Page 77 of All Our Missing Pieces

I started lifting sausages out on to a plate. The truth was, I had and I hadn’t. I’d imagined that, somehow, Luke and I would figure it out. That because we loved each other, we’d find a way. I hadn’t allowed myself to look much further than our love for each other and the respect I undeniably felt for him wanting to step up and be a good dad to his son.

‘You’re twenty-two, Liv,’ Emily went on. ‘Do you really want to be a stepmother? Seriously?’

‘Of course not. But I wouldn’t be. I won’t have to have anything to do with Luke’s son unless I want to.’

‘Right. So what happens when you and Luke get married, say? Or even just live together? When it’s his turn to have his kid to stay with him? You fuck off to Butlin’s for the weekend?’

‘That won’t be for a while,’ I said defensively. ‘Not until it’s weaned, apparently. Rachel wants to breastfeed, so he won’t be able to leave her for ages.’

‘Sounds like Rachel’s got it all figured out,’ Emily said. ‘Hey, listen. I care about you, Liv. I just don’t want you to get sidelined in all this.’

Then she put down her soup ladle, stuck her head round the door and yelled that sausages and mulled wine were up, and moments later the kitchen filled up with laughing, half-drunk people.

I helped myself to another drink and a handful of cheese footballs and tried to enjoy the party. But I found I couldn’t. I knew that what Emily had said was true – that if things worked out between Luke and me, my life would look a whole lot different from Emily’s and her friends’.

If Luke and I ever had our own home, it would never be just ours – there’d have to be a bedroom for Luke and Rachel’s son where he’d spend half his time. No matter what Luke promised now, I’d become involved – maybe just helping out at first, but ultimately sharing responsibility for a child who wasn’t mine.

And if things really worked out between Luke and me and we eventually got married and had children of our own, those children wouldn’t be Luke’s only ones – not his first.

Much later, as I was leaving, Emily hugged me again, tipsily this time.

‘I’m sorry if I came across like a bitch,’ she said. ‘I just think you need to talk to him.’

‘I know. I know you’re right.’

Outside, the cold air shocked my lungs. Behind me, the warmth and noise of Emily’s party faded with each step. Ahead lay Damask Square – and the careful fiction of my life with Luke that was already unravelling. I walked faster, as if I could outrun what I knew had to happen next.

FORTY-EIGHT

‘Ready for the bucking bronco, Slate?’ Beatrice asked. ‘Hold on tight.’

On all fours on the floor, she hunched her back, raised her hands, hunched again, hopped into a half-handstand, then repeated the process – only faster. She twirled around and went again.

Slate clung on, his knees digging into her ribs, his hands twisted into the shoulders of her sweater, shrieking with laughter.

Now, more than ever, Beatrice was taking comfort from every moment she spent with the children. After her argument with Neil – although she had to admit to herself that it hadn’t been so much an argument as a rant on her side – she’d returned reluctantly to the house on Damask Square, purely because she had nowhere else to go. All her things were there. The Dublin trip had used up the last of her wages so she had no money for a hotel. And part of her – a wilful, stubborn part – felt the need to cling to the house as persistently as the ivy that blanketed its back wall, threatening to bring damp back into the upstairs rooms despite Luke’s best efforts to eradicate it.

To cling – despite everything – to Orla and her distant dreams of how things might have been between them.

She’d texted Neil and apologised and he’d graciously accepted, saying that it was completely understandable that she felt as she did. When she’d taken the children to the library earlier that day, he had been as friendly to them as ever, but Beatrice had noticed a stiffness and formality in his manner towards her that hadn’t been there before.

Orla, in contrast, had been as gentle with Beatrice as if she was a child recovering from an illness. She’d cooked her favourite meal on Monday evening, and the next morning when Beatrice was leaving for work she’d brushed Beatrice’s hand and said, ‘Please let me know when you’re ready to talk.’

Beatrice hadn’t been ready to talk, and more than two weeks later, she still wasn’t. She didn’t know whether she would ever be. She kept meaning to ask Frances about the possibility of her moving in with them, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do that, either. The possibility of escape from Damask Square and all it represented felt alluring, but it also felt final – as if she would finally be turning her back on everything she had hoped to find there.

‘Come on, Bibi,’ Slate urged, his heels drumming against her ribs.

Beatrice snorted theatrically, produced a semblance of a neigh, reared and bucked again. Her laughter was rapidly turning to panting – the kid was heavy. But he wasn’t letting go.

‘You’ve won!’ she gasped as last. ‘Cowboy Slate is king of the rodeo!’

‘My turn!’ Parker squealed. ‘Me now, Bibi, me!’

‘No, me again!’ protested Slate. ‘Be the big, wild black horse.’

‘Just a second.’ Beatrice collapsed on to the floor on her front, laughing helplessly. ‘The horse needs a rest.’

Then she heard Parker’s voice say, ‘Mommy!’ and Slate released his grip on her shoulders.