KATE: Friday evening,
twelve days after the split
‘You don’t need to tell me. I know I’m an idiot.’
Kate is stirring chilli with one hand, and her phone is tucked between her ear and her shoulder so Mel’s voice sounds like it is coming from far away.
‘What the hell got into you?’ Mel is saying.
‘I don’t know. It was a mixture of talking about how things used to be and feeling at a low point and drinking bucket-loads of wine. We got carried away. That’s all. And then, of course, he thought that meant we were back on again. He’s been calling and texting the entire day.’
‘And what about Tom?’ Mel wants to know.
Kate groans.
‘He doesn’t know. He must never know. The thing with Jack last night just made me even more sure that Tom is the one I want to be with.’
After the call ends, Kate puts the lid on the chilli and sits down heavily at the kitchen table. How can she have been so stupid? Jack was just getting used to the idea of them being apart, and now she has gone and confused everything. She sent the text more than three hours ago and still he has not replied.
She knows how hurt he will be. And how angry.
She is dreading Amy and Ben coming down for dinner, because she knows they will ask her questions about their dad. Jack is not the only one who will be hurt and confused by what happened last night.
‘But I thought that meant you and Dad were back together,’ Amy says, as Kate dishes out the chilli and tries to explain.
Her eyes fill with tears, reminding Kate again just how young she still is.
‘I’m sorry, baby,’ says Kate, making her way around the table to give Amy a hug. ‘Marriage is complicated.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re not getting back with him,’ says Ben. ‘I love him, because he’s my dad, but I hate his moods. He scares me sometimes.’
Kate is surprised. She has never heard Ben talk like this about Jack. She pushes her food around her plate but cannot eat.
After dinner the kids go back to their rooms and Kate flops down in front of the television. There is a nature programme on that she usually enjoys, but she cannot focus on it. Instead, she thinks about Jack and what he will do now. She hopes that he will accept what she has said. Maybe he is even thinking the same thing. That it was a mistake.
But, deep down, she knows he isn’t.
The house feels weird. As if it is holding its breath. She pictures little particles of tension hanging in the air like specks of dust. Since last night something has been niggling at her, but she still cannot work out what it is.
She sends a text to Tom to tell him she is thinking about him.
Still no word from Jack.
In the middle of the night Kate hears Amy shouting.
‘I heard those noises from the roof again, Mum,’ she says when Kate goes into her room.
Kate listens but doesn’t hear anything.
‘It’s just squirrels, like I told you,’ she tells Amy.
But when she gets back into her own bed she lies awake, unable to sleep. And when she does finally drop off, just as the dawn light is creeping in around the blackout curtains, she dreams there’s a monster standing by her bed, breathing in the dark.