Nicki
Charlotte screams and runs past Lauren, before locking herself in the upstairs bathroom. For a moment, we’re united in our stunned silence, all desperately trying to metabolise what’s happened.
I realise, in the course of only a few hours, I’ve managed to derail my entire life. I’ve ruined my marriage, and my most important friendships, only weeks before my baby’s due. I clutch my bump in abject terror and try to figure out how to cope with the next five minutes.
‘Fuck all of you,’ Steffi announces, descending the stairs two at a time, her phone already out.
‘Pleasant as always, Steff,’ I call after her, before trying to make eyes at Lauren. We’re the only two who haven’t verbally attacked one another today and I could really do with having someone on side, but, as I take her in, I realise she’s somewhere else entirely. She’s blinking madly as she comforts Woody, but her eyes are unfocused, hovering in the mid-distance. She doesn’t see me. She’s just shhing him and bouncing him while tears pour down her face. She looks . . . I don’t mean this in a cruel way, but she looks totally insane. Like, somebody needs to come and catch her with a butterfly net insane. I take a step forward, thinking I should help, but my brain’s already racing back to its selfish default setting. Where’s Matt gone? I need to catch up with him and fix everything. I can’t deal with this right now. Lauren . . . the way she’s been . . . I find it hard to be near her. It feels dark, contagious. I won’t be like this when my baby is born, will I?
‘Shh, shh, Woody. Don’t cry. I’m here. Mummy won’t go anywhere ever again. I give up. I won’t try to have a life, I promise. Not when you hate me doing it so much. It’s over. You won, baby. You won.’
‘I just need to go find Matt,’ I tell Lauren, who gives a tiny nod of her head. A snippet of a sane response. ‘Then I’ll be back and we have a cup of tea, I promise.’ I don’t think she’s really heard me, but I make my way down the stairs as hurriedly as I can. When I reach the bottom, I hear her mutter to herself.
‘Woody won’t let us have a cup of tea anyway. Woody doesn’t let me do anything.’
And, still, I leave her.
The heat is just as ridiculous as it’s always been as I waddle outside, down the front steps, and onto the empty driveway, desperate to see Matt. But there’s no supportive husband here to reassure me, just tyre marks in the gravel, and a message that comes through on my phone.
Matt:
I’ve taken the car for a drive. I need to clear my head.
I sink onto the gravel, my bump weighing me forward, and weep into my hands with my face pressed into the stones. He’s going to leave me. I’m going to be a single mum. I can’t be alone with this . . . this thing . . . this tidal wave in my life. I cry and cry, massaging my bump and panicking at the sheer irreversibility of it – apologising to it, telling it I don’t know what to do, how I’ve let it down already.
My nostril wrinkles as I smell something off. I lean up, look around, and see smoke blowing across the driveway .