Page 65 of The Happy Family

I put my son back in his bouncer before retrieving the package from the hallway and carrying it into the kitchen. It’s not heavy at all, it’s actually as light as a feather, so that was just a lie that man told so he had a reason to step into my house.

I have a very bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if I’m part of something that is well beyond my control. This is very unfamiliar territory for me. I usually know everything that is happening. I’m usually the one making it happen. But not right now.

All I can do is open this parcel.

As I rip into the cardboard, I think about how I used to deliver things to Sadie all the time. That was how I found her family and it was also how I was able to give her the tainted vitamins that caused her to fail a breathalyser test and look like the world’s worst mother. But what has she delivered to me?

I reach into the box and find a photo.

It’s one I recognise.

It’s one of Sadie, Reid, Arthur and Ruby.

It’s the same photo I defaced when I broke into Sadie’s home and scratched her face from the image.

But it has been restored. She must have had a digital copy of it and had it reprinted. Now it looks like it did before I left my mark on it.

But why has she given it to me? What is the meaning of it? Is she trying to say that her family is back together and I’m still the odd one out? If so, she’s wrong because I still have Reid and her children and she has nothing.

Then I turn the photo over and see that something is written on the back.

You took my family. Now I’m taking your freedom.

P.S. Smile for the camera.

FORTY-THREE

SADIE

By the time I reach Jack’s car, my heart rate is slowly coming back down. It’s been high ever since I saw Luna, and it was certainly high when she had that knife in her hand and was advancing towards me.

‘How did it go?’ Jack asks me as we get into his car, the one he drove me here in and parked around the corner from Luna’s place so she wouldn’t see that we had arrived together.

‘I better check,’ I say as I take out my phone and find the app that will tell me how successful my interaction with Luna just was.

When I do, I see what I expect to see.

Luna’s kitchen.

Sure enough, she is in there, as is Jude. While that happy baby stares out of the window, Luna is staring at the handwritten message I just left her on the back of that family photo. The message in which I told her to smile for the camera.

The camera in the corner of her kitchen that just recorded everything.

My plan to catch Luna really began when I gifted my children their early Christmas presents at my parents’ house.

After a couple more presents are unwrapped, I see that there is only one more gift lying untouched at the bottom of my bag, so I take it out carefully before showing it to Arthur and Ruby.

‘This is a shared present between the two of you,’ I say, reading what is written on the label as if it came straight from Santa’s grotto and not my bedroom upstairs. ‘This is a special gift that Mummy arranged with Father Christmas, and he wants me to explain it carefully to you. Do you understand?’

Arthur and Ruby nod their heads. I check the door to make sure my parents aren’t about to walk in and see what is inside. They aren’t, so I hand the present over and my children both work to quickly tear off the wrapping paper.

‘What is it?’ Arthur asks after not being able to figure it out himself.

‘It’s a camera,’ I say to both him and his sister, pointing to the photo on the front of the box that shows the little device inside and the tiny window from which it is able to film things. ‘It records sound and images.’

‘What’s it for?’ Ruby asks as I take the box from Arthur and start opening it up for them.

‘It’s so I can see and hear you even when I’m not with you,’ I explain. ‘It’s because I miss you.’