Chapter Nine
“Why are you getting dressed up?”
Harriet turned from where she’d been scrutinizing her reflection in the mirror to see Mallory standing in the doorway of her bedroom.
“Because I want to look good.”
Last week Richard had called, asking if they could talk, and Harriet had decided to bite the bullet and say yes. A conversation about Meghan was overdue, and hopefully now she was ready for the truth… even if she didn’t feel ready. She felt sick.
“Does this dress make me look fat?” she asked. “Be honest.”
Mallory arched an eyebrow, and Harriet braced herself. She’d been taking a risk asking Mallory for the unvarnished truth.
“You’ve had three children,” Mallory said diplomatically, and Harriet groaned.
She was fat. Or at least, her poochy belly was fat. Three children and no more sessions at the gym had forced her to don control-top tights and suck in her stomach for the next three hours.
“But that’s not a bad thing,” Mallory continued. “Dad liked you a little rounder.” She made a face. “Which makes me want to hurl, actually, but whatever.”
“How on earth do you know that Dad likes me a little rounder?” Harriet demanded.
“Because he always used to say you didn’t need to go to the gym.”
“He was just being nice.” She’d forgotten how he’d said that.
Whenever she bustled around wearing a lot of expensive Lycra, Richard would put an arm around her much skinnier waist and say she looked perfect just as she was. Harriet hadn’t paid attention, not really—she’d been too busy running around after everything, except now she couldn’t quite remember what that everything was. Dinner, and the kids’ endless activities, and keeping the house looking like it came out of a magazine. Keeping everything about her life looking shiny and perfect.
“Whatever,” Mallory exhaled on a bored sigh. “You look fine.”
“Thank you.”
The kids were going over to Ellie and Abby’s while Harriet met Richard at the local pub—she’d chosen The Drowned Sailor rather than The Three Pennies. She didn’t want to risk seeing Sophie or someone similar. And, she was coming to realize, she didn’t even like The Three Pennies, with its slick yet countrified air, as if it was only pretending at being a pub.
Harriet took a deep breath and let it out, and then wished she hadn’t when her stomach pooched out even more. The control-top tights were not doing their job. Or perhaps she wasn’t. Sucking it all in again, she turned to Mallory.
“Right. We ought to get going.”
Harriet brought the children over to Ellie’s, giving her a look of immense gratitude. After their shared bottle of wine the other week, Ellie had become a surprisingly firm friend. They hadn’t had any more long heart-to-hearts, nothing more than a few quick chats, but just the complicit smiles they gave each other as they headed in their houses was enough for Harriet to know she had someone living next door she could count on.
She decided to walk to The Drowned Sailor, because the sun was still shining, the evenings turning longer as a wintry March came to a close. Spring really was on the way. Besides, she didn’t want to drive because she thought she might want a glass of wine, or three. Her insides were quivering like a plateful of jelly. It almost felt like a first date. A first date with Darth Maul, perhaps. She had a feeling it was dread, not excitement, that was curdling her insides.
Unlike The Three Pennies, The Drowned Sailor was full of rowdy patrons on a Friday night, most of them looking like they intended on having a very good time. Harriet wished she could say the same.
She caught sight of Richard at a table for two tucked in the back and she started to weave her way through the hot press of bodies standing by the bar waiting to be served.
Nerves tightened in her belly as she approached and Richard stood up. He had dressed up for the occasion, just as she had, and was wearing a blue button-down shirt and pressed khakis. He needed a haircut, she noticed with a pang of reluctant and unexpected affection. His dark hair was curling about his ears, wayward wisps that made him look a little bit like a mad professor.
“Hello.” He smiled, and now there was a whole, new, surreal kind of awkwardness, because this was the man whose head she’d held over the toilet when he’d been violently sick from food poisoning. He’d seen her giving birth three times, and had cut the cord at every one.
She’d picked up his dirty boxer shorts and used tissues, had heard him fart in the bathroom, had lain in his arms night after night after night. She knew the sound of his snore, his laugh, the way he breathed. And now he felt like a stranger. Or perhaps she was the stranger.
“Hello,” Harriet said, and sat down.
“I ordered us a bottle of wine.” Richard cleared his throat. “I hope that’s all right.”
“Fine, thanks.” She’d take the bottle by the neck and glug it as soon as it came.
Harriet smiled tightly, half of her amazed at how strained and formal everything was, and the other half not surprised at all. This was what it came to, when they had six months of lies and two months of separation. This, and it was awful.
“So.” Richard laid his hands flat on the table. “Shall we order first, and then talk?”
Harriet couldn’t keep from grimacing. “You make it sound as if it’s some medical procedure that has to be got over.”
Richard gave her one of his old, wry smiles, the kind that had her smiling back even when she was annoyed, usually annoying her further. “That’s how it feels to me, I’m afraid. I know we have to have this conversation, and it’s been a long time coming, but… I want to get it over with. And then move on.”
As did she. She’d rather have a cervical smear than go through the next few hours… which was kind of depressing. Very depressing, actually.
“Order first,” Harriet decided, and reached for the laminated menus that had been left on the table.
She scanned the offerings, which were far simpler than anything on The Three Pennies’ menu. Not a toasted walnut or puy lentil in sight.
“I’ll have the fish and chips,” she said. She felt like something hot and greasy and delicious.
Richard went up to the bar to order, and when he came back there was nothing to keep them from talking… or at least staring at each other.
“Right.” Hands on the table again. “So.” Richard let out a breath through his nose. “Let’s talk.”
“Okay.” Harriet wished the wine would arrive. She could really use a drink. Her stomach was clenched so hard she no longer needed the control-top tights. Well, almost.
“So do you… do you want to ask me questions? Or should I…” Richard licked his lips nervously. “Should I just… ah, start speaking?”
They’d barely started and it was already excruciating. She didn’t want to hear the story, from the first late night where they shared a Chinese takeaway and Meghan fingered a button on her blouse as she said huskily, “You know, you look kind of adorable with your hair mussed up and soy sauce on your chin.” And Richard swallowed and tried not to look at her red push-up bra but then did. Or something like that.
“You first, I suppose,” Harriet said, her voice coming out in something of a strangled squeak. “And I’ll ask questions if… if I need to.” Questions she already knew she did not want the answers to.
“Right. So.” Richard looked down at his hands. “I’m not sure where to begin.”
“How about at the beginning?” Harriet quipped humorlessly. Not that she wanted to go there. “It’s the very best place to start.”
“Right.”
He needed to stop saying that. Nothing was right. Nothing.
“I told you about the investment bit…”
“Yes, but how did that come about, anyway?” Far better to talk about the money than their marriage. Than the betrayal that still felt like a punch to the stomach, every single time. “Why did they make an example of you, do you think?”
Richard shrugged. “Because they could?”
“But surely it isn’t that simple, Richard,” Harriet protested.
She didn’t know much about HCI, not even what the initials stood for, but she knew her husband, or at least she’d thought she did, and she suspected there was more to the story.
“I suppose,” Richard said after a pause, his gaze sliding away from hers, “that I was more than a bit cocky. I suppose I was… arrogant.” He looked down at his hands. “Handling those huge sums of money… trading in millions every day… you start to feel like you’re, well, like you’re some sort of money god. Which sounds ridiculous, I know, but I felt invincible. Omnipotent. And like no one knew as much as I did.” He grimaced. “Which makes me sound like a complete prat, I do realize.”
It did, but Harriet couldn’t point any fingers. In a different way, she’d been just as bad. “Go on,” she said quietly.
“There was a lot of pressure to outperform everyone else. To know what the next big deal was, before anyone else. And I thought I did. I thought I was above it all… and I wasn’t.” He swallowed hard. “I wasn’t at all. I picked a stock everyone said was dicey and I put a lot of money into it. I was so sure it was going to turn around. I was living off the thrill, I suppose, and then the whole thing went bust… and I had to admit I’d lost the company millions of pounds.” He closed his eyes briefly, his face pale as he remembered what was obviously a terrible moment.
“That must have been incredibly difficult,” Harriet said.
She couldn’t imagine the sick, sinking feeling of knowing he’d just lost everything. Oh wait, she could.
She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice as she asked quietly, “But why didn’t you tell me, Richard? We could have been in this together, but instead you acted as if nothing had changed. I don’t think I could even tell anything was different.” She’d tried to remember what had been going on in June last year, when Richard had been fired.
It had been William’s birthday, and of course she’d thrown a ridiculously over-the-top party. Richard had been spending several nights a week in London, and she’d been equal parts relieved and annoyed, which was how she’d liked being, if she was honest. Superior and martyred at the same time. But she felt now she should have seen something, sensed something. How could Richard have possibly come home after suffering the worst setback of his entire career, and Harriet hadn’t even known something was amiss? How could two people who loved each other be so completely out of sync?
“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” Richard said. “And I didn’t want it to be true. It felt like a nightmare I could wake up from if I just let myself. If I tried hard enough.”
Which was how the present reality felt, or had been feeling. It was, strangely and surprisingly, starting to feel the tiniest bit better. Maybe.
“And you told it all to Meghan,” Harriet said.
The words felt thick in her throat. A waitress arrived with wine and Richard poured them both two large glasses.
“She knew what was going on, yes.”
“We laughed about her, Richard.” It was hard to get the words out. Her face felt tight, her eyes dangerously full. And her throat… her throat was like a vise, closing up. In a few seconds she’d be squeaking. “I’m not saying it was a nice thing to do, but how did she go from sexy Meghan who tries too hard to your confidant? Your lover?” The dangerously full eyes started to overflow.
Harriet blinked hard, but it was too late. Two slipped down and with a muttered curse she grabbed a napkin and started dabbing.
“Harriet…” Richard looked anguished.
“Don’t. Just answer the question.” She didn’t want his sympathy now, and definitely not his pity. She wanted to choose fury, not grief. It felt stronger.
“She was never my lover. I told you that.”
“Maybe not technically. You said you didn’t sleep with her. But… but something happened. Too much of something. You said as much. So what was it?” A question she really hadn’t wanted to ask yet now that she had, Harriet realized she wanted—needed—to know.
Rip the plaster off the wound and assess the damage. How much blood? How deep the cut? Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t quite as bad as she’d thought.
Richard drew a careful, even breath and let it out slowly. “Yes, something happened. But we never… we never had sex. We never even came close, really.”
Harriet reached for her wine. “Why don’t you just tell me exactly? First base? Second base? I might as well know than not at this point. Hopefully my imagination is worse than the reality.”
Richard was starting to look haggard. “We kissed,” he said, “a couple of times.”
Harriet blinked. Okay, her imagination had been way worse. She’d been thinking… well, never mind what she’d been thinking. And yet they’d kissed. It still hurt, mingled with a weird kind of relief.
“When was that?” she asked.
“The first time was in June.”
“When you were fired.”
“A little while after. I left the office in disgrace and Meghan kept in touch. She was genuinely concerned. We started spending time together. She… she was there for me when I needed her to be.”
“She’s a saint,” Harriet said sourly and Richard flinched.
“I don’t mean that. I don’t expect you to understand, but—”
“You didn’t expect me to understand anything,” Harriet burst out. “You didn’t even try to let me understand.” She wanted to shake him by the shoulders. She wanted to say, “Look, I know I might have seemed kind of consumed with our life and kids, but if you’d said wait, this is serious, I would have waited. I would have listened.”
At least she hoped she would have.
“I was ashamed,” Richard said quietly. “And Meghan was right there, she understood about the tension and pressure, she’d lived through it with me at the office…”
“And I didn’t? You didn’t let me,” Harriet finished.
She realized it wasn’t the physical side of things, which seemed like it was, in the end, fairly minimal, that hurt so much.
No, it was the emotional stuff that cut so deeply. The knowledge, hard and frankly unbearable, that Richard had, in moments of crisis or desperation or genuine fear, chosen to find comfort in his secretary rather than his wife. Sexy Meghan with her stupid heels, one button too many undone, the overdone cat-flick eyeliner. Why hadn’t Harriet seen the danger? Because she’d been so smug and certain of herself—and also because she’d been so certain of Richard. Certain of them.
And she wasn’t at all certain anymore.
“Are you still… seeing her?” she asked after a moment, when she trusted herself to sound normal.
Richard looked aggrieved. “I was never seeing her. Not like that.”
“Richard, come on. The two of you kissed.” She hated saying the words.
“It was impulsive and stupid,” Richard said, “and I’d been drinking. Honestly, Harriet, I’m being as honest as I can. It didn’t mean anything.”
“But the conversations meant something. Two hours in the middle of the night! What did you even talk about?”
“I don’t know.” Richard looked down, a sulky little boy. “Stuff.”
Harriet leaned forward. “No, actually, I really want to know now. What on earth did you talk about with a twenty-six-year-old tart for two whole hours? Many times?” Her voice was shaking.
“That’s not fair. She’s not a tart.”
“She kissed my husband. I think I’m allowed to call her a tart.”
“I kissed her,” Richard returned. “If you want to get technical.”
“I don’t.” That little bit of information hurt even more.
He’d initiated it? In her mind she’d painted Meghan as the seductress, unbuttoning her blouse, slithering over to a somewhat oblivious Richard, but maybe it hadn’t been that way at all. Which made her feel sick, even if they had only kissed.
“So tell me what you talked about,” Harriet insisted. “Did you tell her how lonely you were? How your wife was obsessed with money and didn’t listen to you? How you hadn’t had sex in ages?” The words rang out, accusing, scornful, and also filled with hurt.
When had they last had sex? Harriet couldn’t remember. And she hadn’t been obsessed with money. She’d just assumed they’d had a lot of it.
But all right, yes, she could see she hadn’t been totally present. She’d been focused on the children and the house and her life as VSA chair and Stepford wife. A husband had started to feel like a somewhat needless accessory. But she still hadn’t expected an affair.
Richard looked away, shifting in his seat. He was squirming. “Do we really have to do this?”
“Yes.” Even though she really didn’t want to. She needed to hear. Needed to know.
“I don’t remember everything I said, Harriet, but you’re on the right track, I’m sure. I said a lot of things. I was miserable, anxious, frustrated…” He turned back to her, spreading his hands. “I’m not excusing it, just explaining. There was probably something of a mid-life crisis thrown in. Having a young, beautiful woman be interested in me felt… affirming.”
Affirming. She could just imagine how firm he’d been. “Maybe you should stop talking.”
“I wasn’t the one who wanted to go in to all the details, Harriet.”
“I know.” She felt nauseous, and the gulp of wine she took didn’t help. “I’m sorry. I thought I wanted to know but I realize now I don’t.” Her heart was starting to thud, her palms turning clammy. Perfect, an anxiety attack in the back of The Drowned Sailor.
“Are you still in contact with her?” she asked when she’d caught her breath.
Silence. Awful, awful silence.
“We’re friends,” Richard said finally. “Only friends now. I’ve made that clear.”
Jealousy was a terrible emotion, like some poisonous vine twining its way around every organ she had, choking it. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Harriet asked.
“We didn’t… Harriet, I admit I was spending time with her. A lot of time. But it wasn’t… it wasn’t what you were thinking. I wasn’t envisioning some kind of future with her at all…”
“But she might have been. You talked to her. You called her on the phone. No doubt you went out to dinner, went for walks…” She stopped, because he wasn’t denying any of it and the image she was forming in her head, the image she was painting with her words, was too terrible for her to continue. In an awful, twisted way she’d have preferred Richard to have had a one-night stand than this. “And you kissed her,” she finished flatly. “Several times.”
“I admit, I turned to her when I should have turned to you. It felt… easier, I suppose, and with less risk. And she was there.”
“Risk? How on earth was it risky to share this kind of thing with your wife?”
“Because you would have been angry with me, Harriet!” Richard leaned forward, his eyes glittering, his expression suddenly furious. “You would have been angry and disappointed, and you would have blamed me. And the truth is I didn’t even know who you were anymore. Who you’d become. You spent my money like it was water—”
“Your money?” Harriet felt as if someone had just injected her with ice water. “Is that how you’ve seen it all this time?”
“No, not like that, not really,” Richard said tiredly. “We had money and I wanted you to spend it. I wanted to give you nice things. I still do. It was more about… about who you were than how much you spent.”
Ouch. Harriet tried to school her expression into something neutral. “Who I was?”
“You’ve been so consumed with image since we moved out here. Where we went to dinner. Who we were seen with. What people thought of us.”
Harriet flinched. She didn’t think she’d been that bad. Had she?
“You were turning into your friend Sophie,” Richard said, and Harriet drew back. Now that was unfair. “So cutting about everyone. So shallow and determined that everything looked good all the time. At Christmas all you cared about was the blasted decorations! And you told me about the hair place in Chipping Norton you went to, and how celebrities went there. As if I’d be impressed.” He shook his head, his mouth curling, and Harriet felt as if she’d been flayed.
He was lambasting her over some throwaway remark she’d made about a hairdresser’s? About the decorations she’d spent hours on? What did he want from her?
“I was afraid that if I told you what had happened,” he continued more quietly, “you’d be ashamed of me, as well as angry. And you’d be more concerned about what people thought of us than anything else.”
Harriet swallowed. Her mouth felt dry. “I was never ashamed of you. But it almost sounds as if you were ashamed of me.”
“No,” Richard said tiredly. “Just… frustrated, I suppose.”
“You never said anything.”
“Maybe I should have.”
And maybe you should have tried to see the good parts of me, instead of just focusing on the bad. “I just wish,” Harriet said, drawing a shaky breath, “you’d given me a chance before you turned to someone else for support.”
“I should have,” Richard agreed. “I wish I had.”
But he hadn’t. He’d chosen not to. And he was still seeing sexy Meghan. And, perhaps worst of all, he didn’t seem to like who Harriet was anymore. He’d spoken with such disdain just now, such contempt. It made everything inside her shrivel.
In that moment, Harriet felt as far away from him as ever, worse than before because it wasn’t a distance brought on by the hot rush anger and emotion. It felt like a yawning, frozen wasteland that they were both too weary and wounded to cross.
“Well, you don’t need to worry now about how much I’m spending now,” she said at last, because as always it seemed easier to talk about money than marriage. “I’m spending as little as I possibly can, and I’m looking for a job.” A job she most likely wouldn’t get, but Richard didn’t need to know that right now.
Their meals arrived and Harriet stared at her fish and chips, the battered cod glistening with grease, with revulsion. She couldn’t eat a thing. Her stomach was seething. Her chest hurt. She wished she hadn’t started this conversation. She wished she hadn’t come here tonight. She’d known this conversation was going to be hard, but it had been even worse than she’d been bracing herself for.
Hearing about Meghan. Hearing about her own flaws and faults. She knew she wasn’t perfect, of course she did. But she felt as if, when Richard looked at her, all he saw were the bad and broken bits. He didn’t see the Harriet who was trying hard, who loved her children, who kept her chin up and had wanted a lovely home for her family. Because that was who she really was… wasn’t it? Who was anyone, she wondered wearily. The person they were trying to be, or the fall back? And shouldn’t the person they loved, the person they spent your life with, see the good parts first? The best parts?
“I’m sorry,” Richard said quietly. “I feel like I’ve hurt your feelings.”
Which made her feel worse. But I was just telling the truth was the silent message.
“I didn’t realize how much you didn’t like me,” she said with a hard little laugh.
Richard looked pained. “I like you, Harriet. I love you. But I must admit I didn’t like who you were becoming.”
Harriet stared at him. Am I different enough now? She almost asked but didn’t. Because she didn’t want to earn back Richard’s love. That didn’t feel fair. He was the one who had lied, who had cheated, at least emotionally. He was the one who had turned away first. And if he’d had a problem with who she was becoming, he should have damned well said so.
She realized as she sat there in front of her congealing cod that she’d been hoping and holding out for more from him. For a full-on, proper grovel. That was what she’d needed tonight, what she craved after everything she’d endured, and instead she’s received a truckload of guilt and a single muttered sorry.
No thanks.
Yes, she needed to shoulder some of the blame. She needed to own up to her mistakes. But she didn’t need Richard pointing the finger at her and saying how she’d practically driven him to it. Harriet pushed her plate away and then rose from the table. Richard looked up in surprise.
“Where are you going—”
“Home. I think… I think we’re done here.”
His face paled, his eyes widening. “Done…”
Did she mean that done? The question was in his eyes, in her heart. Harriet shook her head. “I don’t know, Richard. But this… us… isn’t working, is it?” She stumbled on, not actually wanting an answer to that question. “It hasn’t been working for a long time. Obviously, since you didn’t like who I was becoming.”
“I only meant…”
“You never would have gone to Meghan if you had felt you could go to me.”
“That might be true, but that doesn’t mean things can’t be different now.”
“Can they? You’re living in London and I’m in the Cotswolds. We’re both unemployed.”
“For now. Harriet, I can get it all back.” A light entered Richard’s eyes, bright and fierce. “I didn’t like all the showy stuff, I admit it. But I want our lives back. The house and the school and even the damn pony. We can get it all back. We can be who we were, only better. I have a few promising leads…”
“You always have a few promising leads.” And what happened if one of them finally panned out?
He’d get a job, they’d buy another big house, and then they’d go back to being exactly who they’d been. Richard hadn’t liked that Harriet, apparently. Who knew whether he would like the new one? And she didn’t even know if there was a new one. She had no idea who she was yet, who she could be, when it had all been taken away—the house, the status, the charmed life. She was trying to find out, taking baby steps, and maybe she needed to do that alone.
“I think we need a little space.”
“Space?” Richard looked wary. “It’s been two months. We’ve both had loads of space.”
“Yes, but it was two months of just coping. A holding pattern, because we both knew this conversation had to happen. And now it has, and I think… I think we should give each other some breathing room. Maybe… make a more finalized arrangement.”
Pain flashed across Richard’s face. “Are you talking about an actual divorce?”
“I don’t know.” She wasn’t ready to take that big of a step, and yet right now she couldn’t imagine getting back together.
There was still too much hurt, too much blame, too many unresolved issues. And at the end of the day, maybe they were just too different.
“I don’t know,” she said again. “But we need to do something, Richard. Something more permanent. We’ve been living in limbo these last few months, and it’s not good for us or the children.”
“And separation or divorce is?”
“I don’t know. But do you really think we can get back together that easily?” She was both curious about and dreading the answer.
Richard rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know.”
His weary admission disappointed her, stupidly. Harriet suddenly felt incredibly tired, as if she could curl right up there on the floor and go to sleep. “I need to go home,” she said. “We both need to think more about everything, but, in the meantime something more formalized might be good for everyone.” And without waiting for him to answer, she turned and made her way through the crowded pub.
Outside the night was peaceful and cool and she walked home slowly, letting her mind empty out. She couldn’t think anymore. She certainly couldn’t make any decisions.
She went over to Ellie’s first to get the kids, who were all piled on the sofa watching a DVD.
Ellie frowned as she opened the door. “You’re back early.”
“Yep.” Harriet couldn’t quite summon a smile. “In the end we didn’t have a lot to say to each other.” And what had been said had been plenty.
“Do you want a little time on your own? The kids can finish watching the DVD. There’s still an hour left.”
She didn’t know what she wanted. Nothing appealed. “Okay,” Harriet said after a moment. “Send them back when it finishes.”
Back in number two the house was quiet, if not precisely peaceful. Harriet stared at the downstairs for a moment, noticing the wet washing draped over every piece of furniture, the toys crammed into a corner, the DVDs spilling out of their basket. In that moment she hated it all, the smallness and the mess, the sadness of it, everything.
Turning away, she reached for her laptop and typed in legal separation.
A few minutes later, she had all the information she needed to file a legal separation with the nearest divorce court. It cost three hundred and sixty-five pounds, an amount that was nothing to sneeze at. But worth it, perhaps, if it meant she could start figuring her life out. Figuring herself out. She printed out the documents and filled them in with a grim sense of purpose.
It was nearly nine and her stomach rumbled. Harriet went into the kitchen to make the ultimate comfort food, cheese on toast. She reached up for a plate and the teetering pile of Swedish stoneware serving dishes and platters on top of the cupboard shifted and then, seeming in slow motion, started to topple.
Harriet had a split second to decide whether to try to catch as many of the dishes as she could or get out of the way. She got out of the way, and watched as two platters and three serving dishes toppled to the floor and shattered with an almighty crash. She took a deep breath, her heart thudding from the near-miss. Those dishes had cost about eighty pounds each, if she remembered correctly.
She turned back to the cupboard and looked at the stacks of plates and bowls and cups. She couldn’t remember how much each piece cost, she hadn’t cared when she’d bought the set two years ago, but now she had a sudden, clear memory of Richard looking at the credit card bill.
“Fifteen hundred pounds at the Burford Garden Centre? What on earth did you buy?”
“Dishes,” Harriet had replied with a shrug.
She’d spent fifteen hundred pounds on a new set of kitchen dishes. Because Sophie Bryce-Jones had a similar set, and Swedish stoneware was on trend.
She reached for a plate and then, without even thinking what she was doing, she hurled it to the ground where it shattered with a satisfyingly loud crash. Then she threw another one. She should stop. She should really stop, because these dishes were expensive and she was making a mess and, on a more practical note, they wouldn’t have anything to eat off tomorrow.
But she didn’t stop. She hurled every plate, cup, and bowl to the floor, rejoicing in each resounding crash, the sheer, senseless destruction of it, because at least she was in control of this one disaster. And then there were no more dishes to break and she was surrounded by broken stoneware. She let out a long breath and stared in appalled realization at what she’d done.
“Mum?”
Harriet looked up, even more appalled, to see her three children standing in the doorway, staring down at the mess of broken dishes around her. Chloe stuck her thumb in her mouth. Mallory folded her arms.
“Can I break something?” William asked.