As Dawn strolled along in the Saturday morning sunshine, she breathed deeply of the October air. Laura and James were just ahead of her, and her husband was at her side, her hand clasped in his. Everything seemed perfect. And that was the problem, the fact that to an outsider, they would appear to be the perfect little family, but Dawn knew differently.

Rick had not come to bed until gone two. What he’d been doing until then, she had no idea. She’d lain in bed, hoping that he’d come and cuddle her, spoon her in the way she found so comforting and that helped her drop off to sleep when she was at her most insecure. When he hadn’t come, she’d strained to listen, to see if he was perhaps watching TV or loading his plate and glass into the dishwasher. She’d heard nothing. Then she’d fallen asleep, only to wake when he climbed into bed next to her and rolled onto his side, facing away.

She had sensed his tension, known that even though the hour was late, he had stared at the window until she’d drifted off again, a deep sadness tugging at her heart and fear gnawing at her edges.

When she’d risen at six, she’d rushed to the family bathroom where she’d dry retched over the toilet, not wanting to use the ensuite in case she disturbed Rick. James had come to the door and she’d had to pull herself together then, to reassure him that she was fine and just had a tummy bug. They hadn’t yet told the children about the baby; they’d been waiting for the twenty-week scan to ensure that everything was all right and to give themselves some time to prepare mentally and emotionally, but as she was getting so big, she didn’t think they could wait that long.

Perhaps today was the day…

“Penny for them.” Rick squeezed her hand.

“I was just thinking about the baby and when we should… you know.” She nodded at the children.

“I guess we can’t keep it a secret forever. We could do it over breakfast? Or lunch tomorrow at your Mum’s?”

She tried to work out his tone. Was it light-hearted and positive or was it forced, hiding something that he was struggling with.

“Really?” She glanced at him and her heart fluttered. She still found him so handsome. Even though they’d been together since university and had two children, he was still, in her eyes, the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

“Why not?”

“Thank you for this… taking us to the café for breakfast. It was a good idea.”

“I like to spoil my family but I don’t get the chance that often.” He laughed but it sounded hollow, even outside on such a beautiful morning.

They reached the front gate of The Cosy Cottage Café and Rick opened it then stood back to let them all in first. Dawn’s spirits rose; she loved coming to the café. It was such a warm and welcoming place to be and she felt safe there. Allie was a dear friend and they’d enjoyed many mornings with coffee and cake as well as some uplifting Tuesday evenings, when Allie, Dawn, her sister, Camilla, and their friend Honey, would gather together and eat, drink and put the world to rights. On those occasions they often laughed until tears ran down their faces and it felt so good to have such close friends, so good to be alive.

The café garden was breathtakingly beautiful in the sunlight. In the borders, orange, red and yellow hardy chrysanthemums bloomed in the mild October climate. Purple-blue spikes of lavender still towered above silver-grey foliage, its sweet crisp scent permeating the morning air. Creamy white dahlias swayed in the gentle breeze, their centres of their multi-layered heads a soft baby pink.

Suddenly, tears pricked Dawn’s eyes as she recalled something she’d once read about the flowers. Apparently, the Victorians had used the dahlia to signify a lasting bond between two people, a lifelong commitment. She had always thought that she would be with Rick forever, but recently, she was starting to wonder if he felt the same way.

She blinked hard and gazed instead at the café itself, a converted old stone cottage with ivy climbing its front, pretty purple shutters adorning the windows and a traditional thatched roof. On the side of the building, a sign in the shape of a teapot glinted in the sunshine and a specials board stood to the side of the front steps next to some colourful milk urn planters.

Laura and James stopped at the door and turned to their parents, so Dawn nodded at them to go inside. She was about to follow when Rick tugged at her hand.

“Are you okay, Dawn? You seem distant this morning.”

I seem distant?

She swallowed the words, not wanting to cause a row when Rick was clearly trying.

“I’m fine. It’s just… something happened yesterday and because you were so late home, I haven’t had the chance to talk to you about it yet.”

“What was it?” His hazel eyes roamed her face and she found herself leaning towards him as if hypnotised by the golden ring that flashed at their core, as if he had trapped the sunlight there and pierced it with the fathomless black of his pupils.

“Something happened to—”

“Mum! I need a poo!”

Dawn started. James stood in the doorway hopping from foot to foot.

“To what?” Rick frowned, clearly concerned by what she was about to divulge.

“Mum! Quickly…” The speed of James’s hopping had increased and his little face was scrunched up as if he was in pain.

“Oh it doesn’t matter. I can tell you later.”

Rick nodded but as he released her hand, he whispered, “Surely he should be able to go to the toilet alone by now?”

Dawn bit her lip then walked inside. That was the problem with having an absent husband. He didn’t understand what she dealt with on a daily basis, the type of things she didn’t like to bother him with when he came home from work fit to drop. He didn’t know that James had a phobia of public toilets – that had left the little boy nervous about getting locked in – following an incident in a toilet at school. Her own mother, Allie, and other mothers she knew had all tried to reassure her that children had their quirks and idiosyncrasies, and that, if not dramatized, such things would pass. But she still worried that James would be scarred by what had happened; he was such a sensitive boy.

How many things did she fail to share with Rick these days because he was tired or she was tired or because it just seemed like too much effort?

She waved at Allie, who was standing behind the counter, as she headed towards the café toilet where she would wait outside the door just in case James started to panic. It wasn’t glamorous, it wasn’t much fun, but it was motherhood, and Dawn wondered if Rick had any understanding at all of her world now, or if he just couldn’t see past his own expectations and preconceptions of how things should be.

Half an hour later, Dawn was cutting up a cinnamon waffle for James. Laura was tucking into her lemon and blueberry muffin and Rick was working his way through a full cooked breakfast. Dawn had nibbled at a piece of toast but her appetite appeared to have stayed at home.

“Everything all right?” Allie asked as she filled the children’s glasses with freshly squeezed orange juice.

“Delicious, thank you.” Rick raised his mug of tea. “If I ate here every morning, I’d get fat.”

“If you just slowed down a bit…” The comment slipped from Dawn’s mouth and she sucked in a breath. But no one seemed to notice.

“Can I get you something else, Dawnie?” Allie placed a cool hand on her shoulder. “It doesn’t look like that’s tempting you. How about some yogurt and honey? Perhaps with a banana?”

“No, I’m okay, thanks. Just eating in the morning is difficult.” She bit her lip and eyed her children but they didn’t seem to pick up on her slip.

“I know.” Allie nodded. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

She disappeared and Dawn was left with her family again.

“I like waffles, Mummy,” James said. “Can we have them every day?”

“If we did, you’d soon get tired of them, darling.”

Dawn thought of the different cereals she’d tried to tempt him, of the variety of scones and pancakes she’d baked that had soon been rejected, and of the mornings when she’d been on the brink of tears because her children just didn’t want what she had to offer them for breakfast. Sometimes, parenting was so difficult; especially when you were doing it alone.

She shook herself. Why was she dwelling on negatives when she had her beautiful family right here with her and they were all enjoying their selections from Allie’s gorgeous menu? She had so much to be grateful for.

Laura finished her muffin then drained her glass. “That was delicious, thank you.” She got up and went round the table to Rick and hugged him.

“Hey what was that for?”

“I love you, Daddy. Are you staying home today?”

“Of course I am. It’s Saturday.”

Laura smiled then kissed his cheek. “You can help me play with Lulu and Wallace and take some new photos of them for Grandpa and Instagram. You should see how fat Wallace is.”

“Really? Have you been overfeeding him?”

Laura shook her head.

“He’s just put on some weight.” Dawn winked when Rick met her eyes.

“Oh he has, has he? Well perhaps we better put him through guinea pig boot camp.”

“What’s a boot camp?” James asked as he dipped a piece of waffle into his juice.

“It’s somewhere that people can go to exercise.”

“Is that with soldiers?”

“How’d you know that, Laura?” Rick asked his daughter.

“Saw it on TV.”

Rick grinned at Dawn and she shook her head. “Must have seen it at my Mum’s.”

Allie returned with a small plate.

“What’s this?” Dawn asked as she met her friend’s eyes.

“Ginger cookies. I baked them yesterday with stem ginger. They might help with the nausea.”

“Thank you so much.”

“No problem. I’ll pack some up for you to take home, too.”

Dawn picked up a cookie and sniffed it. The warming aroma of ginger made her mouth water and she took a bite. The cookie was fresh and crumbly with the gentle heat of the fragrant spice warming her mouth and tongue.

“Mmmm. It’s delicious.”

“I’m going to see Chris,” James announced as he slid off his chair.

“James, Chris is busy. Don’t bother him.”

“It’s okay,” Allie said. “Chris won’t mind. Come on, James.”

She took his hand and led him over to her boyfriend.

“I’m going too.” Laura jumped down and rushed over to the leather sofa by the window, where Chris was sitting with his laptop on his knees.

“Sorry you’re still feeling queasy. It’ll pass soon though, right?” Rick reached across the table to take Dawn’s hand.

“I hope so. It’s draining feeling like I’m going to throw up all the time and it had passed well before this point when I was carrying Laura and James. Sorry.” She pointed at his plate.

“Don’t worry. You won’t put me off.”

“Are we going to tell them about the baby tomorrow?”

“I think we should.”

Dawn peered behind Rick to see Laura and James sitting either side of Chris as he showed them something on the screen of his laptop.

“I need to tell you something, too.”

Rick nodded then placed his knife and fork on the empty plate.

“Go ahead.”

“Yesterday, I went to clean the hutch out as usual. And I found—”

“A rat! A big fat white rat!” Judith Burnley, an elderly lady from the village, had entered the café and her words cut Dawn off.

“You don’t say.” Her companion, a woman of around seventy, shuddered as they approached the counter.

Dawn watched them, her mouth hanging open.

“Dawn, what is it?”

“Shhh.”

“Don’t shhh me.”

She waved a hand at Rick then got up and went to the counter where she stood behind Mrs Burnley.

“Did you hear that, Allie?” Mrs Burnley asked.

“I did.” Allie flashed a glance at Dawn. “You saw a rat?”

“Not exactly.” The elderly woman drummed her nails on the counter. “Your cat, the grey one, dropped it on my doorstep then ran away.”

“Oh. Do you mean Luna?”

“That’s the one. Total nuisance that cat, always leaving dead rodents on my step. Have to scrub it with bleach on a daily basis.”

“I am sorry, Mrs Burnley. But usually that’s a sign that a cat likes you.”

Mrs Burnley sniffed. “Only since you moved in with Chris.”

Dawn processed the information. Mrs Burnley lived a few doors down from Chris Monroe and Allie, and it seemed that Allie’s one cat, Luna, had been leaving gifts for Mrs Burnley.

But a fat white rat?

“It had no tail either. The cat must have eaten it first.”

Dawn gasped and Mrs Burnley turned to look at her.

“I know. Disgusting, isn’t it?”

Dawn nodded. “Uh… What did you do with the… rat?”

“Threw it in the bin, of course.”

“The bin in your front garden?”

“Yes, of course.” The older woman frowned at her.

“Right. Okay. Uh… thanks.” Dawn turned and hurried back over to Rick.

“What was all that about?”

She took a shaky breath as a wave of nausea hit.

“Dawn?”

“I don’t think it was a rat.”

“What was it then?”

“I think it was Wallace.”

“Wallace?” His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You need to tell me what’s been going on,” he said.

And she did. Quickly, before the children returned to the table. She told him about finding Wallace and about him disappearing from her bag and about how she’d found the pink tissue paper outside and about Allie and Chris producing a replacement.

Rick listened carefully, then nodded. “So I’ll go and check her bin. Make sure.”

“Please. I don’t know if I could face it.”

“If it’s him… I’ll pop him home then come back for you.”

He pecked her on the lips, then said something to the children, before leaving the café.

And Dawn sat there with her half-eaten ginger biscuit in her hand and her mug of tea going cold, wondering how she would cope if she ever lost him.