‘Hello. Lucy is here, are you looking for her?’ There’s a pause. ‘No. I don’t know. No. Bye.’ She places her phone back down. ‘He was calling to see if Fergus is back. Apparently he’s not answering his phone and Aidan wants to know he’s okay. Are any of us okay?’ She gazes at me despairingly.

And I don’t answer because I know that no, we’re not okay. Not even close. How can we be?

We’ve covered up for our children. Lied. There’s a constant pressure on my chest as I live in fear of being found out.

I should never have sent Connor back today.

What if…

My phone rings.

It’s the school.

Chapter Nine

Aidan

Aidan thinks of Fergus, his oldest friend hurting and in pain. Heading off to work as a pilot, flying his lonely travels around the world with no home to come back to. He wishes Fergus would pick up his calls, reply to his text messages at least. It’s not as though Fergus is the type to do anything rash but he can’t help worrying.

Aidan thinks of Mel – her future now rocky and uncertain. He thinks of Tyler who had later come back to the pub car park when Aidan was finally alone, head on his steering wheel, trying to process his thoughts, his lies, and asked him if everything was okay.

He thinks of Ryan and Connor. Friends forever, their bond unbreakable and yet spider-web fragile, the past stretching the gossamer fine strands; there are things to come that could snap them altogether. The boys had always been so close. Saturday night sleepovers. Padding downstairs, in matching Spider-Man pyjamas. Would Aidan read them another story, play Uno, hide so they could find him? And then they’d grown. Aidan would stand on the landing in front of Connor’s door, closed to him now, and smell pizza, cider, hear deep laughter, not the high-pitched giggles that used to make him smile, his heart aching, knowing if he stepped inside the room his son would fall silent, not craving the company of his dad anymore but irritated by it. As much as Aidan missed those times with Connor, he had consoled himself that at least his son was happy.

Then.

Aidan can’t remember the last time he heard Connor laugh, that Ryan slept over.

It was before the trip.

Everything good was before that bloody trip.

He thinks of Hailey. The way she once gazed adoringly at his son before her bright flame was extinguished.

Aidan thinks of Kieron, his boy sick and suffering.

He thinks of his wife. For better, for worse. The gold wedding band that circles his finger sometimes comforting but often, nowadays, a noose around his neck.

He thinks of himself trying to hold everything together, knowing it’s slipping from his grasp.

He is charged with emotion.