Kitty

Moving Home

Moving Home

Kitty finished emptying the downstairs cupboard and swept the dark space. It was as she scooped the sooty dust into the dustpan that she noticed the glint of something, a tiny flash of gold. Her heart leapt and she knew instantly what she’d found – her locket! It had been lost so long ago, she’d entirely given up on ever finding it, assuming it had snapped while she was walking on the heath or swimming in the public pool, and yet there it was.

She picked up the flat gold oval, minus its chain, and wiped it on the front of her T-shirt. Carefully, with her fingernail inside the join, she popped it open and stared at the tiny picture of her and Angus on their wedding day. The opposite side was engraved: To my darling Kitty on our ten-year anniversary. I love you today and every day.?Angus X

‘Oh gosh.’ She scanned the words again. With the locket now on the tabletop, she went to the sink, stretched her arms over her head and let the cold tap run a little until it was cool. She took a long glass of water back to the table. Running her fingers over the locket, she thought back to the day he’d given it to her. She placed the little hunk of gold in her palm and pictured herself some twenty years ago, remembering the optimism of her thirty-one-year-old self, who thought she had outrun the storm.

‘It’s so beautiful! Thank you!’ she’d enthused, beaming.

The months immediately after Angus’s confession had been tough. There were tears and rows and further admissions – about secret nights out with Thomas, undeclared memberships of gay clubs, and a crowd of friends she knew nothing about – and all the while they had to put on a good show for Sophie, making sure that she felt as secure and loved as ever. Kitty struggled a lot, confiding in Tizzy but unable to open up to her dad or even her cousins. It took a long time before she could face sleeping with Angus again, and even then she often couldn’t stop herself from picturing him and Thomas together, hating herself for wondering whether he got more pleasure from having sex with Thomas or her.

She opened the locket and gazed at Angus’s face, trying to see whether, with hindsight, she could detect any confusion, any dissemblance back when they got married. But she couldn’t. He looked genuinely happy. And perhaps he had been.

Kitty’s first demand after that horrible night had been that Angus break off all contact with Thomas. He began making more effort to come home earlier and Kitty found him more attentive, more present. There were still moments when he was quiet and she wondered who he was thinking about, whether he was regretting the way things had turned out. But one year on and things between them seemed better than they’d ever been. Soon after that, he’d given her the locket. It had meant the world. A new beginning, in more ways than one. They’d decided to have a child, a sibling for Sophie, a symbol of their renewed togetherness and their commitment to being a family.

The locket represented all of that – the self-delusions, and the joy of new life growing inside her. Like many of the memories she’d unearthed already that day, it was bittersweet. Even so, Kitty was glad she’d found it again.