One word. But as soon as I saw it, I knew immediately what it meant. Because this week was about the four of us: Rowan, Jennifer, Izzy and me.

Which meant my husband, my soulmate, my rock, was having an affair with one of my three oldest and dearest friends.

Chapter 5

5

He wasn’t the type to have an affair, I told myself.

Not my Sean. Not my kind, loving, funny husband who told stupid jokes and gave the kids piggybacks and had sung them to sleep when they were babies.

And yet all the signs had been there these last few weeks: he had been increasingly secretive and preoccupied. Serious, even defensive at times. Constantly on his phone, going to the gym, taking more care over his appearance.

How could I have been so blind when it was happening right in front of me?

Who was she? Which one of my friends had betrayed me?

My heart was thudding in my chest, as if my life was at risk from some unseen danger. Fight or flight. I took my phone into the en suite and locked the door behind me, sat down on the closed toilet seat and called up the picture gallery, selecting an album from the last time we had all been together, a party at Rowan and Russ’s house in Chiswick, scrolling until I found what I was looking for.

There. A candid picture of all four of us, one of a few that Daniel had taken. Rowan talking and frowning into her iPhone, gesticulating with her free hand. Jennifer, fussing around her two teenage boys with suntan lotion. Izzy, leaning back against the wall, taking it all in with a wry smile on her face.

And me on the edge of the picture, looking distractedly at the camera.

We knew each other’s secrets, I thought. Those secret things that bound you together for all time, a common language of memories. We had talked about things with each other that we hadn’t shared with boyfriends or husbands. Things we hadn’t shared with anyone else. I thought I knew them – and it turned out I didn’t know one of them at all.

But I knew this: I had wronged all of them in one way or another. That was all I could think about. Over the years of our friendship, I had said and done things that – deliberately or not – had caused anguish and pain and grief to all three of my friends.

Maybe I deserved this.

All of the adult stuff fell away and it felt like I was fifteen again, crippled with anxiety and self-doubt, as if the last twenty-five years had been a dream. Taking off my clothes as if on autopilot, I dropped them in a pile on the floor and stepped into the shower.

I turned the water on and let the tears come, the rushing water stifling the sound of my sobs.

*