Even through the darkness and the closed windows, I could feel its energy and its intensity. It soothed me – that feeling, brooding and melancholic as it was, was better than the nothingness I felt without Ben. His presence had been fleeting but I could still hear the echoes of our conversations; I could see the empty tray from our tea and the dishes were stacked in the kitchen from our lunch. But he was gone again now.

He had slipped away too easily and all I could think about was how was I going to bring him back.

I blamed his father. He wasn’t the man he should have been for that boy. I thought about contacting Rory on a few occasions as Ben grew older. But I was scared. Scared of how he would react. Scared of the man he had become in the time we had been apart. But mostly I knew I was scared of who I had become since we parted.

I was a mother. My pure raw love was for that boy of mine and no one else would ever feel from me the sort of emotions I felt for Ben.

It was always going to be me and Ben. And no one else.

Until he met her.

4

GRACE

It was a mild spring afternoon when I saw the advert in the local magazine. A lady who had a large kitchen was running cookery classes from her home and so I signed up, eager to improve before any children came along. I had an idea in my mind that when I became a mother, I would also become an earth goddess capable of whipping up any meal for any occasion to appease my husband and satisfy my children’s hunger.

I arrived at Emily’s house one warm mid-March morning and signed myself up for several weeks of cookery classes.

Emily with her large waist and ample bosom, looked at my name on the paper and said:

‘Grace – that was my mother’s name.’

I took my place behind the large circular counter and nervously eyed up the other women. Then my eyes fell upon the lady next to me before my focus was moved to the little boy playing next to her feet. He was a bonny lad, only about two or three years old. I watched as he opened the door of the train carefully and shut it again without any force. Feelings came rushing back to me. Feelings of loss. A longing for all the dead babies. I was supposed to be a mother so why wasn’t it happening? Why was I being punished? I just needed my body to hold on to the next baby, that was all. I was determined to make it right. I thought that if I became the housewife I was meant to be then the babies would come. And so the cooking was going to help. I needed my husband to look at me again with those eyes, just like he used to.