Page 8

EIGHT

Alistair said he’d be home by five p.m. to help Martha empty the flower delivery van. Or at the very least to stay indoors with the kids and the dog while she emptied it. And now it’s gone six o’clock and the last thing she wants to do is go out and empty the van.

She types in two question marks under her last message to her husband:

When home?

She looks at the kids. Troy is on the sofa, his legs outstretched, staring at his phone with his AirPods in, the dog on his lap.

Jonah is at the dining table, his iPad propped up in front of him, doing some kind of art on the painting app.

Weird stuff he puts on there, anime-type stuff.

Nala, the baby, is in her walker, staring at the TV screen.

Something to do with dogs with superpowers.

The sky outside is black now, the last of the winter sun petered out a few minutes ago.

She calls over to Troy, who turns awkwardly and removes an AirPod.

“Will you keep an eye on the baby? I have to go and sort out the van.”

He shrugs.

“And that means taking out your earphones, I’m afraid.”

He sighs and shrugs again and then takes the other one out. The dog sits up perkily at the suggestion that something is happening and his face appears over the back of the sofa.

“No, Baxter,” she says to the dog. “You need to stay here.”

She puts on her jacket, grabs her bag, and walks onto the driveway.

The van is pink. A classy, faded pink named California Rose on the color sheet.

On the side panels, in black cursive, it says: “Martha’s Garden.

Fresh Flowers all the local shopkeepers had pooled together to buy them a couple of years ago.

But worth the money. Enderford High Street is one of the prettiest high streets in Kent, a mix of Victorian bow-fronted shops and pastel-colored Georgian town houses, coffee shops, antique shops, delis, and estate agents.

The shops go all out for Christmas. Martha’s is festooned with pale pink baubles and looks a treat.

At home everything is quiet. Nala is still transfixed by the superpowered dogs, Jonah is still drawing scary things on his iPad, Troy is still staring at his phone.

“Is Al back?” she asks Troy, even though she already knows he isn’t.

Troy shakes his head and slowly replaces his AirPods.

It’s nearly seven.

She mouths “fuck” under her breath, then she goes into the kitchen and gets some food on for the kids.

When Martha wakes up the next morning, she is happy for a moment because it’s the weekend and it’s not dark outside as it normally is when she rises at this time of the year.

For a moment she enjoys the warm, luxurious glow of a lie-in, thinks of hot tea and buttered toast, and then it hits her—she’s meant to be going to Normandy today, with Al.

Her brother is due in two hours. Her favorite dress is hanging from the wardrobe, ready to be folded into her weekend case to wear at the lovely restaurant Al’s booked them into for dinner tonight. But Al is not here.

A darkness descends.

Sorry, the message he’d finally sent her at eight last night had said. Big blow-up at work. All hell let loose. Going to need to stay here overnight. Should be home by tomorrow afternoon. We can still make the dinner booking!

She hasn’t replied. She knows exactly what it means; should be home by tomorrow afternoon means I have no idea when I’ll be home. Her stomach churns with anxiety.

She pulls back her bedclothes and puts on her silk dressing gown, then heads into the baby’s room.

Nala’s still sleeping—she’s a good little sleeper, much better than the boys ever were—so she leaves her and goes to the top of the stairs, smiles at Baxter lying at the bottom, wagging his tail furiously at her, and heads past him into the kitchen.

She met Al four years ago. She was pregnant two years after that.

Not what she’d been expecting as a forty-four-year-old divorcée with a ten-year-old and a thirteen-year-old.

Not how she’d seen the next chapter of her life.

But then she hadn’t seen a man like Al in her future.

She hadn’t known then that she was going to meet the perfect man.

She quells the fury and the disappointment, swallows back the nauseating anxiety of what the next few hours or days are going to feel like, fills the kettle, and switches it on.