Anna’s first urge was to stride up to Gayle and let rip, but then she thought about how both Spencer and Gabi had always said that she bottled everything up until she couldn’t hold it in any longer and then it all came pouring out in an unintelligible eruption, ‘unintelligible’ being the operative word. She couldn’t have that. She needed Gayle to get this, to understand that it was not okay to have excluded her from today’s plans so completely.

When she reached her in-laws, Anna fixed Gayle with a steady stare and opened her mouth to begin. At the very same moment, Richard unscrewed the lid of the urn and Anna choked back the words, hit by a pain in her chest that was as powerful as it was unexpected.

A high-pitched wailing pierced the bluster of the wind around them, not a cry of despair but something primal and raw.

Anna guessed that she must have lost her internal battle after all, that the moment the lid had come off the urn, the boiling emotions she’d been trying to keep at bay had overtaken her like a tidal wave. She clapped a hand over her mouth as Gayle crumpled beside her, dropping to the wrinkled wet sand, and Anna realized it wasn’t her making the noise after all. It was her mother-in-law, her perfectly put together mother-in-law.

The sand and saltwater were making an awful mess of Gayle’s smart outfit, but she didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy trying to grab a breath between the heaving sobs, supporting herself with one palm splayed against the damp sand, her fingertips digging in so deep they disappeared.

Anna wanted to grab Gayle by the arm and force her to stand up again, to make her stop that horrible noise. No, she wanted to scream. This was not your moment. This was not your husband. He was mine! And I was his happy place, not this soggy, dirty beach. I was what brought him the most joy!

Both Richard and Scott attempted to help Gayle up, but she batted their hands away, and her raw sobbing continued. Anna stared down at Spencer’s mother, and words from that strange late-night phone call on Valentine’s Day drifted into her mind.

When life changes suddenly and unexpectedly, there’s a grieving of what was and what can never be again. I would call that being human…

Yes, Anna reminded herself, finding steadiness – strength – from those words in what was otherwise a day full of vertiginous twists and turns. They grounded her, brought her back to what was real and true. Whatever Gayle has done today, she is human. And she deserves my compassion.

Slowly, carefully, she got down on her knees beside Gayle, put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close.

Chapter Eleven

ANNA FOLLOWED GAYLE and Richard’s Rover back from Camber Sands to their house, sitting stiff and tight-lipped behind the wheel of her car. Her anger had been quenched briefly when Gayle had broken down on the beach – no one could have remained unmoved by that gut-wrenching sorrow – but it had begun to grow again as she’d stood by helplessly while Richard and Scott had scattered Spencer, or what was left of him, onto the waves.