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“How did you guess?”
“Because she’s sixteen, and girls go one way or another around that age. They either become absolutely horse-mad, or they lose interest completely.”
“I don’t think Mairi is losing interest completely, at least not yet,” Sarah replied. Her daughter had certainly not appreciated her suggestion to sell poor old Mabel. “She’s stressed about exams,” she told Trina.
The other woman nodded in sympathy as she handed Sarah a mug of coffee. “It’s so hard on kids these days, with so much pressure,” she remarked. “But what about you?”
Sarah raised her eyebrows as she cradled the cup against her chest. “What about me?” she asked, hearing the prickle of defensiveness creep into her voice. Had Trina noticed something about her, how tense she was?
Her friend shrugged, looking bemused by Sarah’s spiky response. “Just asking how you are.”
“Oh. Right.” Sarah let out a slightly wobbly laugh. Clearly, she was a bit sensitive, to the point of paranoia, to respond that way to a simple question. “Sorry.”
“But…areyou okay?” Trina asked in concern. “Because that’s not the normal response to a how-are-you-doing sort of question.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is.”
Sarah took a sip of her coffee, mostly to stall for time. Did she really want to tell Trina what was going on in her life, or, really, what shefearedwas going on in her life, because she didn’t actually know. They were friends, yes, but their conversation tended to be innocuous chitchat about horses and weather, nothing more, and Sarah hated admitting weakness to anyone. She was the kind of woman who always had it together, who answered emails as soon as they hit her inbox; whose fridge and pantry were filled with neatly labelled Tupperware; who reminded every other mum in her child’s class about school photographs. She was proud of being that kind of mother, that kind of person, even if it all sounded a little pathetic to her right now. She wasn’t ready to admit anything, not yet, and in point of fact, she didn’t even know what she would admit.
“Just, you know,” she finally hedged. “Life. It gets… busy.”
“Yes, it does.”
Trina gave her a rather beady look, and Sarah suspected she saw right through her prevarication, yet she found she didn’t regret it. What was she supposed to say?My family’s business is going under, and my husband keeps coming home late, and I’m really starting to worry about it.
No. She didn’t want to talk about any of that—not to Trina, not to anyone. She did not want to give voice to the fears she hadn’t let herself entertain, not properly, even in the privacy of her own mind.
“Well, let me know if I can help with anything,” Trina replied lightly, and she heaved herself up from her chair to head back out to the stables, while Sarah drank the rest of her coffee alone.
By the time they got home, it was after six, the sunny afternoon turning dark and chilly, that hint of summery warmth having vanished, reminding Sarah that it really was autumn, and soon it would be winter, with darker nights, frosty mornings, the to-do list that Christmas entailed needing to be ticked off.
Sarah could tell by the clutter of trainers and sports kit by the front door that Owen was already home; a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and a pint of milk all left out on the pristine counter told its own familiar story.
“Tea’s in ten minutes,” she called to Mairi, who had disappeared upstairs, as she tidied everything away. At least the chili she’d made that morning in the slow cooker was bubbling away nicely, filling the kitchen with its spicy scent. She grabbed a pack of instant rice from the cupboard and put it in the microwave.
Nathan clearly hadn’t come home yet, and when Sarah checked her phone—again—there was no message from him to say when he’d be back. Months ago, she would have expected him for dinner just about every night, by half past six at the latest. If he’d been running late, he would have called or texted to say so, but not anymore, it seemed. When had that changed? When had her husband started seeming annoyed by the obligations of family life, of marriage?
She debated texting him to ask him his ETA but then decided against it. She feared it would just annoy him—and it would annoyher, when he invariably replied to tell her he was having another late night.Don’t know when I’ll be back so don’t wait up. It always came across like a warning, or even a scold.
Nathan hadn’t started working late until recently, and while Sarah knew the employees of the wealth management company where he worked were always under pressure to perform, she wasn’t entirely convinced that was the reason for Nathan’s late nights. When she’d asked him what he was working on that was creating such demands, he’d mumbled something rather vague about clients and accounts. Sarah understood his work, had discussed it with him in the past, but he’d seemed reluctant to part with any details of what client or account was giving him so much grief. Was he hiding something, or did he just not want to talk to her?
There was still no word from her husband when she called Mairi and Owen down to tea, and they all ate in silence until Owen asked, a bit sulkily, “Where’s Dad?”
“At work,” Sarah replied in that mild voice she used that she had come to loathe; it felt like a form of denial, of gaslighting her children as well as herself. As if it were reasonable for Nathan to be at work every night until nine or ten, without any credible excuse besides simply being busy, when he’d never been so busy before.
“Again?” Owen complained unhappily. “He’salwaysat work.”
“It’s a busy time,” Sarah murmured, even though she didn’t know whether to believe Nathan’s excuse or not. “Anyway.” She tried to brighten her voice, her mood. “He’ll be home soon, I’m sure. Tell me about your day. How was football club?”
Somehow, she managed to carry the conversation along, as Owen talked about football, and Mairi worried about failing maths again, and Sarah promised to go over her homework with her after they finished the meal.
She was just loading the dishes in the dishwasher while Owen went to change out of his muddy football kit and Mairi to get her homework, when her phone pinged with a text. Sarah’s heart lifted with hope that it was from Nathan, but it wasn’t. It was from Ellie.
Been on social media all afternoon and will contact some magazines tomorrow. We can do this!!!
Underneath were several thumbs up and smiley face emojis that made Sarah feel a contradictory mixture of exasperation and amusement. It was typical of Ellie to exude such enthusiasm, maybe it was part of her American sense of optimism, and while it lifted everyone’s spirits it also sometimes felt like denying reality. She knew how much Ellie wanted to save the Bluebell Inn, maybe even singlehandedly since it had been her idea, but Sarah just wasn’t sure if that was possible. Or was her own dark mood coloring the inn’s prospects?
“Mum? Can you help me?” Mairi asked, clutching her textbooks to her chest as she stood in the doorway of the kitchen.
