At least the girls had each other; but did they spend too much time together behind their closed bedroom door? Recently it seemed they only came out of there to eat and go out with friends or to football practice with Matt, and she hardly had a proper conversation with them. It saddened her that their relationship was becoming more distant than she would like.
‘Mummy! Mummy, what are you staring at?’
Startled by Ezra’s voice, Sara realised she’d arrived at the car park on autopilot, lost in her thoughts, and now she was sitting staring out of the windscreen, not even registering the landscape in front of her.
‘Nothing, little smudge.’ She turned and grinned at him as he wriggled in his seat, desperate to be freed.
She got out and unfastened his seat belt, waiting for him to clamber out of the car before leaning over to grab the rucksack containing their lunch. He reached for her hand. ‘Let’s say hello to the cow and then the calf, shall we, Mummy?’
Sara laughed. The Cow and Calf was a rock formation at the top of the hill and a favourite picnic spot with the most wonderful views. The rocks also gave shelter from the wind, whatever direction it might be coming from.
‘Okay. Let’s go.’ She swung her arms, doing an exaggerated walk, and they laughed their way up the path, making up silly marching songs as they went.
Once they’d found a good spot for their lunch, and Ezra had made sure their blanket was in exactly the right place, he went insect-hunting with his magnifying glass, while Sara gazed across the valley, thinking about Matt and how their relationship had cooled over recent years. Ever since Ezra was born, if she was honest. That was when the problems had started.
It had been hard having a baby again, when the twins were ten and wanting to be active. Especially when Ezra had been the sort of baby who didn’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time. The result had been Matt taking the girls under his wing while Sara looked after Ezra. That was the point when the family had fractured into two units, and they hadn’t yet managed to bring everyone back together again.
She wondered if it was too late now. If they could ever be the cohesive family she’d dreamed of, that she’d yearned for when she was a child. Not if Matt’s having an affair. The thought made her shiver. Hailey was right, she reminded herself. Cheating was not part of his make-up. He was as committed to his family as Sara.
People change. Look at Mum. She’d gone from being a doting mother to a reckless idiot after their father had died. He’d obviously been the stabilising influence in the partnership, and without him, her mum had gone completely haywire, in a way Sara couldn’t begin to comprehend. She was too young to remember a lot about it, only six years old when disaster had struck, an accident at work that meant her dad never came home again. Hailey, four years older, had a clearer view of it all.
She shook the thoughts from her mind, telling herself it did no good to dwell on the past. Her mum had gone, and all the trouble with her. But the scars remained, both physical and mental. Nothing intentional, but inflicted by neglect, by a woman who’d stopped caring about anything for long periods of time.
Sara shivered in the sudden breeze. Had Matt stopped caring too? She watched Ezra following a butterfly as it fluttered among the bilberry bushes, trying to remember when her husband had last focused all his attention on her and her alone. Nothing came to mind.
I’m losing him.
She swallowed, the very thought making her eyes sting. Don’t be so stupid, she told herself firmly. Hailey’s right. Matt wouldn’t cheat on me. He isn’t like that. Or at least he hadn’t been. But something in him had changed, and now her assurances lacked conviction.
She jumped up and went to join Ezra, marvelling with him at the patterns on the wings of the butterfly, wanting to fill her mind with anything but her niggling suspicions. Matt wouldn’t do anything to destroy the innocent life of his little boy. Or those of his beloved girls. He wouldn’t.
Chapter Four
‘Pizza for tea,’ Sara called up the stairs at the girls’ disappearing backs. ‘About an hour, okay?’ She watched the three of them hurtle round the corner and out of sight. Heard the bedroom door slam, excited chatter on the other side. What happened to teenagers? It was the weirdest thing. One minute they were all cuddly children wanting attention, the next it was like you had just stepped out of the grave and they couldn’t get away from you fast enough.
‘Mummy, come and watch with me,’ Ezra called from the lounge, where she could hear the familiar theme tune of a particularly annoying children’s programme. ‘It’s your favourite.’ She cringed. If she never heard that song again, she would count it as a major blessing.
‘Five minutes. I’m just going to make a cup of tea.’ She popped her head round the door, smiling when she saw her son already snuggled up with his cuddly Pikachu toy, which was his constant companion at home. ‘Do you want a drink?’ She could see his eyelids already at half-mast and knew it was going to be a struggle to keep him awake until bedtime. ‘How about a milkshake?’ Sugar and milk, the best of both worlds and her go-to solution at this time of day to give him enough of a boost to keep him conscious until after they’d eaten.
‘Thanks, Mummy,’ he said, voice drowsy, and she hurried to get him a drink before he nodded off.
Ten minutes later, his empty cup in hand, she drifted back into the kitchen to make her own cup of tea. She had just sat down at the table when her phone pinged. A text message. She checked and found it was from Hailey.
Matt left early, so following now.
Her pulse quickened. It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself. She checked her watch: just after 4 p.m. Bit late for a meeting. But he’d said he was working late, so perhaps it was an evening meeting – dinner with clients or something. It had happened quite a lot lately. If it was actually clients he was having dinner with. She busied herself with the laundry, putting another load on, hands shaking as she stuffed clothes into the machine.
Finally she heard another ping from her phone.
He’s gone to the pub. The Flying Duck.
Sara’s heart skipped. She called her sister, could hardly ask the question. ‘Is he on his own? Did he meet anyone?’
‘I’m not sure. It’s pretty quiet, but you know I can’t go in. I’m still banned after… well, you know…’
Sara’s heart sank. Hailey dealt with young people who were the victims of abuse and neglect and helped them find a more positive future, but she was fiercely protective of her service users and that sometimes got her into trouble. She tugged at her hair. So close to finding out what was going on, and yet… ‘Can’t you just peek through the door? Nobody will notice.’
Hailey sighed. ‘Okay. He wasn’t looking excited, though, I can tell you that. In fact, he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.’
Guilt would do that to a person, Sara thought. ‘Go on then,’ she urged. ‘Please.’
Hailey’s breath crackled down the phone. ‘Right, back in a sec.’
Sara paced up and down the kitchen as she waited. Turned on the oven. Got the pizzas ready. Set the table. At last her phone rang. She picked it up. ‘That was a long bloody sec.’