Michael took me back into the house and made me steak for breakfast, just like he promised. Then he gave me a ruby ring for my little finger and made beautiful love to me in his bed. Michael wasn’t anything like the man I’d imagined the night before. That man, I decided, was definitely some warped dream born of my creepy surroundings. This was my Michael – gentle and caring. It felt like when we first met and it was perfect.

After that, Michael took me into the woods and let me drive his bike around in my underwear. He brought a shotgun with him and pretended to aim it at me as I drove, saying he was practising his hunting skills.

‘It’s not loaded, is it?’ I called out, laughing and ducking as I drove past him.

After finding Diane at the house and the awful disconnected sex I’d dreamed the night before, I clung to Michael’s loving and attentive mood. Yesterday, I’d felt like a total interloper. Diane had the greater claim. Childhood sweetheart. Married. But today I was his princess. The love of his life.

Still, my brain hurt.

It was getting harder and harder to make the pieces fit together. The things Michael was saying didn’t match the things he was doing.

I knew it but chose not to see it.

I hate myself for that now. I hate myself for so many things I can never change.

Liberty

Skywalker barks and barks at the doorway. Poor little dude, he doesn’t like it when there’s someone between us.

‘What am I looking at?’ I ask Michael, peering into the chugging chest freezer. It glimmers with sugary delights – cherry and chocolate ice cream, Black Forest gateaux, a box of macarons in pastel colours, all bathed in acid-yellow freezer light.

Michael pulls out a clear bag of sliced cake. ‘This.’

‘Cake?’

‘Not just any cake. It’s birthday cake. Can you guess whose?’

‘Whose?’

‘Yours, Liberty.’

‘This is my birthday cake? But it’s not my birthday.’

‘I know. There’s are sixteen pieces in there. I held a little birthday party every year for you. Every single year. Sang you happy birthday, lit some candles. Thought about what you looked like and prayed and prayed we’d find you. Then I cut you cake and stored it in the freezer. I was so certain that one day you’d walk back into my life.’ Tears fall down Michael’s craggy cheeks. ‘And on that day, I wanted to show you I’d never forgotten you. Give you something of the life you’d missed out on. It was my way of doing something positive, you know? I couldn’t freeze time and stop you growing up without me. But I could freeze the cake.’

‘Wow.’ My lips feel swollen. Hot tears sting around my eyelashes.