I feel my phone buzz in my pocket and it’s a text from Lee: ‘What colour do you want that cupboard painting?’

It’s already more choice than Jack ever gave me and I think he and Emma deserve each other. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start to the rest of my life.

Chapter Forty-four

Three months later

It’s Laura’s birthday and we’re having a party. Since they came home, the kids have been telling me about Daddy and Aunty Emma and how they used to go away for weekends and leave them with Nana and Jamie.

Laura took my hand one day and said that she loved me very much, but she missed Elijah, Nana’s cat. I searched deep inside my soul that day, looking carefully for a reaction. Something that would make me act on the emotions that this conjured up for me. There is nothing. You see, part of my problem now is guilt. A terrible sinking feeling when I recall what I did. The hate I felt for those women.

One of the bitchier members of staff tried to engage me in the staffroom with talk about mixing business with pleasure. I knew where it was leading and I was right.

‘The thing is, Caroline, I don’t understand why you would go to such lengths. Social experiment, yah.’ She touched her chin in faux consideration. ‘I just don’t see why you were so upset. This kind of thing happens every day. And, you know, the effects …’

I knew what she meant. She meant the effect on my children. I’ve seen the looks, even when it was all ongoing, the questioning glances. No wonder she lost her children. Look at her. She doesn’t deserve to have them back.

I even thought it myself. My mission for revenge was so intense, I was so engaged with Jack, or who I thought he was, that I thought of almost nothing else. But it was always a means to an end. Of course I went the wrong fucking way about it. Of course I did.

In the final analysis, I was damaged. I endured a life of mind games, abuse and isolation, until I had to find a safe place, somewhere inside me, somewhere to hide. The in-between. And to get there I took the alcohol route. I was literally falling apart. The lies Jack spun – and he was very convincing – meant that people abandoned me.