BooksBarbecue
Back Perfect Ten
Chapters (45)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-one
  22. Chapter Twenty-two
  23. Chapter Twenty-three
  24. Chapter Twenty-four
  25. Chapter Twenty-five
  26. Chapter Twenty-six
  27. Chapter Twenty-seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-one
  32. Chapter Thirty-two
  33. Chapter Thirty-three
  34. Chapter Thirty-four
  35. Chapter Thirty-five
  36. Chapter Thirty-six
  37. Chapter Thirty-seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-one
  42. Chapter Forty-two
  43. Chapter Forty-three
  44. Chapter Forty-four
  45. Acknowledgements

Ten minutes later I’m sitting in Katy’s lounge. Her house is warm and comfortable and Jamie is running around. He’s a mini Jack, which is very painful for me at first. He keeps bringing his toys to me and looking at me with those perfect dark eyes that are my ex-husband’s. But it’s not his fault. I pull him onto my lap and give him a big cuddle and I miss my own children.

I spend the rest of the day helping Katy and playing with Jamie. I’m Aunty Caz and we’ve already got a rapport. Katy cooks pasta and then, at eight, I run a bath and try to relax. It’s impossible. Despite my guilt, I’m fuming about DS Percy’s take on my nighttime activities. And at Jack, for not knowing when it’s time to turn the page, like Tori Amos says. For not knowing when he’s beaten.

Katy shows me to the guest bedroom and I lie in the pristine bed under a feather quilt on soft pillows. In between sleep and wakefulness I wonder if, if I had my time again, I’d do anything differently. I can’t imagine a time before Jack and I were married when I would have realised what he was like enough to call it off. I suppose I thought I could change him. That when we were married he would be mine.

If we hadn’t married I would never have met our children. Yet, deep down, I know this romanticised kind of excuse-making is only me trying to explain to myself why I was stupid enough to fall for his manipulation. I believed that love trumped everything and that he loved me. I do regret it. I do regret ever meeting him. I can’t change the past, but I can make the future better.

As I drift off in the early hours I feel a sudden burst of optimism as I realise that Charlie and Laura and Jamie will, after all, have a future together, not with Jack but with me and Katy as friends.

Katy wakes me at eight. She knocks on the door and brings in a cup of tea, which I drink in bed. I switch on the TV and there’s a woman on Breakfast Time talking about infidelity and its effect on children. I quickly flick it off. Kids are resilient and, it turns out, so am I. I get dressed and go downstairs.