The bubbles were mesmerising, and I could see a whole universe in my glass – galaxies suspended in gold, a sky of stars winking at me. Had Mike drunk champagne on his little jaunts to The Stables with Julie Knox? I felt sick at the thought.
‘Izzy… Earth to Izzy… Is everything all right?’ Rachel rubbed my shoulder.
They were all staring at me. Auntie Sue and Adam exchanged a worried glance.
‘She’s fine,’ said Mum. ‘I know my girl. Perhaps a little too much excitement for one day?’
I nodded in agreement, grateful for any excuse to sit down. My head was spinning again. The champagne had left a bitter aftertaste.
‘Mike rang this morning,’ said Auntie Sue, her voice ringing with a false lightness. She spoke as if she was addressing the whole room, but I knew this was just for my benefit. ‘He’s very sorry about what happened yesterday, and of course he isn’t serious about keeping anyone away from the kids.’
The temperature dropped at the mention of his name. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mum pull her cardigan closed. I bristled at the thought of him, seething inside. How dare he threaten to keep me from the children? After what he had done. He had no right.
‘I think he’s ready to say sorry, if everyone else is…’
She was talking as if he had threatened everyone, but his anger yesterday had been directed squarely at me. He’d made me look like the bad one, like the crazy person. And now I had to apologise to him?
‘Izzy?’ Auntie Sue raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Will you say sorry to Mike so we can all move on?’
I reluctantly agreed. Anything to see the kids.
Mum and Auntie Sue left, leaving me alone with Adam and Rachel. With my champagne almost untouched, I explained how I’d put two and two together at the hotel.
‘That’s scandalous!’ said Adam, gobsmacked. ‘The audacity of that man. No wonder you’re out of sorts.’
Rachel had gone pale.
‘Just think – all that time he was doing it right under her nose,’ she said, shaking her head sadly. ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to tell the police?’
‘No, she is not,’ said Adam, looking at me with a stern expression. ‘Izzy has done quite enough amateur detective work and she’s learned the hard way that it doesn’t do any good.’
‘Well…’ I said, considering it.
‘You cannot be serious! Izzy – tell me you’re not actually thinking of telling the police that you’ve worked out which hotel your brother-in-law was taking his mistress to?’ He started to laugh nervously. ‘What good would that do!? What does this even change, anyway?’
Adam hopped out of the armchair and onto the sofa beside me. ‘I know you’re angry,’ he said, winding an arm around my shoulders. ‘I know you’re looking for someone to blame, and I know you think Mike did something wrong – well yes, he did… But not that. You can’t decide that he murdered her just because he was cheating on her!’
The corners of my eyes started to blur with salty tears.
‘You’ve got to give this up, Izzy.’ Adam’s voice was softer now.
Rachel crouched in front of me, offering me a tissue. ‘Your sister would be so proud of you, you know.’ She put her hand over mine. ‘But Adam is right, you have to let this go. Let go of the anger. We all miss her. But this… It doesn’t mean Mike is to blame. Perhaps it was just an accident after all.’
The tears started to flow, and I couldn’t stop them.
Adam and Rachel went out for a walk while I took a nap, waking from an exhausted sleep when a wisp of cool air blew in from the window and tickled my cheek. The wind changed direction when the tide turned. Most people didn’t notice it, but for coast folk, the ebb and flow of the sea was like a sixth sense. The more time I spent in Seahouses, the more I felt myself growing back in tune with the water. I no longer had to look out of the window to tell if it was high or low tide – the sound of the waves and the smell of the air gave it away.
We’d planned to go over to Amy’s together that evening – safety in numbers, as Adam had murmured. I was desperate to see the kids. Just to make sure they were okay. And even though it had only been a day, I missed them.
Rachel was right – Amy would be proud of me. I’d done what she’d wanted me to do, made the sacrifice she had asked me of me.
At the beginning, I’d thought I’d be a burden on Mike, that I had so much to learn and that I would only get in his way. That between him, Auntie Sue and Mum, the children didn’t need me. I was starting to realise that I’d been wrong – they did need me, just as much as I needed them.
I had started to worry about how much they were eating and if they were getting the right nutrition for their growing bodies. Reflexively, I checked them every morning for signs that they were getting enough sleep. Whenever I wasn’t with them, I worried that they were safe and that they weren’t upset. For the second time in my life, I knew what it was like to have someone who was more important to me than myself. The first had been Amy.
When Mike had told me to stay away from the children, it had cut like a knife. Just thinking of him made my rage start to simmer, and I didn’t know why. Nothing had changed since yesterday – except that now I knew where he had gone with Julie. Now I had a location for his cheating, but did that make it any worse? It wasn’t as if Mike
