“No, it’s me.”

He reaches for his phone to check the time before he looks around the room in the semidarkness as though he can’t work things out or isn’t sure who I am. I refuse to feel like an intruder.

“It’s strange to think of us like this,” I say. “Lie back down.”

He does. Thankfully. He closes his eyes.

I trace my finger gently over his lips. “We didn’t plan this,” I say. “We’re not bad people.”

“I feel like we’re having an affair,” he says.

“It won’t always be like this.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. This has happened to other people. It’s normal to feel confused, up and down.”

“Maybe,” he says.

“Did you and Nina talk about...” I want to say moving on, but it doesn’t sound right. I opt for “...the future?”

He seems to be coming around more, adjusting to a more wakeful reality. He gets what I’m trying to say.

“Kind of. She said as long as it was with someone who accepted and loved the children, then that was the most important thing. She wanted me to be happy.”

“I’m not sure I could’ve done that in her position,” I admit. “She wouldn’t have necessarily wanted it to be me, though,” I say, choosing my words carefully.

“Nina wondered if you were settling for Ben,” he says.

“Is this your way of changing the subject?”

He laughs. “Maybe.”

“Nina never said that to me. I thought she liked him.”

“She did like him. I did, too. I think she was worried that he didn’t want children as much as you did.”

“Sometimes I think I never really knew Nina at all,” I say.

Up until now, I’ve gone along with the narrative that Nina was an angel, that she could do no wrong, that she was a great friend. But...perhaps it would genuinely help Stuart if, over time, I drip-feed in some more truthful elements about her. Doubt may speed up his healing, allow his guilt to diminish. Naturally, he’ll be more drawn to our new life because he won’t feel so duty-bound to her.

“But...” I say.

He sits up.

“She kept secrets from me, too.”

He bites. “Like?”

“Like she knew that Charlie was Louise’s father.”

“No way?”

I’m pleased that he sounds shocked. “Yes way.”

“How do you know?”

“Camilla and I had a little heart-to-heart this morning,” I say.

“And she just came out and told you?”

“No. I worked it out.”

I realize I haven’t told him about the emails or that I’ve been doing some digging. I’ll hold back a little longer, until I’m sure that there really isn’t anything developing between him and Camilla. Today has left me reeling and a bit jaded with human nature. I need to know everything that Camilla and Nina discussed, everything that Nina kept hidden from me.

“Did Camilla confess to anything else interesting?” Stuart says.

“Like what?”

He shrugs. “Like...I don’t know.”

“Let’s make a pact to always tell each other the truth,” I say.