“About her fears. Stuart moving on. Someone else playing a mother role in her children’s life?”

Tamsin hesitates. I mentally brace myself, fully prepared to hear something I don’t like, but then I realize that she’s pausing because she doesn’t want to admit she wasn’t quite the confidante she likes to think she is. If Nina didn’t trust her, she wouldn’t have told her anything. Nina took issue with people who couldn’t keep secrets.

“Not really, but I did get the impression that she would have liked it to be someone with children the same age as hers. She thought they’d get it, really understand.”

“Oh.”

“There is one more thing, while we’re on the subject...”

I brace myself. Again.

“I think it would help if you let go a bit. Everyone loves the book group, but your insistence on hosting it here and nowhere else, it’s causing tensions.”

“Seems there’s a lot going on that I don’t know about.”

If I didn’t have my baby to think about, it would be a real wrench but...I’ll let this particular project go. However, it’s the only thing I am going to let go. Everything else is mine. If I’m going to hang on to it, then I need to be more proactive. It’s not just about me anymore. I have my child’s future to consider.

The next morning I wait a few minutes until after Stuart has left for work, in case he’s forgotten something (not that I can imagine him doing so), before I climb up into the loft. I tread carefully up the ladder as if I’m old. The thought of falling down and hurting my baby fills me with dread. Right now, he or she is the size of a poppy seed.

I struggle to find a light switch, even though light seems to force its way through various gaps. Once I manage to find it (it was a pull-down cord), I take in the area, aware that the smell, a mixture of cardboard, damp—maybe, or just sheer mustiness—is mildly suffocating.

There are ten or so cardboard boxes all neatly labeled: Clothes, Makeup, Shoes, Accessories. Stuart seems to have kept everything. I use a key to slice open several boxes, photographing them with my phone first so I can buy the same type of tape to reseal them. I’m safe for a while. I’ve never seen Stuart come up here. He’s packed away his pain, hidden until such time as he feels ready to truly let go.

The first four boxes are labeled Children’s Books (why haven’t they been kept out in easier reach for Felix and Em?). There are her favorites among old school exam books, but also plenty of nonfiction: healthy food and cookbooks, art, pregnancy, childcare ones, all subjects that have been a part of her life journey. But there are also others I didn’t know she was interested in: crime and punishment, prisoner rehabilitation. I take out a few, including one of the better-looking pregnancy ones.