Pulling the plug on my hairdryer for the last time today, I finally receive a bit of pampering. The salon was so busy, no one got a minute to blow-dry my hair so I did it myself during my break. Sienna is now attempting to make my face look its best. Which it hasn’t for a long time.

With my make-up done, I look at my face in the mirror. It resembles nothing like the turmoil boiling inside of me. Thanking Sienna for her work of magic, I leave the salon and head for home.

Chapter Forty

Amber looks eighteen. I hardly recognize her when she comes down the stairs. Her hair flows in waves around her heavily made-up face. False eyelashes dominate the look. I don’t want to tell her she looks beautiful, which she does. I want to tell her, take that off you, bring back my baby. But I won’t. I would have loved to have my mom to compliment me when I first started going to parties.

‘Amber! Wow.’

‘Do you like it?’ she says, looking in the hall mirror while rambling on about who did this and who did that.

‘You look so grown up.’

‘Thanks, Ma.’ It wasn’t meant as a compliment but if it makes her happy.

‘You look lovely too, Ma.’ Amber moves closer to me, her eyes inspecting every inch of my face. ‘I like the brown eye shadow.’

‘Thanks, love.’ She’s still in her tracksuit, she hasn’t put the dress on yet. Hopefully I’ll be gone out the door by then. The thoughts of seeing my baby strutting her stuff in a twelve euro barely-covers-the-essentials dress, doesn’t appeal to me. I’ll let her father deal with that one.

With little more than half an hour before I have to leave, I check in on Tom who’s feeding the boys in the kitchen. Aaron stares at me, trying to figure out if it’s really me under all that make-up. Tom says, ‘Woohoo,’ while placing two plates in front of the boys.

‘Where’s Kenny?’

‘He had a football match, someone is dropping him home.’

Home, the word hangs in the air. With no time to wallow in my torture I kiss the boys and tell them we’ll do something nice tomorrow. It’s important I keep things as normal as possible for the boys, spend more time with them. So much is going on I have to make sure all this turmoil does not affect them. I don’t want them to ever feel neglected.

‘Can we go to the playground?’ Cian says, stuffing something that resembles a vegetable into his mouth before spitting it back onto the plate.

‘We can go anywhere you want.’