Chapter 1
ONE
Reese
‘Yes, yes, absolutely,’ I say to my boss Zane, nodding my head as though he can see me even though we are on the phone, as he reels off a list of things that need to be completed before the Goldman wedding that is only three weeks away.
The back-seat car door opens and Kayla and Max slide in, throwing their school bags onto the floor.
‘Mum,’ says Kayla.
‘Look, Zane, I have to go. I promise you I’m on top of the flower delivery and everything will be perfect.
I won’t let you down.’ Without waiting for his reply, I hang up.
Zane knows he can trust me to get this right but he’s an absolute perfectionist and I understand that he needs to check and recheck that I have everything under control.
He’s probably tapping away at his computer right now with his neatly manicured fingers, sending me reminders for everything he’s just said.
A ping on my phone alerts me to a message and I see it’s from my cleaner, Mary, who, with her husband, has worked for me for years.
Just letting you know that we let the gas man in today. He needed to check the meter.
Thanks, I quickly message her back.
‘Mum,’ Kayla repeats, exasperation in her voice at not immediately being acknowledged. I know I should have popped my phone down before they got in the car. I hate being distracted when I pick the kids up from school.
‘Yes, love, hello. How was your day?’
‘I’m the very last person in my class without a phone. The very, very last person. I’m basically like a person who comes from the past,’ whines my daughter.
‘You’re nine, Kayla. You’ll get a phone when you’re twelve.
That’s the rule.’ It’s the rule that Nick and I agreed on and when we instituted it, I’m pretty sure that most of the parents of the kids in Kayla’s class had the same rule.
But they seem to have succumbed to their children’s entreaties one after the other. Nine is far too young for a phone.
‘But whose rule is it, Mum?’ my daughter asks. ‘I would like to know exactly where the rule comes from because I never agreed to that and when I ask Dad about it, he says that he doesn’t mind.’
I bite my lip, swallowing a laugh. She’s such a clever, funny child.
I don’t think my husband has said he’s happy for her to get a phone.
Instead, I think he was quizzed by our daughter when he was doing something else, like trying to fix the family computer, and answered with ‘yes fine,’ just to get her to stop nagging him.
Kayla knows how to pick her moments when talking to her father.
‘I’ll talk to Dad,’ I tell Kayla.
I already know I’m going to end up giving in. I’m a pushover when it comes to the kids. Whenever I try to maintain strict rules, I start thinking about how quickly they grow up and then I give in because making them happy is probably one of the best feelings in the entire world.
‘Okay,’ says Kayla and I can hear the smile in her voice.
My daughter is a force to be reckoned with.
‘She’ll be a lawyer like her father,’ my mother has said since the moment Kayla could speak.
And she’s probably right. Kayla looks like me, sharing the same wild auburn curls and green eyes, but her personality belongs to Nick. Her stubborn determination will get Kayla what she wants in life and I would never want to stifle that.
I sigh and close my eyes for a brief moment and when I open them again, it is to see the pick- up line supervisor, in his bright orange vest, waving me forward and out of the line. His whistle is in his mouth, ready to alert me to my lagging when other cars are behind me, waiting.
I wave my apologies and move off.
‘How was your day, Max?’ I ask my seven-year-old son as I pull into traffic.
‘We played basketball.’
‘That’s sounds like fun,’ I say brightly but Max doesn’t reply. Glancing behind me as I stop at a traffic light, I can see my son is gazing out of the window, his attention on something else.
Max looks like his father with sandy-blond hair, brown eyes and a square jaw but he isn’t really like either of us personality wise.
Instead, he is a dreamy child, always lost in his own imagination.
He struggles to make friends and I worry constantly about him fitting in.
He does seem to have found a group of boys he likes playing with this term.
But it has taken him the first six months of the school year to find them.
He’s shy and, given the choice, would rather spend time on his own.
But children need friends so I’m glad he’s found some. I have worried all year about him.
We are at the start of the third term and the weather is cold and the sky grey.
It’s certainly not perfect wedding weather and Zane was really grateful to get the Goldman job, as was I.
I never tire of planning weddings. Being around all that joyous anticipation makes me so happy.
There are always tricky moments, especially when large families are involved, but I’ve become adept at keeping everything on track so that the bride and groom have a beautiful day.
The children are quiet for the rest of the drive home, which gives me time to go over my list of things that need to get done.
I have been in event planning for fifteen years now and I still worry over each wedding, party or conference as though it’s my first one.
But I’ve never been bored in my job which I’m really grateful for.
Nick is in insurance law and, at forty-three, is finding himself restless in his job.
‘It’s just the same questions, the same contracts with different names, day after day and month after month,’ he told me last week when I asked him how his day was.
‘My day is always the same as the day before,’ he said, looking glum.
I think that dissatisfaction is spilling over into our home life as well.
He seems more distracted lately, more distant, but perhaps that’s just because we’re both working and time at home is taken up with the children and their needs.
And when I do have a spare moment, I usually have to make sure that all the things I have volunteered to do have been taken care of.
I’m the class parent for Max’s year which means a lot of messages in the group chat, and I’ve recently started doing some fundraising calls for our local animal shelter.
It’s a lot but I’ve been given a lovely life and I need to give back. It’s important.
But my marriage is important too. I really should plan a date night or even a weekend away for the two of us. And I will do that as soon as I get a little bit of time to myself.
Once we get home, Kayla has the car door open before I’ve even switched off the engine. ‘I’m starving,’ she calls as she darts from the garage into the house, leaving her bag for me to bring in.
‘I think I want peanut butter and crackers for a snack,’ says Max and then he grabs his bag and gets out of the car.
In my head, when I thought about the years of school pick-ups with my children, I imagined long conversations about what they did at school, things they had learned, games they had played.
Things are distinctly different to how I pictured them but I’m still so grateful that Zane allows me the flexibility to drop my kids off and pick them up from school.
Having children is the greatest joy in my life and I could never put work before caring for them, which I’ve made clear to Zane.
Despite having no children of his own, he understands my position and has never made me feel like I have to choose.
Although perhaps he gets the better end of that bargain. I work at night, on the weekends when Nick can take care of the kids and in the morning before the kids get up. But I love it.
As I grab my bag, my phone pings with an Instagram notification and I quickly swipe at the screen in case it’s an enquiry from a prospective client. In addition to everything else, I am in charge of the Instagram page for Zane’s business.
But the message is on my personal Instagram and it’s a request from an account I don’t follow.
I have a lot of pictures of the events I do on my personal page as well, pictures of me with brides in front of lavish wedding cakes and pictures of venues, dressed up for a party.
I’ve gotten more than one client from my personal Instagram page so I always make sure to check each message.
I feel a smile on my face in anticipation of a question about an event as I access messages but as I read the words, my body goes still and I feel my mouth drop. I am frozen in place, even as my heart races.
The truth about your life is that it’s built on a lie. It’s been a long time Reese and I’m finally ready to talk. You had better be ready to listen. Camilla.
I suck in some air, feeling my stomach twist. It’s been sixteen years. Why now? Sitting alone in my car, I feel a rising panic that threatens to overwhelm me.
There’s only one person I can talk to about this.
I read the message again and then I open my phone and tap Victoria’s name. My best friend.
The phone rings and rings and I bite down on my lip. ‘Come on, come on, come on,’ I mutter, unwilling to move until the call is answered, despite knowing that she’s at work and could be in the middle of a meeting.
‘Hey,’ I finally hear. ‘I assume you’re calling about the message?’
‘Did you get one too?’
‘I did, over Instagram,’ says Victoria.
‘What are we going to do?’ I ask and I can hear the edge of hysteria that has crept into my voice.
‘I can tell you what we’re definitely not going to do,’ Victoria says, her voice low and certain. ‘We’re not going to let that bitch ruin anything else.’