I pick up his keys, slide on Nina’s wellies and go outside. I press the ignition switch on Stuart’s Range Rover. His GPS only confirms what the ticket has already told me.

Why hide the fact he was picking Camilla up from the airport? I feel sick because there is only one reasonable explanation. Images of Stuart and the children forming a perfectly blended family with Camilla—not Nina, not me, but bloody Camilla, of all people—are a real kick to the stomach because I’ve realized that Louise is the daughter I should’ve had with Charlie.

Fourteen

Camilla doesn’t even try to deny it. When she opens the front door to the cottage just before seven the following morning (I couldn’t wait any later), she doesn’t look surprised, almost as if she’s been half expecting me.

“I’m not proud of myself,” she says. “I didn’t know I was pregnant for a surprisingly long time afterward. Denial, I guess. I went abroad for a fresh start. My paternal grandparents lived out there. I built a life. My parents died within a few months of each other not long after I moved away. I buried everything until Nina got in touch and—”

“Why keep your visit secret?”

“It wasn’t a secret as such. Think about it rationally—Nina was desperately ill. Who she chose to connect and why I’m sure were deeply emotional, complicated decisions and wishes. Marie, Nina wasn’t your responsibility. You shouldn’t be here. You still have that tendency to overdo things.”

“Stuart wants me here,” I say.

Even as I say the words out loud, I don’t know if they are true.

“Oh for God’s sake, Marie. Get your own life. At college you stifled Nina. Even on holiday she wasn’t even allowed to sunbathe on her own. There you were, getting her towels, telling her to wear a stronger sunscreen, buying her favorite things from the supermarket, fussing over her like a protective mother. It was suffocating.”

“Because now you and Stuart want to make a go of it?” I say. “That’s why he came and picked you up from the airport, that’s why he agreed to you living here. That’s why you came back. It’s all very convenient.”

“Of course not,” she says. “He was visiting a client in Windsor. He offered me and Lulu a lift. Look, there’s no great mystery. Nina only wanted to protect you. She said you struggled to move on from what happened to Charlie, that you were desperate for children. If it helps, Nina was really angry about me and Charlie. We fell out over it. That’s why we lost touch for so long.”

That Nina knew so much more than she ever admitted to, that she sat there and listened while I went over and over where it had all gone so wrong with Charlie, that I regretted accusing him of sleeping with Camilla, is yet another blow.

Renewed doubts about my loyalty to Nina and my being here, playing at happy families, take hold. Perhaps I was too much of a pushover in the past. I’ve had enough.