She’s sorry now. Now everyone has found out. Before, when it was your little secret, she wasn’t sorry at all. She’s eyeing me, looking for any sign that I’m going to turn on her, but I don’t. I want her to trust me, so I smile and nod. She follows me back into the bedroom and I watch her settle into what’s left of our bed, curled up and drowsy. She’s kitten-like, still selfish even though she knows she’s ruined someone’s life. I lie down beside her and pull the ragged quilt cover over us. It really is a lovely #allgirlstogether scene.

Her breathing slows. I can’t sleep. I look at the feathers in the bin bag. I pull down the box and examine pieces of my wedding dress. I loved that dress. Tiny seed pearls make a tap, tap, tap on the floor but she doesn’t wake.

I hurry back to my Facebook account and look at all the comments on Monica’s pictures. It’s light outside now and the world is waking up. Everyone is logging on to see the latest instalment in your downfall, and now they’re seeing naked Pam in my room.

It’s seven o’clock. Pam’s words snap at me. I’m on your side. Is she? Is she on my side? Fuck, fuck, fuck. Were they all on my side? Duped, like me? I stand outside my bedroom door. Our bedroom door. The thing is, I know that she is sorry. Genuinely sorry. But there’s one little thing that’s bugging me. She told me she followed me. Us. So she knew that we were together. Still a couple. Yet she kept on seeing you. For six months. What kind of woman would do that?

In the early days, when I first lost the children, I couldn’t understand how people could hurt other people like this and get away with it. How I could hurt so much, have so much wrong done to me, yet I could do nothing about it. It isn’t illegal to hurt someone you love. To ruin their lives. You just have to ‘get over it’. Let it go. Even the kind of cruelty you put me through. All’s fair in love and war. It doesn’t seem like it is right now. Not at all.

I turn around and look at the two doors facing me, both locked. My children’s names stencilled on the doors, with ivy frames. I want revenge, but I want my children back too.

Chapter Twenty-one

Pam’s suddenly behind me. I jump, wary of the horrible things I want to put her through that race through my mind. But I’m stronger than that. The thought surprises me and I straighten. She smiles.

‘Come on. It’s been a long night. Let’s have a cuppa.’