Chapter 9 Fenna – Day 2
Fenna leans over the toddler bed and brushes her fingers through Alba’s curls. ‘Night night, darling. Daddy will give you a kiss when he gets in.’
God knows what time that will be.
Luke got to his feet as soon as they’d finished dessert and announced he would be going for a drink with Theo and Rosie.
Irritation curled inside her. She’s still annoyed that her husband didn’t tell her what he and Jonno got up to when they were last here.
When she brought it up, Luke claimed he forgot to transfer the cash from his idiot mate to Gerry. He said he would sort it straight away.
His group of friends could get lairy at times, especially without their wives to calm them down, but she’d thought that kind of behaviour was in the past. Since they all started having children, ‘the squad’ – as Luke embarrassingly referred to them in the WhatsApp group – didn’t hang out together as often.
Fewer golf days, poker nights, and beer-filled European weekends away.
So their taking the chance to blow off steam, get drunk on Italian wine, and make fools of themselves shouldn’t be a total surprise to her.
Julietta offered to stay late and help get the children to bed but Fenna hugged her tightly and said it was ok. The poor woman had been at work for hours. If Fenna’s honest with herself, it’s easier to get things done this way. Her way.
Fenna zips up Alba’s thin sleep bag as quietly as she can. She’s had to put her back in her bed twice already.
‘Sweet dreams.’ The sound of Alba gently sucking on her dummy makes her smile. No doubt Marianne will have something to say about her still having one when she sleeps.
Fenna thinks about her conversation with Rosie earlier by the pool.
Luckily Marianne didn’t overhear them talking about Danielle Dixon.
Her mother-in-law likes to pretend everything is perfect.
She thinks she’s doing the right thing by shutting any difficult conversations down.
That’s what the Frasers do. Luke is the same.
Any time there’s something that needs to be discussed, he retreats into his shell and acts like it will go away.
But you can’t run from your problems forever.
Rosie clearly had a head full of questions. And Fenna doesn’t have all the answers.
Danielle disappeared many years before Fenna met Luke, but whenever her name was mentioned Marianne struggled to remain dry-eyed.
At first, Fenna thought it was strange how teary she got for a complete stranger.
Now she’s a mother she gets it. She can’t imagine the pain and anguish of your child going missing.
Danielle is someone’s baby. The fact that her family hasn’t given up hope after all these years is remarkable but understandable.
Before she leaves the nursery, she pulls open the wardrobe doors.
No one is hiding inside. She drops to her knees and sweeps a hand under Alba’s bed, using the light from her phone to see into the far corners.
No one underneath. She angles the beam of light up to the corners of the room and around the window frames.
Everything looks ok. She steps back, making sure the monitor is plugged in and working, and that there is nowhere else she’s missed.
The daily checks on the children are a hangover from home.
Luke wants the monitors to go. He thinks it’s overkill in their narrow terraced house, but it makes Fenna feel better to be able to watch them at all times.
It’s a necessity, after what happened. She’s not a paranoid mother, but until they can afford to move it’s the compromise he has to live with.
Satisfied, she leaves Alba’s door slightly ajar and pads across the hallway.
Her and Luke’s bedroom is one of her favourite rooms in Villa Speranza.
The views from the wide floor-to-ceiling windows are spectacular.
Right now glinting stars illuminate the expanse of patchwork fields.
Utter peace. Such a contrast from the noise of London.
Raffi is fast asleep in his cot beside their king-size bed. She has about twenty minutes until he will wake for his next feed.
Whilst brushing her teeth, she taps open the monitor app on her phone. The grainy black-and-white screen shows the room temperature and a view of Alba’s toddler bed. Her daughter’s chest moves softly, rhythmically.
Fenna remembers a moment during bathtime. Marianne had offered to help, making a dig that perhaps an earlier bath would make Alba sleepier as she was ‘full of beans at dinner again’.
‘That was thoughtful of Rosie to bring a gift.’ Marianne had nodded to the plastic doll Alba was thrashing in the lavender-scented water. ‘It must be overwhelming meeting us all in one go. Poor girl.’
‘I thought you’d met her before?’
‘Nope.’
A bubble of anxiety rose in Fenna’s throat. Alba’s happy squeals tore through her. ‘So, she’s a complete stranger?’
Fenna’s certain that Luke had told her that Theo and Rosie went for dinner with Gerry and Marianne.
Didn’t he? Maybe she’d misheard him thanks to her sleep-deprived brain fog.
The other day she found the remote control in the fridge.
She must have put it there when getting the milk out for a cup of tea.
Marianne picked up on this glimmer of panic. ‘Not everyone has an agenda, Fenna. What happened was a one-off.’
Suddenly she wasn’t perspiring in the wet heat in the bathroom, her knees pressing into the Italian stone tiles, her heart pounding. She was back at home in London. A place of sanctuary, until it was shattered a month ago when someone broke into their house.
Luke’s laptop was stolen along with his expensive golf clubs and one of his mum’s original paintings.
She’s grateful that he has taken on the headache of sorting out the insurance claim.
The police gave her a number for a generic national helpline for victims of crime.
She never called it. The officer she spoke to also made a vague promise that they would try and catch the perpetrator, but she’d had no updates.
Whoever did it is still out there.
Marianne had asked her to pass the baby shampoo, breaking the spell.
Fenna swallowed the spike of panic down, blinking away the heart-stopping moment she came downstairs in the early hours of the morning and found the back door smashed in.
They’d slept through it all. Thankfully no one was hurt, but she can’t help playing the what if game.
What if the burglar had come upstairs? What if they’d harmed the children?
What if one of her family had been seriously hurt?
Her GP prescribed low-strength sleeping pills – because she was breastfeeding she couldn’t take the strong ones – which helped remove the night terrors, but the fear of another break-in – a stranger in their home – still hasn’t fully gone away.
Fenna climbs into the enormous king-sized bed, savouring the softness of the sheets and the scent of the fabric softener Julietta uses.
Perhaps Luke is right that coming here will do them good.
Being at Villa Speranza is the first time her anxiety has lifted.
There’s something about the Tuscan farmhouse that soothes her.
Perhaps it’s the reassuring solidity that comes from the old building, the peace and stillness, or the connection to her Italian ancestry; she doesn’t know, but she feels safe here.
She glances at the time on her phone. It’s almost eleven o’clock. Her finger hovers over Instagram, pulled by a desire to do a deep dive into Rosie Riley.
Raffi lets out an adorable snuffle from the cot beside her.
With a yawn, she taps open the white noise app instead and puts her phone on the bedside cabinet. Luke said he did a thorough background check, and she trusts him. He wouldn’t put his family in danger.