‘Should you? Should you? Maybe you should but that’s not what Mother thought. No, she thought she’d send you to have a better life keeping me here to look after your big mistake.’

She turns her stare away from me, picks up a knife from the counter beside her and runs her finger along the blade. I’m getting nervous now, I’ve never seen someone so angry. I move closer to the door.

‘But what about now?’ I plead. ‘You have to tell him the truth, he’s seen the letters. He knows who his father is.’

‘You just couldn’t stay away, could you? Trouble, trouble, trouble.’ She’s moving towards me now, holding the knife in her hand. Sweat seeps from my forehead into my eyes blurring my vision, my heart is in my mouth. I have to get out of here.

When I leave the house, she’s alive.

Tom

They never told me he was born.

I should have told Sally straight away when he came to my office that day. But I was afraid, afraid of what it would do to our marriage. Things were good following the dark spell when I lost all her money. She forgave me and I didn’t want to land another bombshell on her, not yet. I had to wait until the time was right. Sal is everything to me I don’t want to lose her or break up my lovely family.

‘What do you want?’ She turns her back to me before I have a chance to see her face and walks down the hallway into the kitchen. I follow. When I enter the room she’s standing at the far end against the table. She stares at me, her eyes red, tired, like she’s having a rough day.

‘I thought we had an agreement,’ I say, walking closer to the table, trying to make eye contact. She grunts a laugh. ‘You agreed to wait, I was supposed to tell my wife but now she’s seen a photo of him. Why did you do that?’

Claire looks like she’s in a trance, swaying slightly, looking through me. ‘It wasn’t me.’

‘But who else could it be? No one else knows?’

‘You’re sure about that?’ she says, in a tone that suggests I could be wrong. ‘I never wanted him to know about you.’ Her voice is sharp, cutting the air with its edge. ‘He was happier before you came along filling his head with ideas. So why would I show your precious wife a picture? None of this is my doing.’

‘If you didn’t, who did?’