Shame he hadn’t realised that person wasn’t Sam when they’d married almost seventeen years ago.
Sam climbed into the driver’s seat of her car, ignoring her phone when it rang the second she pulled out of her parking space. Whoever it was would have to wait; she had plenty to deal with right now. She wished she had someone to run to, a boyfriend who could console her for the crappy day she was having. But all her efforts at injecting romance into her life since her marriage broke down had fallen flat on their face. Not that there had been many opportunities over the years, and even when there were, Sam tended to put Audrey first and soon lost focus on anyone else coming into their lives, and she had a certain reluctance to risk getting close to a man who might simply change his mind the way her ex-husband had. Nobody deserved that kind of hurt, and certainly not twice in a lifetime.
She drove the thirty-five minute commute for the last time, taking her from the office to the smart detached residence she shared with Audrey in a small village in Cheshire, an area of the country far enough away from her home childhood home in Mapleberry that she’d felt like she was starting over when she first moved up here and got married at the age of twenty-two. Mapleberry hadn’t held too many good memories in the end, and Sam had been almost as desperate to get out of the village she grew up in as she had her family home.
She pulled up on the drive, struggled up to the porch with the box in her arms and fumbled her attempt to put her keys in the front door to open up. ‘Damn it!’ she yelled when she dropped the entire lot as Audrey pulled the door open from the other side.
‘Not my fault, I was trying to help. You shouldn’t be so clumsy.’ Audrey’s voice was as harsh as the pixie cut she’d had done recently. The haircut had no doubt been an act of rebellion but it rather suited her, with her dark eyes, high cheekbones and button nose, traits she’d got from her father rather than Sam, who was blue-eyed with blonde hair touched up with subtle copper highlights. Audrey’s hair had once had the same big waves that Sam’s had now, sitting on her collar bones – but not anymore. Sam had complimented her daughter after she returned home from the hairdresser that day, but even if she hated the new look, she would’ve still said the same, because Sam was pretty sure Audrey had only had it done to get under her skin. Maybe Sam wouldn’t mention how much she hated those slug-like eyebrows the girls all seemed to paint on nowadays. If she did, that would be the next thing Audrey altered about her appearance.
Sam wondered whether it was a teenage thing, the rebellion against anything your mum approved of or liked? Or was it just a symptom that her and Audrey’s relationship wasn’t far from breaking point?
When she’d had a little girl, Sam had been overjoyed. She didn’t mind what sex the baby was when she was pregnant, she would’ve been happy with either, but as soon as she knew, she began to plan for their future. Her imagination had gone into fast-forward, picturing dressing Audrey in the cutest outfits – OshKosh B’gosh, Gymboree, Baby Gap – then when she was a little older, playing tea sets and dolls houses, teaching her how to ride a bike, one of those with the streamers flying out from the handlebars in the wind. She’d pictured the cosy chats they could have as Audrey got older, confiding with her about boys, the best friend Audrey had, the relationship being one that Sam had never been able to form with her own mother.
What had happened to those dreams? she wondered as she gathered the detritus to put it back into the single box that was all that was left of her job.
‘You been stealing Post-its?’ Audrey, leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen with a bowl of cereal balancing on one palm, her other hand operating the spoon, noticed the packets scattered over the floor – one near the bottom stair, the other by the radiator, one further down the shiny wooden floorboards of the hallway, some at her feet.
Sam ignored the jibe. ‘What are you doing home?’
She’d been so preoccupied with doing household maths all the way home, fathoming how to pay bills when her redundancy money dried up, she hadn’t thought about what time it was. But now she could see the kitchen clock and it was well before four o’clock, the usual time Audrey got home from school – five o’clock if she dawdled and hung out with her friends – and the way Audrey was acting so casually, as though it was a Saturday rather than a Monday.
Audrey tilted her bowl to get the last of the milk, turned her back and went out to the kitchen, ignoring Sam.
‘Audrey, I asked what you’re doing home.’ Sam stepped over the box. She’d deal with it later. She flapped the front of her silk blouse; the house was always stifling from early summer until autumn, and then freezing in the winter. ‘Are you sick?’
‘Nope.’ Audrey put her bowl in the dishwasher and flipped the door shut before she turned around and leaned on it. ‘Here’s the thing, Mum. A friend and I, well, we played a bit of a joke.’
‘On who?’
‘The school.’
‘That narrows it down.’ Sam filled a glass of water and downed it in one. Packing up her
