Page 24 of The First Mistake

‘Are you honestly being serious?’ He attempts to laugh. ‘Where is all this coming from?’

I snigger derisively and shake my head. ‘So you’ve no idea who they’re for or who they’re from?’

‘No,’ he says eventually. ‘But if it makes you feel better, I’ll give the florist a call – see what’s going on.’

‘You do that,’ I snap.

Sophia gingerly puts her head around the kitchen door and I immediately hate myself for giving into my insecurities, knowing that they will only manifest themselves in her as well. I pack my anxieties away and resolve to only reveal them when she’s not around.

‘I’m going into town with Megan,’ she says quietly.

‘Do you want me to drop you at the station?’ asks Nathan. ‘I’ve got to get the car cleaned anyway.’

And check it for any other jewellery?I say to myself.

‘Can we get Megan on the way?’

‘Sure,’ he says, and Sophia offers a smile before heading up the stairs.

I busy myself with wiping down the worktops. ‘If I haven’t got my car back in time, I’ll need you to pick the girls up from ballet and drop Millie back to her house.’

He groans. ‘Do I have to? That means I’ll get stuck talking to another nutty mum from school.’

‘It’s Beth,’ I say. ‘She’s as far removed from a nutty mum as you can get.’ Though if he knew her life story he might beg to differ. ‘She’s the one I go out with.’

‘You see her a lot, don’t you?’

I nod. ‘We get on really well. She’s the only mum at that school who is remotely on my wavelength.’

‘Yet I still haven’t met her?’ He poses it as a question, and when I look at him, he raises his eyebrows as if he expects an answer. ‘For all I know, she could be a completely fictitious figure that you’ve invented as a cover story.’

‘What?’ I say, incredulously. ‘Do you want to come on one of our girlie nights out?’

‘Well, how do I know that’s where you’re really going? You could be doing anything. You certainly claim to see “Beth” a lot.’ He puts her name into speech marks with his fingers.

I can’t help but laugh.

‘It sounds preposterous, right?’ he says.

‘Absolutely.’

‘So imagine howIfeel when you bandy ridiculous accusations around. It wouldn’t ever occur to me that you’re doing anything other than what you tell me. I trust you with all my heart and I thought you did me.’

I bow my head, almost embarrassed for the way I’ve behaved. I’m not a vulnerable teenager in a tempestuous relationship. I’m a grown woman who has never questioned Nathan’s loyalty in the nine years we’ve been together. So, why am I so quick to now?

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, going towards him and cupping his face in my hands. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. The earring and then the flowers ...’

He kisses my forehead. ‘Why don’t you take some time out this morning?’ he says, with a look of genuine concern on his face. ‘Have a breather – sit down and put your feet up?’

Maybe that’s exactly what I need. How could I have believed, for just a second, that Nathan would be unfaithful to me? I chastise myself for allowing my drug- and, if I’m honest, alcohol-addled brain to think the worst. I have enough neuroses to deal with – I can’t afford to let paranoia, created by the very poisons that I take to dull my nerve endings, overwhelm me. How pathetically ironic.

‘Okay, let’s go, Sophia!’ Nathan says, as he stands up and reaches for his car keys on the worktop.

‘See you later, Mum,’ Sophia calls out, just before the front door slams.

Overcome with relief, I sit at the kitchen island and contemplate the jobs I need to do with a renewed sense of purpose. There’s the washing, the food shop and all the other wonderfully banal chores that Saturday mornings bring. But first, I should let Beth know that Nathan is dropping Millie back home.

I text:

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