I sat in the car for a while before I started the engine. I felt frozen in my seat, staring out, deep in thought. Then, abruptly, I reached for the ignition, and drove home. Determinedly putting Tommy to the back of my mind, I thought about Hugo. About how, actually, he'd probably managed to have a relatively happy life. With Christina. Who was a lovely, kind, generous person, as he was. And who'd given him the cloak of respectability he craved, to pass under the radar, to pass muster with his family. As no doubt he'd given her. Had they recognized each other's sexual ambiguity when they first met, that time in Wales? Had that been part of the attraction? Even though he'd been with me and Christina had been with Sam? Had a light bulb gone on in their heads? Subliminally, perhaps. And maybe it had crept up on them later, as a more conscious thought, after Hugo had married me. Overwhelmed them with possibilities.

I realized now I couldn't have done it. Couldn't have lived with a gay man. I loved Hugo so much, but I could not have done that. Oh my — why hadn't anyone recognized that? Known that I'd find it impossible? Except . . . nobody knew. Apart from Tommy, who lived in America, and who apparently had his own reasons, and Christina. No one close to me, anyway. And Peter would want to deal with the situation himself, on his own, I knew that. Without his mother adding her cloying, maternal worries about his welfare. He'd want to contain it, too. Wouldn't want me asking how he felt about it every five minutes, worrying he had even more baggage. In time, with maturity, who knows, he might have told me; might have realized it was a way of setting me free, but right now he was a teenage boy dealing with his own problems. Yes, possibly with time. Because although I always resisted seeing his father and purported to hate any contact, Peter had the emotional intelligence to know the truth, the relationship between love and hate, and how they could be the same thing. Not unlike another boy of about Peter's age, who, years ago, had figured that one out, too, on a cold winter's morning, just a few miles from here, over rolling green hills and steep valleys. Or so he'd told me.