Three o’ clock, her phone said. Heidi checked for messages and returned it to her bedside table. Nothing from Elias, which was just as well. She held her left hand up above her face, flexing her pale, empty fingers. The ring would have shone in the dark, a blue planet circled by its diamond moons; but it had always felt heavy. It had caught on things. It had impeded how she gripped bike handles, carried shopping bags, and the way she lathered shampoo into her hair. Marrying, she saw suddenly, was taking on the weight of another person. It was an additional burden to carry. Theoretically for ever. Lucas would no doubt say he was doing the same for her, but it seemed to Heidi that there was no equivalence. She was happy Heidi, with a deeply connected and high-functioning family. There were no demons other than a cheeky younger brother and the shared sadness at her father’s much older parents no longer being around. She hadn’t erected a fortress to live behind. Her only buried secret was the very recent swoosh of arousal at the graze of Elias’s five-day beard against her neck, the warmth of his breath in her ear.

She sighed heavily, rolling away from Lucas. The fog in her head was back, worse than ever. He was breathing more noisily, and it was distracting. She tried aligning their breaths but it didn’t work. They weren’t in sync. She had a go at lying on her stomach instead, burrowing her head under the pillow. To send him home, to not touch him as he wept, had proved beyond her. But something deep inside had shifted, something big, and it made her fearful.

NOVEMBER

33

Esther’s eyes travelled on round the room, taking in the familiar furnishings, the gimmicky guitar clock that hung above the bed, a fifteenth-birthday gift from her and Lucas, the shelves and desk, chaotic with Dylan’s bits and bobs. All of it looking dejected, as if the whole place – like her – were still holding its breath for his return. Apart from an occasional hoover, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do anything, not even change the sheets. But Dylan was still alive – as the intermittent trickle of postcards kept testifying – and it was time to summon her courage and give the place a proper clean.