I left the bank in a fury without saying a word to the manager, throwing the keys on the counter as I stamped past. I felt like a laughing stock. Was Poppy just trying to manipulate me all along, or was it just a cruel joke? Either way, she would pay for her deceit. I saw Kim waiting on a bench, sipping at a bottle of water, and I didn’t even stop to tell her what had happened; I just tapped her on the shoulder.
“Let’s go,” I ordered.
“What’s happening?” Kim asked as she stood up.
“We need to go and see Poppy.”
I stormed back to the car with Kim lagging a few steps behind. As soon as the car doors shut, I wasted no time and started driving towards Poppy’s house. I could see Kim was getting increasingly scared by the speed I was driving, but I didn’t care about her safety. Or mine, for that matter. I just wanted to get there as quickly as possible and find out what had been going on. When we arrived at Poppy’s, I could see her standing at the window. I threw the car door open and thundered up the garden path to the front door and bashed it with my clenched fists rapidly. Kim caught up with me and delicately put her hand on my arm.
“Calm down, Amelia. What is going on?” she said.
“It’s her,” I said through gritted teeth.
“What’s her?”
“The person who has been manipulating me the entire time!” I shouted for Poppy’s benefit.
“What are you talking about?” Kim asked.
“Here,” I said, handing Kim my phone.
Kim read the messages whilst I continued to pound on the door. I could see Poppy in the bay, trying to make a phone call, presumably to the police. Poppy opened a small window to try and talk me down before I took the door off the hinges.
“I don’t really understand what’s going on, but just stop so we can talk about this,” Poppy shouted through the window.
“It’s you. It’s always been you!” I screamed at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“James! It’s been you all along, hasn’t it?”
“You need to calm down, Amelia. The police are on their way.”
“Good, they can arrest you for torturing a widow.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong!”
I could hear the sound of distant sirens, and I knew they were coming for me. I only had seconds left to get to Poppy before they arrived, and I decided to abandon my attempts to force the door open. Instead, I picked up a large plant pot from the driveway and threw it at the window. Glass and ceramic exploded in every direction as the pane gave way into a thousand pieces. Poppy dived out of the way, and just as she returned to her feet, the police arrived and began sprinting up the path.
“I’ll get you for this, Penelope,” I threatened.
“It wasn’t me!” she pleaded.
The police arrived behind me and restrained me. I fought back at first, and they decided to use handcuffs. In the commotion, Poppy made her way through the house, opened the front door and stepped outside. Just as they started to put the handcuffs on, I heard my phone make a beep in Kim’s hands.
“It’s James. He’s just sent an address,” Kim announced.
I was humiliated. And I’d shown Poppy and Kim the monster that was lurking within me. All because of a scrap of paper I didn’t fully understand. Poppy stood shrugging in the doorway, waiting for my immediate apology, but I was too proud to give her one. Instead, I lowered my head and stared at the carnage I’d just created. In one swift motion, Poppy’s beautiful home had been destroyed. The glass from the broken window and soil from the pot I’d thrown lay all over the baby supplies they kept inside. I had a real problem with apologising for anything, but it was blatantly obvious that I should. Just as I was about to open my mouth and convey some semblance of remorse, Poppy began speaking.
“Be careful, officers,” she started, her eyes locked with mine, “she’s violent.”
Violent. I detested that word. I wasn’t violent, and I wouldn’t apologise for feeling passionate about my marriage or my husband. In a way, I felt even more wrath from the single use of the word violent than when I thought she was pretending to be James. I always thought Poppy and I were alike; I certainly thought she was different from Yvonne. But the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Poppy was just as manipulative and dangerous as her mother and had me bang to rights. She must have been waiting for this moment for so long to see me in handcuffs. I could almost see her gloating over it, and the thought of her smug expression at me in cuffs boiled my blood.
“I’ll show you violence,” I hissed through a clenched jaw.
“She’s the reason my brother is dead. She’s an alcoholic and a domestic abuser,” Poppy said, holding back tears.
“If Harry killed himself, it was because of you and your ridiculous family.”
“My big brother killed himself because you constantly battered and belittled him for your entire marriage. You have to live with that, not me,” Poppy said, pointing in my face.
The police didn’t let me have the final word, and they started dragging me away to the van they’d arrived in. They threw open the doors and pushed me into the cage that resided in the back of it. Whilst I was in there, they hastily read me my rights and slammed the door as I stared at Poppy with venom at a distance.
Whilst I was being transported to the police station, I thought I would have calmed down, but I didn’t. As far as I was concerned, Poppy had put me in this cell. Yvonne would know what had happened by now, too, and she was probably on her way to the police station with Poppy to tell them all their wild theories. I started to worry that the police would actually believe them and my name would be dragged through the mud looking for the truth. When the original police enquiry into Harry’s death was going on, everybody was under scrutiny. When it was decided his death was accidental, they closed the case, and that was that. But if the police thought there was any merit in what Yvonne and Poppy had to say, they could reopen it.
The indistinguishable tingles started to build on the back of my neck, and I lost all sensation in my hands. I banged my head rhythmically on the cage wall to try and knock the panic attack out of me, but it was coming, and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. My feet started to go numb, and the sensation slowly crept up my legs like I was being immersed in ice-cold water. The waterline reached my chest, and I could almost feel my lungs filling with the liquid, so much so that I could barely breathe. Once it arrived at my neck, my throat started to close, and I began to cough erratically.
“Help!” I shouted as loud as I could, kicking the cage.
One of the officers had opened the little hatch from the cabin and looked at me with contempt. He assessed that I wasn’t in any immediate danger and closed it again with a huff.
“Help me! I’m having a panic attack,” I shouted again.
The officer opened the hatch once again and placed one finger on his lips before shushing me loudly. He then replaced the hatch, and I heard music playing from the cabin. By the time I arrived at the police station, it was the weakest I’d ever felt. I was so sweaty I think I could have slipped out of the handcuffs with ease. They tried to remove me from the cage, but my legs wouldn’t hold my weight, and I immediately fell on the tarmac outside the van.
“Ma’am, you need to get up,” the officer said.
“I’m pregnant, and I’m getting pains,”
