He covered his nose and mouth with a dust mask and got back to work.

Chapter Ten

Maddy: Late September 2019

Maddy wakes early, still paralysed by sleep, mouth slack. Her dress hangs with his suit outside the wardrobe like spectres in the grey light. She listens for the door clicking or Max’s footfall on the stairs. Nothing. He’ll be back soon. He has to be. There’s still time.

She pushes herself up. It took hours last night for her mind to finally stop racing, going over where Max could be and everything they last said to one another. She’s been so deep in her own grief, it didn’t occur to her that he wasn’t coping. Out of the window, the birds are pecking at empty feeders in the dim light, fooling themselves with their vainglorious chirping. Peals of laughter from Chloe’s previous birthdays rise up from the garden. Why didn’t she stop to savour each moment; Chloe pulling silly faces or blowing out her candles?

She crawls back into bed on Max’s side, cold as a slab. Her hand goes straight to her bump. Her eyes shut. She conjures up Max’s boyish face, always smiling or winking no matter how bad things were. She fights the urge to cry and folds her arms over herself, trying to rub warmth into her skin. She dreamed last night that Max had been standing at the front door, knocking endlessly. The only reason she hadn’t seen him all this time was because he’d been standing there, and she hadn’t heard him.

Absentmindedly, she picks a hair off her pillow, then another. She drags the pads of her fingers across the cotton, collecting enough hair to twist into a thin rope.

In the shower she stands under the heat for too long, leaving her skin blotchy and scalded. When she peers in the mirror, there are lines she hasn’t noticed before. Her skin is pale as though she is fading away. Where her hair is pushed back, a fan of thinning white frames her face. For a split second, it’s her mother staring back at her. A wisp of air wafts in from the window. She closes her eyes and breathes in Chloe’s sugary scent.

In her dressing gown, she wanders downstairs, into the garden to refill the bird feeders. The Black Moon pansies are in full bloom around the sundial. Chloe helped her plant the flowers last autumn. They’d had such fun. Chloe squealed every time she came across a worm and was mortified when she found one sliced in half.

It must be an hour before Emily discovers her sitting there.

‘Mummy, you need to get ready.’ She is wearing one of Max’s sweat shirts over her dress. It looks ridiculous but Maddy is too exhausted to complain.

‘Have you seen these, darling?’ She points to the pansies.