Back home at last, I unlock the front door and stumble into the hallway. I shrug off my yoga mat bag and sit on the bottom step, head in my hands, thinking about my conversation with Daniela.
Every time I think about it, I cringe inside. The flood of relief when I finally let my true feelings out – the humiliation, the anger, at both Joel and myself – it felt so empowering.
Things have changed. I’m not alone any more, because now I have George and Romy and I’ll fight tooth and nail to keep my boys despite Joel’s family’s deluded bid to get custody of them and to paint Joel as some kind of saint instead of the lying rat he was in reality.
I feel stronger, as though I can confront them and challenge them on their behaviour. If I’ve been through a period of instability, then they have played a part in that too. They are no more fit to look after the boys than I am!
I make myself a cup of tea and open up my laptop, logging into Instagram once it has booted up. Three notifications, but there’s only one there that interests me.
Asking to follow Opal via my false profile has worked. My heart begins to thump as I click on the link. Here I am, still playing games online but this time, I have a valid reason. I truly am trying to set things straight.
From the moment the page starts to load, I have this inexplicable feeling that I might discover something I’ll wish I hadn’t. But never in a million years do I expect anything like the photographs that now fill my screen.
I run a bath and take my iPad into the bathroom. With the kids running around, it’s one of the rare places I can get a bit of peace and my go-to haven in the house.
Fortunately, Harrison has after-school football training, which I don’t have to pick him up from for another hour, and Kane and Romy are watching a Disney film in the living room.
I climb into the bath and settle back into the perfumed foam, closing my eyes for a few moments to savour the warmth and peace.
I hold the iPad up above the bubbles and double-click on each photo so it enlarges and fills the screen. They draw me in as much as repulse me.
The one I’m looking at right now is dated fourteen days ago.
It’s a picture of the removals van outside my old house, the back doors wide open while it’s being loaded. No people are visible, but I can clearly see the boxes I’d packed full of my personal belongings. I can even see the room markings on some of them.
She’s typed a narrative for the photograph – Moving day… the start of my new life with my gorgeous boyfriend and his adorable daughter – and underlined the words with a row of coloured hearts.
I still can’t take in the fact that, at some point during the day I moved in with George, she was right there, outside my house, boldly taking photographs and selecting one to post online.
Then there’s the picture she posted this morning. It’s of George’s back garden. The goalposts are there, and Romy’s new mermaid doll is on the patio table so I know it’s very recent.
Feel so lucky this is my new home!
I read it again and again and it still doesn’t sink in.
I scan through the other photos she’s posted since I met George. Curiously, there’s hardly anything there before that time.
The photographs aren’t all personal to me and George. There are lots of filler pics of coffee and food and animals. But dotted amongst them is the odd image that takes my breath away.
A picture of a car wheel and a partial shot of a door on the exact day George got a puncture at work and had to put the spare on before leaving. Oops! she’s written.
Some people call lilies the flower of death… but I love them! The front of a flower shop I bought lilies in the day after we moved in.
Further back: Carrot cake or red velvet? Can’t decide! The window of the coffee shop where George and I met up for the very first time.
And then my breath catches in my throat and I suppress a shriek. I didn’t spot this picture earlier.
Two weeks ago, Opal posted a photograph taken from the touchline of a football match at Harrison’s school. She must have been standing right behind me, because her view was the exact one I had.
So proud of my boy! she’s written, alongside a shot of a few of the players, including my elder son.
Now Maria’s gone I’m going to be there to pick the kids up from school from now on even though it’s a squeeze, but I’ve never even considered she’d target their after-school activities.