‘Mel?’ he asked. ‘Why would I?’
‘I thought she might have rung to see how we were doing.’
‘You know Mel. She won’t want to interfere.’ He peered at me. ‘You look terrible. Why don’t you have a lie down? I’ll pick Nate up.’
‘What’s the point? I won’t be able to sleep.’
‘Then just rest.’
‘You’ll let me know if there’s any news?’
‘Of course.’
‘All right,’ I grumbled. ‘Just for half an hour.’
I trudged upstairs, each step an effort. My body felt heavy, as though I’d aged thirty years in the last twenty-four hours. As I passed Immy’s bedroom, I paused. The door was ajar, and I pushed it open and walked in, pulled by an invisible thread. I sat on her bed, tugged her pyjamas from under her pillow and held them to my nose, inhaling the baby-scented sweetness of her. A primitive longing buried deep in my chest rose inside me and I let out an anguished sob. If only she was beside me, snuggled up under her duvet, her thumb in her mouth, her eyes glued to a book as I read her a story. If only I could fold my arms around her and never let her go. I would give anything: the business, the house, a kidney - fuck it, both kidneys - to have her home.
I clasped the soft cotton pyjama top to my cheek. People thought I was a career bitch because I went back to work when Immy and Nate were both a month old, but they were wrong. Just because I loved my job didn’t mean I couldn’t love my kids. The two weren’t mutually exclusive. And it frustrated the hell out of me that people thought they were.
Because the kids came first. Always had, always would. I would kill for my kids.
A spiteful voice in my head whispered, ‘Did you always put Nate and Immy first? What about the concerts you missed, the days you were late picking them up from school, the bedtime stories you rushed because you couldn’t resist the siren call of your laptop?’
A hot wave of shame washed over me and I shoved Immy’s pyjamas back under her pillow as I remembered how I would skip whole pages of the kids’ favourite books when they were tiny, so I could go downstairs, pour myself a glass of wine and dive into my inbox. How, if Stuart had freelance work on, I’d arrange holiday playdates with children they didn’t much like so I could spend a couple of hours at the office. If only I could turn back the clock, I’d do it all differently. The kids would come first. Always.
To distract myself, I stood and walked around the room, picking up things and putting them down again. We always joked that Immy was a little magpie, cramming her room with treasures. Not the gleaming gems magpies favoured, but things that caught her attention because they were beautiful in their own right. A sapphire-blue kingfisher’s feather. A shiny black button from one of Stuart’s old suits. A fossil found on the beach at Lyme Regis. Next to the fossil was a photo of a beaming Nate holding Immy when she was a few days old.
I traced her tiny face with my finger and remembered those exhausting first few weeks after she was born. I hadn’t bonded with her as I had with Nate. Not at first, anyway. But that was understandable, wasn’t it? She wasn’t my flesh and blood; she didn’t share my DNA. She was a demanding baby, waking several times every night until she was almost a year old, and even though Stuart had taken on the lion’s share of the childcare once Niamh left, the lack of sleep hit us both hard. I begrudged Stuart for having an easy ride at home with the kids while I worked like a dog to provide for them all. He begrudged me for being able to escape to the office every day. We bickered and sniped and seethed with resentment.
Sweet, uncomplicated Nate was oblivious, but Immy seemed to sense the undercurrents in our marriage and was fractious and needy. I found it hard to connect with her, and when she was hungry or tired she reached for Stuart, not me, and it stung.
But I worked hard at winning her over, and as time passed and Immy grew into a curious, perceptive toddler, we grew close. The first time she chose me over Stuart to read her bedtime stories, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from bursting into tears.
Nate loved me unconditionally. Immy’s love had been hard fought and was more precious for it.
But every day she looked more like her mother. Those green eyes, her dark red hair, the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose were constant reminders that she wasn’t truly mine. Always, in the back of my mind, was the fear that one day Niamh would realise what she’d given up and come back to stake her claim. I didn’t know if this would be two, five, or ten years down the line. But, as I clutched Immy’s picture to my chest, I realised I’d always known we were living on borrowed time.
I must have fallen asleep on Immy’s bed, because the next thing I knew Nate was shaking my shoulder, urging me to wake up.
I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and attempted a smile. ‘Hello sweetheart, how was school?’
‘Horrible. I told you it would be. Everyone kept asking me where Immy was, and I couldn’t tell them because I don’t know. Fergus Barton said his mum said she was dead.’ His voice quivered. ‘She’s not dead, is she?’
‘Of course
