Prologue
SARAH
Peals of giggling, childish delight carry in the salty sea air. Screeching and laughter and ‘Hey, look at me’. It lights a warmth in the pit of my stomach that radiates through my body all the way to the tips of my toes, now buried in the cool sand.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Michael asks, turning on the blanket and kissing my neck. His hand brushes against my thigh, flooding my thoughts with images of last night and the heat of our bodies.
I prop myself onto my elbows and feel the shift of sand and pebbles beneath the picnic blanket. I smile at Rebecca, sat propped up against a towel by my feet, babbling to herself as she plays with a collection of colourful stacking pots.
I nod to Daniel and Abigail by the shoreline.
A barefooted Daniel, six now, and full of the importance of a big brother, is crouching in the shallows of the North Sea on the coast of Suffolk, filling a yellow bucket with water and sludgy sand while four-year-old Abigail waits nearby, dancing from foot to foot as the waves hit the sand and run closer and closer.
‘I’m thinking how nice it is to see them playing together. And how I don’t want to go back to the real world tomorrow.’
We’re only an hour from our home in the Essex countryside, but it feels like a different world here. A different pace.
‘I thought you might be thinking up new ways to bribe Abigail into taking her shoes off before bed tonight,’ Michael says, pushing a hand through his dark-blond hair before shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun to watch too.
‘And that.’ My laugh is easy and light. A holiday laugh. I draw in a deep breath of fresh air and lean my head against Michael’s chest. I don’t want this feeling to end but already to-do lists and schedules are creeping into my thoughts, a tide moving ever closer.
‘Those shoes will probably fall apart when we get home, considering how many times they’ve been in the sea this week.’
I watch now as Abigail takes the yellow bucket from Daniel and carries it, water sloshing, up the beach a little to three huge rocks – boulders really – that sit a metre from the shore.
She is wearing a pink summer dress underneath an old Thomas the Tank Engine jumper of Daniel’s that she loves just as much as the garish red supermarket trainers Daniel chose for her birthday last month.
‘What time is Janie getting here?’ Michael asks.
I can tell from his tone that he’d rather not spend the last night of our holiday with my best friend.
I check my phone. ‘In an hour. And before you say anything, she was visiting her parents just up the coast and she’s the kids’ godmother. She’s been going through a tough time with Phil and I know she’d appreciate an evening with us. Phil might drive up too and join us for dinner.’
‘No luck with IVF then?’ Michael asks.
I shake my head. ‘Which is why she needs distracting. You know how much she dotes on the kids.’
My eyes stray back to Daniel and Abigail, and I feel another burst of warmth for how lucky we are.
I watch Abigail, brown hair straggly and wild, her face set in concentration as she places the bucket on one of the lower rocks before Daniel tips the contents out and they giggle as gloopy wet sand splats onto the rock.
I laugh too. The sound of it fills my ears and then my head and then suddenly the sound is all wrong. It’s a ringing in my own head. Distant and strange.
The sun pulls away. The sand disappears from between my toes. I don’t know what’s happening but instinctively I fight it.
‘Mummy.’ Abigail is calling me from the rocks, beckoning me to join her. Every cell in my body wants to leap up and run to her, to sweep her into my arms and hold her tight. Safe. Forever.