*
It was late when Nick’s car finally pulled into the driveway. I hadn’t realised how dark the room had grown while I sat beside the fireplace with the old, unopened envelope in my hands.
Nick looked tired but jubilant as he bent to kiss me. ‘One healthy foal, safely delivered,’ he said, dropping on to the chair on the other side of the hearth.
Even in the dim light, my smile must have looked a little strained.
‘Is everything alright?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing in concern.
‘I did something bad today.’
‘Did it involve a credit card?’ he teased, but then he saw the expression on my face and his whole demeanour changed. ‘What happened?’
‘I forgot to pick up Jessica from ballet.’
I could practically see the relief flow through him.
‘Is that all? I thought you’d killed someone.’ He was smiling, and I really wished I could join him, but I couldn’t.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Nick urged.
Out loud, it didn’t sound so terrible. I’d forgotten today was Jessica’s ballet class. Forty-five minutes after I should have collected her, I received an anxious telephone call from her tutor.
‘Iforgot. I wasn’t just late, Nick, I forgot. I pick her up from that class every single week. How on earth did I forget?’
‘It’s not like she was left standing on a street corner somewhere,’ Nick said reasonably. ‘She wasn’t in any danger.’
‘But Iforgot.’ I was like a broken record, unable to get past that vital groove.
‘These things happen,’ Nick said.
‘They do. And they’ve been happening to me more and more recently. Which is the reason why…’ My voice trailed off and my eyes dropped to the envelope on the chair beside me.
Nick’s gaze followed mine and I knew he recognised the white oblong from the way he swallowed, hard.
‘What else has happened?’ he asked.
There was a catharsis in finally admitting to the string of incidents that had led me to pluck the envelope from its box at the top of the wardrobe that night. Nick listened carefully while I spoke, never once interrupting. When I finished, he leant back in his chair.
‘None of this sounds like anything to panic about. It was just a couple of absent-minded moments when you were probably distracted or busy. I’m going to discount misplacing your car in the multistorey at the mall, becauseeveryonedoes that.’
‘It took mehalf an hourto find it,’ I murmured, worried that he wasn’t taking this seriously enough. ‘What if this is how it all starts?’
‘Honestly, Lexi, nothing you’ve said sets off alarm bells.’ He crossed the room and took my hands, pulling me out of the chair and into a hug. ‘You’ve been so busy recently: with your job, running around after the girls and keeping an eye on your mum and Tom. You juggle a thousand balls and spin hundreds of plates, it’s no wonder the odd one slips through your fingers. And it doesn’t help that you’ve got a husband who clearly isn’t pulling his weight.’
I shook my head. ‘I won’t hear a word said against him.’
Nick smiled. ‘You can’t do it all. No one expects you to be Wonder Woman.’
I reached up and gently touched his face. ‘Actually, when you’re married to Superman, they kind of do.’ My fingers grazed along his cheekbone before dipping into the thick black hair at his temple, where a few silvery strands had started to appear.
‘If you decide you want to open that envelope tonight, then I’m behind you, one hundred per cent. You know that.’
I looked down at the envelope that held the answers to questions I still wasn’t sure anyone should ever ask or have answered. Amelia was always convinced if she had FAD, then it would have passed me by. But even she had wanted proof.
‘People always say your future is written in the stars,’ I said, my voice low and not quite steady, ‘but mine’s written on a sheet of paper inside that envelope.’
Nick brought up his hands to cup my face gently. ‘That’s not your future in there. That’s just a set of blood test results that we’ll deal with, whatever they reveal. We’re stronger than whatever that piece of paper tells us. Nothing inside that envelope could ever come close to rocking us.’ He held me close while our eyes conducted a wordless conversation. A conversation that slowly began to unravel the knots of panic I’d tangled myself up in.
