I open my mouth to tell him. Know it would shut him up. But then, what if it changed how he thinks of me? Would he be angry that I’ve kept it from him? And all those people, Kathleen included, who thought I was mad, that I was a naughty little girl who told lies for attention, would they tell him all about the girl I was? The trouble I caused?

The fire I started. If I close my eyes I can still taste the acrid smoke as it started to choke me. Still remember heavy hands, pulling me away. Still remember kicking out at them. I just wanted it all, myself included, to burn.

How could he look at me the same if he knew it all? At best, he’d see me as a victim. At worst, he would see someone who had been driven to madness. Would he ever be able to trust me to be alone with Lily? I know I had struggled while pregnant with those same fears – fears that were allayed for me the moment she was placed on my chest and I knew I’d do everything to protect her. To protect my family.

I feel a bubble of shame and grief and anxiety rise up. I see Alex search my face for an answer, but it’s not one I can give right now. Not without ruining everything.

‘You’re right,’ I say, and I know my voice sounds funny. Angry. Frustrated. ‘You’re always right.’

And still he searches my face for signs of the truth and I just look at him, not daring myself to talk, until he gives up. He throws his hands in the air, then plunges them deep into his pockets as he turns away. ‘I think I hear Lily,’ he says. ‘I’ll go check on her.’

I know as well as Alex does that Lily isn’t making a noise, he just needs an excuse to leave. I stay in the garden, even though it is starting to rain. Fat drops of ice-cold rain land on my face, stinging me where my skin is rough and sore from the tears I didn’t even realise I had been crying.

They start, as these things do, slowly at first. Little drops. Warning signs leaving me enough time to get inside if I want to. It’s like they’re telling me to go. To run. Take shelter. Now they come in greater numbers, but still I know I can get into the house relatively untouched if I just move. But I can’t move. I’m frozen in the middle of all this and the rain rushes at me, soaking me through to the bone until I am so wet, so icy cold that the hailstones that have started to fall don’t hurt. I am untouchable. I don’t care about the storm. I have always been right in the middle of one.

Chapter Seventeen

Heidi

Now

I offer to make Alex a cup of tea when we get home. He refuses, says he is tired and takes Lily from me and goes upstairs. We barely spoke on the drive home and I can’t shake the feeling that everything is slipping out of my control.