‘I don’t know any different,’ she said. ‘It’s been just me and Dad for years. I’m glad I’ve got him at least but I’d… I’d give anything to have one more day with her.’

Connor recalls these words now as he pinches his arm again and again until his skin is red and stinging.

He is treating his mum terribly. How would he feel if he never saw her again? Would her absence eradicate the guilt he felt on a daily basis for ruining her life? His life. Hailey’s. So many lives in tatters. How would Mum feel if she never had to see him again? The thought of being alone makes Connor panicky. Heat prickling his scalp, under his arms. But under the panic is something else.

Relief.

Sometimes he thinks Mum is so wrapped up in Kieron she wouldn’t notice if he ran away.

Disappeared.

Chapter Fourteen

Aidan

Aidan soothes the frightened mare.

‘Shh, Godiva.’ He rhythmically strokes her nose. Godiva has Cushing’s disease, a tumour in the pituitary gland. Aidan has been treating her for the past few months. Her owner, Stephanie, has both the time and the money to care for her.

The horse whimpers but she stops stamping her hooves. Instead, she muzzles into Aidan’s side, accepting the comfort he is offering.

‘She seems a little better?’ Stephanie’s question is brimming with her hope and her doubt.

‘She’s brighter,’ Aidan confirms.

‘It’s such a relief.’ Stephanie breaks into a smile. ‘I can’t imagine being without her.’

‘She’s a beauty. She reminds me a little of my last horse, Lancelot. Man, I miss those early morning rides.’

His Irish sports horse had fallen and broken his leg jumping a hedge, and although it was over twenty-five years ago, he still thinks about him most days. Sometimes Aidan questions whether medicine is backwards. Lancelot had been euthanized by a local vet because he was suffering and yet Aidan had months of unimaginable pain as surgeons pinned back together his pelvis. His hips still throb, a reminder in the cold weather, and when he’s tired he often limps.

‘Don’t you ride anymore?’ Stephanie asks.

‘No.’ He doesn’t elaborate but he hasn’t been on a horse since his accident. At first it wasn’t possible. His bones were healing, his heart too. As soon as he was able to drive, he had visited the stable but it had been cleared, another horse lodging in Lancelot’s place. He’d been handed a moth-eaten grey blanket that still smelled of Lancelot, and he had packed it carefully in a cardboard box, which he keeps in the garage. Sometimes, he still gets it out and smells it and then feels ashamed, less of a man somehow. He is supposed to be the one holding his family together, being strong.

‘Aidan?’