‘Yeah, just a bit of a hot flush. Is that a thing? I know the midwife said my hormones will still be all over the place.’
Sofia handed me my boots.
‘Honestly? I wouldn’t know,’ she said, with an apologetic smile. ‘But it certainly sounds plausible.’
There was a click as the front door swung open, and Moses walked in, shaking rain off his Afro.
‘Oops. I’d better start shooing the others out. It was amazing to have you here. Please promise you’ll come next week. Or before. I mean, things are pretty full-on most days, but if you message first I can always meet you somewhere. Oh, and can I add you to the chat? That way, you’ll see if any of the others are hanging out. Sometimes they take the babies swimming, or go to a soft-play centre. The church toddler group is Friday mornings, but you might find that a bit much to start with.’
‘Okay, yes. Thank you.’ I ducked past Moses to the door.
‘If you need anything, a lift, baby stuff, advice, more cake, just let us know, yes? Promise? Okay, fabulous. Oh, and rehearsals start for the carol concert next week, straight after casting, so you can come and start measuring up, and I’ll need to hand over the sewing machine. One way or another, I’ll being seeing you soon! Yay!’
Phew.
By the time I’d reached the end of Sofia’s street, the mizzle had intensified to a downpour and continued for the seventeen minutes I stood at the bus stop, using both hands to try to stretch my non-maternity raincoat around Bob, while praying his snowsuit lived up to its water-resistant promise. I spent the whole bus journey, and the mile squelching back through the forest, weeping pitifully, while trying to hide inside my hood.
All I wanted was a bowl of soup, a bath and to collapse into bed in my fleecy pyjamas.
That wasn’t true. What I wanted was to rewind the past year and do everything differently.
I wanted to go back and force myself to open my eyes, stop drifting along on some stupid, loved-up cloud, ignoring the warning signs flashing at me from every direction.
I didn’t want to undo Bob. I’d never wish for that. But, with a grief so sharp it ripped through my guts, I wanted his dad to have been honest. For my friends to have tried harder to pop my bubble of blissful ignorance.
I wanted to turn back the clock and act sooner, so I could have kept my job, my home, the friends who were my family. My husband.
More than anything, in that moment I ached, burned, raged, with how fervently I wanted him.
I managed a handful of crackers, a three-minute shower and a half-hour snooze on the sofa.
It was better than nothing.
11
BECKETT
After spending most of Monday in a foul mood, Beckett woke up at five-thirty on Tuesday to hear Gramps clattering about in the kitchen. With a resigned sigh, he slid out of bed, threw on joggers and a jumper and went to start breakfast.
By the time he’d chugged down his first coffee and plate of scrambled eggs, the weariness had been replaced with a welcome prickle of anticipation, given how the day before had worn him down. Gramps had been especially cantankerous, feeling drained by Sunday’s exertion, and after barely any time to search for a stand-in carer, Beckett had endured a five-hour shift in the pouring rain, chugging through roadwork jams and rush-hour snarls. He’d had a middle-aged woman stumble into the front passenger seat, and then proceed to put her hand on his thigh every few seconds, despite him swatting if off every time. At a set of traffic lights, she’d leant over and blown tequila fumes in his ear before telling him that her destination had changed to a five-star hotel ten minutes away, if he’d like to join her.
He’d declined her invitation and dropped her off at her original destination, where she’d promptly thrown up on the pavement the second she’d got out of the car. It wasn’t Beckett’s responsibility to clean up his client’s vomit, but it had been right outside a primary school, and no one else had been going to do it. He’d half carried, half dragged her inside her huge house, borrowed a bucket and a brush and then, instead of accepting her continued offer of ‘fun times’, he’d left her sprawled on the sofa with a glass of water, now eight precarious minutes late to get back to relieve Sonali.
There’d been scarcely a second to form a coherent thought before he’d collapsed into bed, let alone a plan.
Although, the truth was, every one of those spare seconds had been spent thinking about one thing. One person.
And it wasn’t a new carer.
By the time they’d set off to pick up Mary, stopping at a supermarket on the way because they’d run out of milk, and Beckett was worried Mary had run out of everything, the flutter in his stomach was something he hadn’t felt in years.
Not because of Mary, specifically, he kept reassuring himself. It was only natural to look forward to hanging out with a friend, especially after such a long time. Especially when it was a friend who made him feel so positive. Unburdened. As if he wasn’t a pathetic failure.
Even Gramps behaved less contrary about another outing, as if he could remember how his previous adventure with Mary and Bob had lifted his spirits.
They pulled up outside her cottage at five minutes to nine, and Beckett quickly grabbed the shopping bags from the back seat and went to knock on the door, which whipped open the second he reached the porch.
‘Hey,’ Mary said, with a slightly manic smile.
