“Oh, I’m... writing a novel.”
“You’re a novelist?”
“Well, no,” I say hastily, feeling instantly fraudulent. “Not yet. I’m just writing a first draft, really. Actually, I work part time at Pebbles & Paper too. You know, the—”
“What’s your novel about?” she asks, eyes glimmering almost intrusively.
“Oh, you know. Girl meets boy. That kind of thing.”
“A love story?”
“I guess so.”
“Is it about you?” she asks Caleb, winking at him and smiling conspiratorially at me.
Looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable, Caleb clears his throat. “Not as far as I know.”
Just as I’m opening my mouth to say something—anything—that isn’t to do with Max or love stories not featuring Caleb, the dining room doors fling open, and the kids start streaming through it in magicians’ hats, babbling about magic and whacking one another over the head with little plastic wands.
“Nice to talk to you both,” Briony says, patting me on the arm, and then she is gone.
“Let’s go outside,” Caleb says, his voice terse, and I sense a curl of dread in my stomach, something I’ve never felt with him before.
—
We head into the garden. The air is lemony with sunshine, rich with the scent of damp grass from the sprinklers ticking over the vast lawn in an attempt to offset August’s record temperatures. It’s newly cut, mown weekly into English country stripes by a gardener who’s also cultivated the multicolored mass of dahlias, roses, chrysanthemums, and geraniums bursting from every border.
The sky is a vast blue lake, its surface unbroken except for the occasional dart of a song thrush or blue tit. At the garden’s farthest point, I can just make out Tash’s recently created outdoor office, nestling beneath the long tendrils of a silver birch, the facing wall made almost entirely of one-way glass.
It feels good to be out here, away from the cartoonish playlist Tash has on loop in every room, the clamor of overexcited children, the heated undercurrent of parents gossiping.
“I’m sorry,” I say, the words tumbling from my mouth as we pause by the side of the house, out of sight of everyone inside.
Caleb shakes his head as we face each other, and I can’t quite read his expression—sadness? Anger? Embarrassment?
“I overheard you that night,” he says. “In Jools’s kitchen.”
I shut my eyes for a moment, the recollection of what I said trickling through me liked iced water. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was a bit weird,” he says. “I thought everything was going pretty well between us, but then you suddenly start acting distant, and then I overhear you saying you think I’ve got baggage and that you feel weird about me and Helen still being married... and to top it all off, you tell your best mate you always thought you and Max were meant to be, that he might be your soulmate...”
The tears brim in my eyes. I reach out to touch him, but he’s stuffed both his hands in the pockets of his jeans.“No,”I say, fiercely. “I was just... Max sent me a message out of the blue, and I was momentarily confused about—”
“Good to know.”
“Not like that. I’d been feeling a bit strange about Helen, and...” But I trail off, clueless as to how I might explain away emotions I no longer fully feel.
“Lucy, you’re going to have to fill me in here, because I have no idea where Helen comes into all this.”
I say nothing for a couple of moments. My right hand finds the wooden bracelet around my opposite wrist and spins it anxiously. “I suppose... the IVF thing freaked me out slightly. And youarestill married.”
“Yeah—on paper,” he says, stiffly. “As far as we’re both concerned, the next step is divorce.”
I swallow, feeling relief ripple through me, despite everything. “Okay.”
“So, what are you saying, Lucy? Do you think you’ve made the wrong choice, between me and your ex?”
“No.I never asked Max to send me that message.”
