_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

“It was too late when I realized to . . . to get rid of it. Of her. It’s what
I would have done, had I not been so stupid, so oblivious. The truth is
that she wasn’t wanted, by either of us.”
Kamal gets to his feet, goes to the kitchen and comes back with a
sheet of kitchen roll for me to wipe my eyes. He hands it to me and sits
down. It’s a while before I go on. Kamal sits, just as he used to in our
sessions, his eyes on mine, his hands folded in his lap, patient, immobile.
It must take the most incredible self-control, that stillness, that passivity;
it must be exhausting.
My legs are trembling, my knee jerking as though on a puppeteer’s
string. I get to my feet to stop it. I walk to the kitchen door and back
again, scratching the palms of my hands.
“We were both so stupid,” I tell him. “We didn’t really even
acknowledge what was happening, we just carried on. I didn’t go to see a
doctor, I didn’t eat the right things or take supplements, I didn’t do any
of the things you’re supposed to. We just carried on living our lives. We
didn’t even acknowledge that anything had changed. I got fatter and
slower and more tired, we both got irritable and fought all the time, but
nothing really changed until she came.”
He lets me cry. While I do so, he moves to the chair nearest mine and
sits down at my side so that his knees are almost touching my thigh. He
leans forward. He doesn’t touch me, but our bodies are close, I can smell
his scent, clean in this dirty room, sharp and astringent.
My voice is a whisper, it doesn’t feel right to say these words out
loud. “I had her at home,” I say. “It was stupid, but I had this thing about
hospitals at the time, because the last time I’d been in one was when Ben
was killed. Plus I hadn’t been for any of the scans. I’d been smoking,
drinking a bit, I couldn’t face the lectures. I couldn’t face any of it. I
think . . . right up until the end, it just didn’t seem like it was real, like it
was actually going to happen.
“Mac had this friend who was a nurse, or who’d done some nursing
training or something. She came round, and it was OK. It wasn’t so bad.
I mean, it was horrible, of course, painful and frightening, but . . . then
there she was. She was very small. I don’t remember exactly what her
weight was. That’s terrible, isn’t it?” Kamal doesn’t say anything, he
doesn’t move. “She was lovely. She had dark eyes and blond hair. She
didn’t cry a lot, she slept well, right from the very beginning. She was
good. She was a good girl.” I have to stop there for a moment. “I
expected everything to be so hard, but it wasn’t.”