When I escaped, I found Nina had been waiting for me outside. I wanted to hug her with sheer relief. But I didn’t. I put on a brave face—acted happy. The incident taught me to say only what people wanted to hear and hide my true self. I’ve often wondered if Deborah was behind it, if she’d been in to talk to the teachers about Nina “being allowed to widen her friendship circle.” I’ll never know for sure.

When Stuart and the children appear for breakfast in the morning, I head off for a shower, making sure I don’t come back down until they’ve all gone. I ignore the abandoned cereal bowls and the scattering of Cheerios across the kitchen countertops. I’m on a mission this morning to try to sort out some of Nina’s affairs. Not to mention that Christmas is six weeks away and Stuart’s parents’ arrival is imminent. I’m nervous because I want them to like me. We’ve only met once before, at Stuart and Nina’s wedding. I’m going to devote time to making them welcome and plan interesting family days out, especially when Stuart is working.

I lift the lid on Nina’s old laptop. The battery is dead. I hunt round in her kitchen drawers (which need a good clear-out as it’s where she stored stuff) but there’s no sign of a charger. Annoyed at the waste of my time, I step into Stuart’s study and glance at the shelves above his desk. Nothing. I yank open a drawer—he’s so much neater than Nina was—then another. The bottom one contains a twisted mess of wiring. I put them on the floor and sort through them, identifying one that will hopefully work.

It does. The laptop is slow to power up. I wipe the screen with a tea towel as it’s dusty. I switch the kettle on as I wait, hoping that Nina would have had a good filing system on this. She didn’t. Just as I’m about to give up for the day and shut it down, her old email address catches my eye. It is not her latest personal one or the business one. She’d saved all her passwords so it’s easy enough to log in. I scroll... She’d last used it the week before she passed away...and...one of the very last people she contacted was Camilla.

I click open the mail and read. As the words sink in, sickening realization stabs.

My concentration is killed for the remainder of the day as I desperately search for something to explain what I’ve found. By school pickup time, I have still not succeeded.

“Marie? Are you all right?” asks Felix.

I stop. For a moment, I thought he said, “Mummy.” I carry on heading in the direction of our home. I feel strange, like I’m having some sort of out-of-body experience, as if it’s someone else walking down the lane, holding hands with the children. The conversations between Nina and Camilla are at the forefront of my consciousness. Someone told me once that if we all knew what our closest friends said about us behind our backs, we wouldn’t be friends with them. It doesn’t make sense that Nina entrusted me with her final wishes if it’s true she didn’t one hundred percent trust me with her fears and secrets.