Page 15 of The Life She Could Have Lived

So they walked back together, Thomas and Luke going ahead, holding hands.

Anna pushed the buggy with a sleepy Sam inside.

And she realised, because of the absence of the feeling, that she’d been feeling lonely lately.

It was strange, to feel lonely when you were never alone.

But you couldn’t have a proper conversation with children so young, and they had so much need, it was overwhelming.

It was nice to walk beside Steve, to chat and joke about their day-to-day and the programmes they watched endlessly on CBeebies.

When they were all inside the house, Anna left Steve watching the kids in the lounge while she pulled things out of the fridge. She cut up some bread and put it on the table along with the butter. Grated cheese. Sliced some cucumber and pepper. Opened bags of crisps.

‘This looks great,’ Steve said, coming into the dining room.

‘I’m letting everyone fill their own plate,’ she said. ‘I know what Thomas can be like if I dare to put something he doesn’t like on his. Taking it off later does not make up for the offence.’

‘Yes, I can be like that,’ Steve said, and Anna laughed.

‘Come on, guys,’ Anna called, and the older boys came into the room.

Anna went to get Sam and lifted him into his highchair.

He was just starting to eat solids, and Anna had a sudden memory of how stressful she’d found this stage with Thomas.

This time around, she was hardly pureeing anything.

She put a carrot stick, a slice of cucumber, a finger of cheese and some bread on his tray and let him get on with it.

Back in the kitchen, she ran the tap and reached for the bottle of orange squash.

When she turned, Steve was behind her, a little closer than she was used to. Anna was overly aware of her body, of her lips. She met Steve’s eye, and it was like he was asking her a question .

‘Steve,’ she said, her voice a little croaky.

He reached out a hand and brushed her hair from her face. ‘Yes?’

And just when she was sure he was going to kiss her, or at least try to kiss her, there was a cry from the dining room and they both bolted in there and found Thomas lying on the carpet, his hands clutching his head, which looked to be bleeding.

‘What happened?’ Anna asked, feeling hysterical.

She knew what had happened. He’d been swinging on his chair, like he did every mealtime, and he’d fallen, like she always predicted he would. But it felt like a punishment for what she’d been about to do.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said, turning to Steve.

She’d attended a baby first aid course when Thomas was six weeks old.

They’d covered cuts and bumps and burns and falls, and more serious stuff like choking and the recovery position.

But Anna didn’t remember any of it. She had thought at the time that she wouldn’t.

Her brain was mush from lack of sleep, and Thomas breastfed through about 80 per cent of the two-hour course.

‘Grab a tea towel to hold on the cut,’ Steve said. ‘Then I’ll look after Sam while you take him to A&E.’

Anna fetched a clean tea towel and pressed it to Thomas’s head. He was wailing. She sat him back on his chair and gave him a big cuddle, got him to hold the tea towel in place while she started to gather some things together, shouting instructions at Steve as she went.

‘He might take a bottle, worth a try. And then he’ll go down for a nap. His sleeping bag is in his cot, upstairs. Are you sure you and Luke don’t mind staying here?’

‘It’s fine,’ Steve said. ‘There are plenty of toys and it’s easier than packing up all the stuff Sam needs. We’ll be absolutely fine here, won’t we, boys?’

Luke and Sam were both still eating, apparently oblivious to Thomas’s fall.

‘Okay,’ Anna said, ‘thank you. I’ll keep you posted.’

She lifted Thomas into her arms. He was too heavy to carry for long these days, but she somehow always managed to find the strength when he was upset.

How long until she wouldn’t be able to? Another year or so, perhaps.

Or maybe forever. You heard those stories, didn’t you?

Mothers lifting up cars to save their children.

She took him out to the car and strapped him in, kissed the tip of his nose.

‘You’ll be okay, Tom-Tom. Just keep holding that towel there, okay? Don’t forget.’

He nodded, tears still falling from his long eyelashes onto his cheeks.

Anna got into the driver’s seat and set off for the hospital where she’d given birth to both of her boys.

It was twenty minutes on a good day, but good days were rare when it came to traffic in London, and the journey took more like forty.

She played nursery rhymes and sang along with them, and asked Thomas questions to make sure he was awake and alert, and every time the fear and panic threatened to overwhelm her, she pushed them down.

She wished Edward was here. It was always in these moments of crisis and fear that she questioned what she was doing, keeping him at a distance.

Not only in those moments, but most acutely then.

When one of the boys was feverish and sleeping beside her in bed, or when they fell and she wasn’t sure how serious it was.

Her mind flitted from Edward to Steve. They had nearly kissed.

If Thomas hadn’t fallen, they would have kissed.

She was certain of it. She wouldn’t have stopped him, despite knowing he was married and having been on the other side of that sort of betrayal.

She had been sure, in that moment, that it was inevitable.

And now, what? She wanted to rush back to the safety of her marriage just because Thomas was hurt?

She missed Edward, she did. Life was hard without him.

But Steve. That look he’d given her, the way her tummy had flipped.

That was worth examining too, wasn’t it?

When they got to the hospital, when they were called, Anna felt a great weight lift as she handed her boy over to the experts, who were gentle and kind and showed him soft toys they kept in their pockets to distract him from any pain while they glued him back together.

All the time, she held his hand and talked to him and made sure he felt as safe as possible.

By the time they were home, it was almost tea-time and Anna felt wrung out.

It was strange, coming into the house and Steve being there, holding the fort.

Holding Sam. It was like a look into a possible future, and there was no denying that she liked it.

It felt comfortable and somehow right. Steve looked up and saw her in the doorway, her hand on Thomas’s shoulder, and Anna felt herself redden, imagining he might be able to read her thoughts.

Thomas ran into the room, and that sudden movement was like the bursting of a bubble.

‘All fixed?’ Steve asked, pretending to inspect Thomas’s head.

‘Fixed,’ Anna said, reaching out to take Sam from him.

‘You look like you could do with a glass of wine.’

‘I could. I might see if there’s some in the fridge.’

‘Sit down with Sam,’ Steve said. ‘I’ll look. Unless you want me to go home?’

‘No,’ she said. She didn’t. She didn’t want him to go. ‘Was everything okay here?’

‘Fine.’

Anna noticed that the lunch things had been cleared away and everything looked pretty neat and tidy.

Sam’s playmat was out with a few toys and his wooden blocks, and Luke was dressed as a firefighter and putting out imaginary fires.

Thomas joined in, and she wondered at the ability of children to recover from things.

Whenever either of her boys was hurt, it was her who took the longest to get over it.

Steve appeared with two glasses of white wine and handed one to her, and she took a sip, feeling it warm her.

They ordered a pizza, put a film on for the boys. Anna put Sam to bed, and then she and Steve stood in the kitchen while the older boys stared at the TV.

‘About earlier—’ Steve said.

‘Yes?’

‘I’m sorry, if I was out of order. I mean, I was out of order. I’m married.’

Anna didn’t know what to say. They were standing close together and her body felt a little loose from the wine and she wanted more than anything to look up at him, to put her hands on his face, to kiss him.

There had been no one since Edward had moved out.

But there was Theresa, and no matter how rocky he said things were, they hadn’t called it a day, had they?

Still, she was tired of worrying about everyone, taking responsibility for everyone’s actions.

She was single. She looked up, locked eyes with him, and felt her insides turn to liquid.

He leaned down, and she knew he was going to kiss her and she was going to let him, and the anticipation was exquisite.

And when their lips touched, and his hands were in her hair, she forgot about everything else.