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The day after Pippa’s body was found, Tess was bitten by a dog. It got her hard in the arm, a startling streak of shadow that lunged at her unexpectedly on her walk to get lunch. Her first move had been to go to the hospital and get checked for anything, she knew how dirty those animals could be, but after getting a few shots and some bandages, Tess was cleared to go back to work.
Alec was taking the day off. His dive into the river had shaken him more than he ever actually let on, but the shock blanket draped over his shoulders when Tess had arrived at the scene and the shake he hadn't been able to get rid of told her everything she needed to know. When he’d stayed in bed that morning, eyes wide and staring up at her wordlessly, Tess had mainly been angry, not that she’d ever tell him. She couldn’t look at her husband, see the hollowness and fear in his eyes, and voice her frustrations, it would have to wait for some other time. Tess was always putting off talking with Alec for ‘some other time’, and that time never seemed to come. Alec was the sweetest man Tess had ever met and an amazing father to Daisy, but only when he was home. Unfortunately, he was at work more often than not, and Tess having to take care of their daughter alone in the morning was neither new nor different, though the reason Alec was indisposed was irregular.
What her husband taking a rare day off work meant for Tess was that she had a break from him. She loved him, of course she did, she’d loved him for so long she’d hardly even know how to stop, but being around him could be a lot. Sometimes she wondered if he loved her, or if he was just too busy to stop and consider his lack of feelings.
“Whoa, are you alright?” Dave asked, gently taking hold of Tess’s newly bandaged arm. He was always gentle, he was always loving. Tess would lie awake in her bed at home, Alec lying beside her (if he had remembered to even leave work), and she’d be plagued by regrets and guilt so terrible she felt like she might throw up. But then she’d see Dave and he would smile and she’d never feel the need to doubt if he loved her, because she knew he didn’t, but that never stopped him being tender and sweet. And however bad she may feel at night, those guilts did not follow her through the days.
“I was bitten by a dog,” Tess answered. She’d almost forgotten about the injury, bandaged up and numbed enough that she hardly remembered it was even there. “I went to the hospital, I shouldn’t have anything.”
“It’s nasty,” Dave said. “Are you alright to continue?”
“Of course.” She reached out and tugged off his shirt and in the moment she felt nothing but the joy of sleeping with someone who cared about her and could express it.
Tess was convinced her bite was infected, but the damn thing was ‘healing nicely’ to the eyes of everyone who looked. They couldn’t feel the twinges of pain that flared up with her guilt, they never sensed the burning heat of infection that coursed through her whenever her husband got too near. She knew what psychosomatic injuries were, but couldn’t apply the idea to herself. She’d been bitten, after all, it had bled and it had hurt, so it was only normal that it bothered her. She was treating it against infection, and it would go away eventually.
When she’d asked Alec if he saw anything wrong with the bite, he’d gotten scared before calming himself down and assuring her the punctures and cuts looked ‘good’. Tess’s arm had burned under his touch, the wound festering away under his worn-out gaze.
It wasn’t that Tess didn’t like her husband. It wasn’t even that she regretted anything they’d shared together. She loved him and the family they’d made, and she wouldn’t trade it for the world. But he’d changed, and so had she, and she’d started wondering if maybe something had gone wrong. If, while they were both changing on their own, they went in opposite directions. Maybe there had always been an expiration date on their relationship, ever since Tess had gone up to Alec and insisted he go on a date with her. She didn’t like thinking that, though. It was much nicer to tell herself that it was the case doing this to them, even if the issues had started before it. Alec’s unfortunate swim and her rotting wound were getting to them, and once everything was handled they could be happy again. If not that, they could cohabitate without misery.
Pippa was haunting her husband’s days and nights, Tess would have to be a fool not to notice it; he cried out in his sleep and sometimes went blank, retreating into himself with a terrified expression. She knew what PTSD was but, like with her bite wound, she couldn’t associate the label with Alec. He’d been through something awful, but he’d recover, he always recovered. And maybe she found his demeanour a little infuriating, when it wasn’t horribly miserable. For once, Tess was the one spending as much time out of the house as possible, because Alec’s trembling hands and gaunt expression made her feel like her arm was on fire.
She spent several nights with Dave, leaving Alec to deal with Daisy in the mornings. Really, he should do that in the first place. It wasn’t fair to her that he expected her to do all the work getting their daughter to school. With Dave, the snarling thing in her arm calmed down and she could breathe.
Tess knew if she were to tell anyone about her life, they’d say she was the villain of her own story. The cheater was always the bad guy, right? But it wasn’t like Alec was offering her anything in the way of affection, and he hadn’t for a long while. His neglect of her had pushed her away, and her guilt over distancing herself only hurt her more. They’d both made mistakes in their marriage, but Tess believed they could be fixed, with time and effort. They just had to make it through the case. Once Alec’s lungs were rid of water and Tess’s arm unburnt by fire, they could make it work again.
Yes, Tess was sure her wound was infected. It had spread throughout her whole body and reached her mind, twisting the world around with its festering, creeping rot.
“We should tell him,” Dave said, and Tess shook her head furiously. “He’s mainly upset about the evidence, and it’s not like he’s been a great husband.”
“We can’t,” Tess said. She couldn’t express more. She couldn’t possibly tell Dave that even the thought of how miserable Alec would be, of all the guilt and anger and emotion that would rage through Tess, made her arm feel like it was sloughing off in decayed clumps. “We can’t.”
Dave, thankfully, didn’t push. He seemed to have a magical sense of intuition for when to fight her and when to let it go, which Tess always quietly appreciated. She didn’t feel the need to carefully and precisely tear the both of them apart to understand exactly where the lines were drawn, only to find she didn’t have the first clue how to put either of them back together, because Dave went along with her, ebbing and flowing like the tide to her moon. Dave left when Tess asked him to, even though it was ultimately pointless. Alec would find out eventually, no matter if they were together when he arrived or not.
When Alec arrived after SOCO, he already looked harried, but was almost thankfully fuming with rage. Tess could match him in anger, it's what made their arguments so explosive. The fire from her arm seemed to spread through her, catching everything in its way and using it to fuel the inferno as she walked over to her husband. Surprisingly, neither said a word, instead silently climbing into his car. They drove off in no particular direction, Alec’s eyes on the road and knuckles white around the steering wheel.
“Why weren’t you in the car?” he asked, voice deceptively even. Alec Hardy was not a calm and patient man, but he was trying very, very hard. She would be proud, if she wasn’t in the mood for a fight.
“I got a drink,” Tess replied, matching his tone. “To celebrate.”
“A drink.”
“Yes.”
“Alone. During work hours. While carrying important evidence.”
“I’ve already said yes, Alec,” she snapped. “There’s no point going on about it.”
“No point?” There he was. Fighting fire with fire, temper flaring predictably. Tess knew how to get what she wanted from him, and what she wanted was a roaring blaze so she could let some of the burning regret in her out. “You lost our best and only piece of concrete evidence! I can’t keep Lee Ashworth in custody any longer, not without evidence, and SOCO simply will not get it back in time.”
“How is that my fault?” Tess felt flames licking the inside of her mouth, charring her tongue with the heat. “I can’t predict a smash and grab, no one can!”
“You can choose not to leave important evidence unguarded in your car! I make that choice all the time.”
“You make all kinds of choices, not all of them are good.”
“What are you getting at.”
“Never coming home in time to get your daughter to bed, that’s a choice,” Tess said. With every word, she felt the fire calming in her gut, and the relief was immense. “Never meeting with friends or colleagues, that’s a choice.”
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“There’s more to life than work, Alec! There’s your daughter, and your home, and your wife.”
“I know that, Tess—”
“You wouldn’t think it, with all the time you spend at your desk.”
“This case—”
“It’s always about some case, with you! Because you’re willing to drown yourself for some dead girl but won’t even look at Daisy!” Tess could tell she’d touched on the wrong subject. Emotionally, Alec was still dripping wet with river water, Pippa’s body clutched in his arms as he trembled uncontrollably. Still, the fire in Tess was not sated. She needed to get her guilt out, she needed to expel every last infected ember of shame left in her body until she could start anew. She opened her mouth to keep speaking, but Alec had hit the brakes, stopping in the middle of the small town road. His expression completely shut off and he turned away from her. “Alec…”
“That’s enough,” he said, voice flat. “You can go now, I’ll see you at work.”
“Listen to me—”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Alec turned to face her again, gesturing for the door. “When I ask about this again later, I want you to tell the truth.”
Tess nodded and got out of the car, standing at the side of the road until she could no longer hear even a whisper of the car’s engine driving away. Her rotten arm – though she was certain the infection had spread to her gut as well – snapped and snarled at her to go find her husband and— and do what? Apologise, genuinely communicate with him and try to work out their issues? Curse him out and throw all his worst flaws into his face, possibly ending their relationship? Both solutions would put an end to something, and neither one appealed to her.
As she walked, feet crunching against leaves and gravel as she made her way through the woods and back into town, Tess scratched at her arm. There was nothing actually left of the bite mark, there hadn’t been anything for a while, but she scratched anyways, enjoying how it centred her in the moment.
Tess was no longer very convinced she’d gotten an infection, but there was nothing else to call it. She’d made sense of her feelings towards her husband, the sweltering mix of fury and guilt, and to get rid of her solution would only make the situation worse.
Weeks later, articles came out about a lost pendant and a cheating scandal, and Tess Henchard got her divorce. Seeing Alec leave with his few possessions and miserable air felt like the disinfectant she’d been needing to cure the inflammation under her skin, deep in her heart.
He’d taken the blame because he was, at heart, a good man. Tess could appreciate that fact and acknowledge his kindness, all the good he’d done in her life, while staying conscious of the sweltering blaze he’d ignited in her and how hard it had been to extinguish. She felt bad, lying to Daisy about her father and leaving Alec to fend for himself when he looked like a still breeze would knock him over, but he was an adult and he’d made his own decisions. She looked at him after saying good-bye for the last time and just saw a man. A complex, human man she’d had a very meaningful relationship with. And that relationship ended because she was a complex, human woman, and neither of them was singularly at fault.