Tom texts back telling me that she has left. Nothing else, no comment on how the meeting unfolded. I guess he’s keeping that to tell me when I get home. God, I could do with some good news.

Chapter Sixteen

Once again, Sally, you are wrong.

Dinner is on the table when I walk through the door. Well… what passes for dinner on a weekday. Frozen pizza and chips. Thank God for the crèche, making sure the kids get all their fruit and veg during the day. Tom whispers that he’ll fill me in when the boys are out of the way. I try to appear nonchalant but I’m dying to find out what’s going on, what plans are being made for my life.

Amber walks into the kitchen and lifts a slice of pizza in her hand while reading her phone at the same time. Is there no end to her talents?

‘Hi, Ma,’ she mumbles through the mush in her mouth before taking her attention away from the screen long enough to give Cian and Aaron a kiss. I don’t get one.

‘What about me?’ I say.

‘What about you?’ she laughs before blowing me a kiss across the table.

I move around to where she is standing, squeeze her tightly and kiss her on the head. ‘I want a real one.’

‘Ask him.’ Amber points at Tom. He looks at me, poor neglected Tom and in that moment I see the man I love, the man I married. Not the man who lied to me.

‘Okay.’

There’s extra heat in his body. Extra power in his hug. Lifting my face, I kiss his lips. Tom clings tighter. He doesn’t want to let me go.

Eat, clean up, get the boys’ bags ready for tomorrow, put in a wash, take out a wash. Suddenly it’s eight o’clock. The boys are in bed and Amber is in her room. I feel like I’m going through the motions when I should really be having a mental breakdown. It reminds me of when I heard my mother was dead. The sudden jolt, like I’d been transported to a different dimension. I was only fourteen at the time.

My dad called the school to say I was to come home straight away. Mam was sick. It was news to me, she was perfectly well when I’d left the house that morning. Mam had handed me my lunch which she made fresh every morning, I put it in my bag and unknowingly listened to her voice for the last time.

‘You should do something with your hair.’ Pushing my fringe out of my eyes, she kissed me on the forehead. Sometimes I kiss my fingers and place them on the same spot.