I didn’t want any part of the shack unliveable when the kids came to stay next week. Saxon hadn’t been enthused when I’d told them, but Payton was excited to be actually going away for some of the holidays. It had been a few years since we’d had a proper vacation as Adrian always resisted taking more than a few days away from the clinic. Ever since I’d told them about the trip, Payton had been asking me all sorts of questions about Ragged Point and had already packed her bag even though they were spending the first week of the holidays with Adrian.

Although Easter Sunday had landed on the last day of my week with the kids, Adrian had asked if he could take them to his mum’s place for the usual egg hunt and extended family lunch. His short message had been like a blow to my head and my gut—a king hit and a sucker punch at once. Easter, Christmas, birthdays … these would be changed forever. How would we decide who’d have the children when? Maybe Adrian would get Easter, but I’d get Christmas, and the following year we’d swap. Or would it be better if they spent the morning with one of us and the afternoon with the other?

Easter was bad enough, but I loved Christmas and the thought of not waking up with my kids, spending the whole day with them, didn’t bear thinking about.

As I’d stared down at his message, I’d wanted nothing more than to reply with a simple ‘No’ or, better still, not reply at all. Petty or not, I’d wanted to punish him, to show him that he couldn’t have his chocolate eggs and eat them too—but that would also be punishing my kids. Saxon pretended to be too old for the Easter Egg hunt, but he secretly loved it as much as his little sister. It was a tradition that began when he could barely walk and, as hard as it would be for me to spend Easter alone, I couldn’t begrudge my babies this special activity—their lives were changing, and they were losing enough already.

Five minutes after I’d reluctantly agreed to Adrian’s request, I’d received an awkward phone call from my mother-in-law, reminding me that I was still part of the family and more than welcome to ‘tag along’ to Easter lunch as well. I don’t think she’d meant anything by her choice of words. Glennis and I got along well; she’d called me her ‘other daughter’ as Hayley and I were growing up, and she and Paul had joked at our wedding that Adrian had finally made that official. But her ‘invitation’ had felt like being asked to the wedding of an ex-boyfriend.