changes began from the very first day Charlotte arrived at their flat. First off, she suggested firing Doris, the housekeeper.
“Why do you need Doris if you’ve got me? I can handle everything!”
This was true, but Emma wasn’t sure she wanted to rely on her friend for tasks she had previously asked Doris to do.
“If you need anything, you have my number,” the resourceful housekeeper winked.
This put Emma at ease.
Next, Charlotte set about rearranging the flat—she suggested moving furniture, changing the curtains, and buying a bunch of new gadgets to make life easier without Doris. She refused to make decisions herself though, dragging Emma along to choose curtain colors and blender models.
Charlotte then turned to finding a distraction from her gloomy thoughts. First, it was quilling, then oil painting, followed by toy making and cake decorating. She would get upset if Emma showed a lack of enthusiasm for her latest hobby.
“And how much longer will she be staying with you?” Emma’s mum asked angrily one day. “It’s been far longer than a month. Is she planning to leave at all?”
“Mum, where’s she supposed to go? Charlotte’s own mother kicked her out!”
“Well, there must have been a reason.”
“No, no reason! You just don’t get it!”
“No, it’s you who doesn’t get it! She’ll steal away your husband before you know it!”
But Emma trusted her friend, even when she caught them once or twice deep in conversation with Ben, conversations that ended abruptly whenever Emma entered the room. But who knows what they might be discussing? Emma even asked them about it next time.
“Oh, just suggesting we change the carpet in the living room,” Charlotte said. “Asking Ben if he had the money for it.”
“A new carpet?”
“Well, yes—why keep that old patterned rug? It’s so gaudy and covered in stains.”
A week later, a new light-colored carpet lay in the living room.
One day, Emma noticed Charlotte examining something small, like a torn piece of a picture slipped into her journal, and asked:
“What’s there?”
Charlotte didn’t expect Emma to be so close—Emma had rolled up silently, and Charlotte jumped at the question.
“Nothing!” Charlotte quickly snapped the journal shut and asked, “Shall we bake a peach pie—Ben loves it so much!”
“Sure,” Emma agreed, pretending not to be curious about what her friend had. “Just, we’re out of peaches.”
“I’ll run and get some.”
Actually, Emma lied—they still had peaches, but she needed Charlotte out of the house to see what was hidden in that journal. Once Charlotte was gone, Emma went into the room that Charlotte had been using and started searching for the journal. Her friend had hidden it in the simplest place—under the pillow.
When Charlotte returned, Emma was waiting for her in the hallway.
“What is this?” Emma asked icily, holding a torn photo fragment.
Her friend flushed in a way only cartoon characters do, red spreading instantly across her pale, freckled face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have…”
“You planned this, didn’t you?” Emma cried. “You wanted to get close to my husband! Tell me, weren’t you lying about being fired? And your mum didn’t kick you out, did she?”
Charlotte said nothing, and her slumped posture told Emma everything she needed to know.
“Out!” Emma shouted. “Get out!”
Charlotte quickly packed her things, leaving a bag of peaches in the hallway, quietly closing the door behind her. Emma wasn’t sure if Ben would come home that night.
But Ben did return. He didn’t mention Charlotte with a single word—meaning he already knew. So it must be true; she had done the right thing in getting rid of her.
Emma spent the next few days in a daze: sending Ben off to work and spending the days alone, mindlessly staring at the TV, ignoring hunger by drowning it with wine and crisps. When the phone rang on the fourth day, Emma glanced indifferently at the screen, but seeing who was calling, grabbed the receiver.
“Mum,” Emma sobbed, struggling to hold back tears. “You were right—she deceived me! I found a picture of Ben, and she had torn off the part with me and kept it in her journal!”
Within an hour, her mum was at Emma’s place. She surveyed the cluttered flat and said:
“I knew that Charlotte would be nothing but trouble! We need to call Doris—get her back.”
“I’ll call,” Emma responded. “Just need to get some money from Ben.”
Her mum huffed and squinted her eyes.
“Go on, and do you know Ben invited Charlotte to stay?”
“Mum, that’s nonsense…”
But her mum stopped her with a gesture and pulled out a mobile phone from her bag. She fumbled for a moment and played a voice message.
“You’re still blaming my daughter?” came a shrill voice, vaguely familiar to Emma. “Your son-in-law invited her over himself, you know why, and they used my daughter then tossed her aside!”
Her mum gave Emma a triumphant look, then played another message.
“Why would I lie to you—ask Charlotte herself if you want. Ben begged her to move in with you!”
Suddenly, everything made sense—that’s why Charlotte had lied to her, at his request. Emma rolled to the kitchen, took out a bottle of wine from the fridge, and drank much of it while her mum tidied up the flat.
Her husband returned home late, by which time her mum had long gone to care for her beloved Albert, Emma’s stepfather.
“Where have you been?” Emma asked challengingly, ready for a tough discussion.
“At work,” Ben grumbled, kicking off his shoes and heading into the room. Looking at her, he winced—of course, he would rather see Charlotte here.
“Your workdays are getting longer by the day!” she remarked sarcastically.
“You know why I don’t want to come back home.”
“Yes, I know everything,” Emma said, fighting to hold back tears. “You’re the one who invited Charlotte to live with us! You’ve been in love with her for ages and didn’t know how to get rid of me! But nothing worked for you, and now you…”
“What does this have to do with Charlotte!” Ben shouted so loudly that Emma was startled and dropped her glass on the floor. A blood-red stain blossomed on the light carpet, shaped like an elephant—with its trunk, huge ears at the sides… Emma couldn’t tear her eyes from the spot—it was a shame it lasted only a week.
“Salt will help,” she mumbled uncertainly. “Bring some salt.”
But Ben didn’t move.
“Yes,” he said. “I asked Charlotte to stay with us. I hoped she could reach you, that she could finally explain… Emma, I can’t do this anymore.”
He sank into the couch, covering his head with his hands. Everything spun in front of Emma’s eyes, and she struggled to understand—what did he mean? She shouldn’t have drunk so much in the morning.
Without lifting his head, his voice muffled as if from another room, Ben said:
“I understand you’re struggling to accept your disability, being bound to this chair, and I can’t be there for you all the time. But Emma—there’s so much more beyond drinking, you won’t solve anything this way! I love you, but there’s less and less of you in this flat, leaving behind only a perpetually drunk woman I hardly recognize…”
Finally, he raised his head, and Emma saw through the haze blurring her eyes how distorted his handsome face was.
“Do you love me?” she asked quietly.
“Of course I love you! You know that!”
Emma shook her head.
“No, I don’t know. After the accident, you weren’t there when I woke up. You only came once! I waited for you, waited, but you…”
Her voice cracked, and Emma had to stop—she didn’t want him to see her tears.
“If you loved me, I wouldn’t be drinking,” she finally managed, fixing her gaze on the unfortunate stain.
“But I married you!”
“Out of pity!”
“Out of pity?”
“Yes, out of pity.”
Emma finally found the strength to look him in the face. As always, she searched for any sign of love there, but she didn’t know what it would even look like.
Ben was silent. Too silent to argue with her final statement.
“If that were true,” he finally said. “I wouldn’t be here now. Yes, you’re right—she did ask me to go with her. She said she had fallen in love and couldn’t help her feelings. But I’m here, Emma. I just don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
He stood, walked behind her chair, and disappeared from Emma’s view. She heard the shoehorn clink, the door creak, the key turn in the lock. Emma was alone.
Her mum had been right after all, but it wasn’t Ben who had fallen in love with Charlotte; it was Charlotte with him.
Emma rolled to the kitchen after all and took the salt, a whole packet, pouring all of it on the now brownish stain. From the open kitchen window, a draft brought clarity to her mind. She didn’t know what to believe, didn’t know if Ben would return, but she had already decided for herself: she methodically wheeled around all her hiding spots, found all the stashed bottles, and poured them down the drain. Then she blocked Doris’ number, but even that wasn’t enough—she took out the SIM card and cut it in half. Whatever, she’d lived without a phone as a kid, she could live without one now.
By the time Emma had finished everything, it was ten at night. She felt terribly exhausted, but for the first time in years, a glimmer of real hope appeared. She rolled up to the window and began waiting for her husband.
