I slipped my phone into my bag, finished my coffee and wondered quite what the hell I was doing with my life. Wondered if I was just a stupid woman enduring a midlife crisis and justifying my selfish actions to myself in whatever way I could. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. After so many years of marriage. So many years of raising children and being sensible. Maybe I was stupid to expect anything more than simply working together like a team, managing the house and the family we’d created together. Stupid and vain and desperate for male attention. Why couldn’t I just be content with what I had?

Chapter Twelve

Elizabeth

I’d had that nightmare again. The one where I was with Laura but not with her. I’m watching her go through the last hours and minutes of her life and it’s as if I’m watching from behind a screen. I keep trying to reach out to her, but my hand only ever gets close. I never make contact. I can only ever reach out with my bad arm – the one that doesn’t work properly. No matter how much I try to use my other arm, it won’t move.

I call to her to wait for me, but she disappears, or the scene changes, or it gets too dark. I’m watching her as she tries to phone me, reaches my voicemail but doesn’t leave a message. I’m shouting at her to speak. ‘Leave a message, Laura! Let me hear your voice one more time!’

Maybe if I’d got a message, things would have been different. I wouldn’t have ignored a message the same way I’d ignored a missed call. I’d promised myself I’d call her back later, but I never got the chance. In the dream, she doesn’t hear me shouting. I’m stomping my feet, and banging cupboard doors and shouting until my throat hurts and my stomach constricts with the effort of it. I’m throwing things – hoping if I don’t reach her, don’t touch her, they will. They’ll distract her. They’ll get through to her.

I’m begging and pleading and shouting as I watch her walk out of her house, away from her husband, away from her children, away from me. I’m praying to Paddy, imploring him in his heavenly seat to get through to her. Pleading with a dead man, as if that would ever work. ‘Please, Paddy. Stop her. Stop our girl. Let her know she can’t leave me. It’s bad enough you’re not here.’

I run to the door to follow her, but I can’t open it. It won’t open. The locks keep disappearing and changing and locking again, and all the time I’m screaming at her not to go.