My brain was packed full of worry. I barely had any space left to focus on small decisions. As soon as I brushed my teeth, I questioned whether I had or not. I stared into my drawer for my pyjamas before realising I was looking in the wrong drawer. I read my book in bed but I didn’t take in a word of it.

Unable to sleep once I had turned the light off, I climbed out of bed and crept in to see Rosie.

Her duvet was bunched up around her head. I pulled the duvet away, down over her splayed limbs and saw that her pink electronic diary lay across her open hand. The door of the diary was open. When I gently removed it from her, she frowned in her sleep.

I studied her features. They were neat while mine seemed untamed. Her nose, long and straight, like Peter’s, her black hair, as thick as a tree trunk in a ponytail, while mine disappeared to nothing. Her pale skin would freckle in the sun, while mine burnt. The muscles on her calves were stronger, shapelier than the spindles I had inherited from my mother. Rosie looked nothing like me. Had anyone else noticed?

I closed the pink plastic door shut on her secret scribblings, disciplined enough not to peek, in spite of my curiosity, and placed it by her bed. All of our secrets safely under wraps.

---

‘Rich and the kids are out on a ride. They’ll be back in a min,’ my sister said, plonking the meat on her over-cluttered surfaces and clattering around the copper pots and pans hanging up to bring down the largest boiling pot and two colanders, one plastic and one metal. Jackie pushed some old bills and colouring books from one end of the kitchen table to the other to make room for the colanders. Her kitchen was as haphazard and charming as mine was tidy and sterile.

‘Do you know how to use this?’ Jackie quipped when she handed me the peeler.

‘Of course I do. I use it to peel the carrots for my power shake every morning,’ I joshed.

‘Ha ha.’

Armed with a potato peeler each, the Aga warming our backs, we sat at the table with the colanders in our laps and peeled. I relished in the mundane task, realising how little time I made for cooking, or for my sister, for that matter.

‘How was Rosie this morning?’

‘Bit quiet. Bit too nice.’

‘When Stella is feeling guilty about something, she compliments me on my hair,’ Jackie said, raising an eyebrow.

I laughed.

‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at?’ Jackie grinned, flicking a straggle behind her back.

She was thin and dark, like me, but her thinness was more muscular, her arms had defined sinews visible under her skin, and her hair was permanently windswept, like my hair on a very bad day. She probably used washing-up liquid to wash it. Her pale skin was ruddy in circles on her cheeks and deeply lined around the eyes and across her forehead. She was older than me by two years, but most people would probably guess ten. Her concern about this was at zero. Unless it was horses she was grooming, she didn’t care about appearances. The eldest of her four children, Stella, learnt to French plait her own hair at five years old.

‘And how are you?’ she asked.

‘I’m not sure. I read a story online last night that was about this woman whose kids were taken away from her when her husband accused her of hitting them even though he was the nutter, not her.’

‘It does happen,’ Jackie replied, without looking up from her potato.

‘And once she got into the system, she couldn’t get out of it. She lost both her children. And her family and friends turned against her.’

Jackie’s hands stopped peeling for a second before she answered. ‘If you start reading stuff online, you’ll only freak yourself out.’

‘But what about Social Services?’

‘If they do get in touch, you have nothing to hide. It’ll be fine.’

But there was something niggling me, at the back of my mind, telling me it wasn’t fine, and I certainly didn’t want Jackie to think it was fine. None of it felt fine.

‘You reckon?’

‘Stop worrying. That woman next door has obviously got major issues.’

‘But Rosie does scream a lot,’ I said, quietly.

‘All kids scream.’

‘What if Mira calls the police every time she does?’

‘You can’t live like you’re stepping on eggshells.’

‘What do I do then? I can’t gag Rosie.’

Jackie paused, wiped a strand of hair from her eyes with the back of her hand and looked at me.

‘Do you ever think about going part-time?’

It was like a nasty little kick in the shin.

‘Do you really think her tantrums are about that?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think she tantrums because she’s a pain in the arse.’

‘Keep your voice down, Gem,’ she said, even though she knew Rosie and Noah were well out of earshot, playing on the swings outside with Peter.

‘I give her everything any child could dream of and she throws it back in my face.’

‘I know she’s hard work.’

‘Hmmm,’ I said, doubtfully. ‘But you think I neglect her.’

‘Neglect her? Oh come on, Gemma, don’t put words in my mouth. I know how much you love Rosie, and so does Peter, and Mum. Don’t go getting all paranoid about us, of all people.’ Jackie was shaking her head at me.

‘You’d be paranoid too if you had the police asking you about whether you abuse your kids.’

Jackie placed her hand on mine, and spoke gently, ‘Let’s forget about it.’

A curl of isolation wrapped itself around my head like a dense mist, separating me from Jackie. There was so much she didn’t know. Everything she said would fall short of what I needed from her.

‘You would support me though, wouldn’t you, if it came to it?’

‘Now you’re sounding crazy.’ And Jackie stood up and walked out into the garden. She had never liked the confrontation I would endlessly push for.

I saw her through the window. My regret fought with my anger. I knew I should go out there to say sorry. But if I admitted to being in the wrong, she would automatically be in the right, and the child in me couldn’t handle that.

Mum’s arrival was a welcome interruption.

‘What’s going on, you two?’

Before I had a chance to reply, Jackie flung the backdoor open and stepped back into the kitchen.

‘Look, Gemma, none of us is getting it right, okay? I am an absolutely crap mother most of the time. I barely manage to bath them once a week, and I always let them play outside when they should be doing their homework, and I feed them pasta pesto too often, and, seriously, I could go on and on, but the thing is, you know all this because I talk about how crap I am all the time. The difference is, you never do. You never ever admit to making mistakes. You’re always telling us how perfect everything is.’

Mum’s eyes batted furiously as she looked from Jackie to me. In old photographs, Mum’s eyes were as bright as buttons. Now they had a milky film, as though the sadness and disappointments of life had brought diaphanous curtains across her vision to shield her. ‘Sorry, Jacs,’ I said, and hung my head. My heart contracted with shame. My sister never raised her voice to me. ‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’

Jackie dropped her hands from her hips, stepped into my arms and hugged me tightly.

‘Sometimes it’s okay just to ask for help.’

‘I’m the worst sister ever. And the worst mother ever,’ I moaned.

‘No, no, you’re an amazing mother, and don’t for a second forget it.’

We stood stuck to each other until mother piped up.

‘Plainly, I haven’t done a very good job though. You’re a pair of basket cases,’ she said, and all three of us fell about laughing.

‘You’re right. You totally fucked us up,’ Jackie said, kissing Mum on the cheek.

‘Hi Mum.’ I kissed her other cheek. ‘It’s okay, I blame the hormones,’ I joked, holding both hands over my stomach, trying to warm it, to soothe it somehow, to counteract the surge of stress hormones. If its exposure to high levels of cortisol was anything to go by, the poor little mite was going to be crazier than all of us put together.

Peter came back in, with dirty trousers from the mud pit that surrounded the swings. ‘What’s all this hugging about?’

‘Sorry, you have to be a crap mum to get a hug. But you can have a cup of tea,’ Mum said, waving a teabag in his direction.

‘What about being a crap dad? If you don’t hug me, it’s discrimination.’ And he hugged Mum, who stiffened a little at such an open display of affection.

‘Speaking of crap dads, either of you called him recently?’ Mum asked.

Jackie and I glanced at each other and grimaced.

‘Girls, seriously,’ Mum reprimanded.

‘I called him after Jill’s funeral,’ Jacs offered up sheepishly.

‘That godforsaken village he lives in is ten miles from a village shop and he’s all alone now. You really should call him.’

‘He was coping all right when I last spoke to him.’

‘You know, he might surprise you, he might be able to offer some good advice,’ Mum said.

‘Don’t you dare tell him about the police, Mum,’ I begged, knowing Mum spoke to him weekly.

‘There’s no shame in it, darling. You know, I spoke to John last night and apparently something like this happened to Immy’s friend, a few years back...’ Mum began.

‘Did you tell John, too?’ I cried.

‘It’s only John.’

She told John everything. John and Sarah, and their daughter Imogen, had lived in the next-door house to us on the Victorian terrace we had grown up in. John and Sarah were the parents Jacs and I wished we had. I minded less that she had told John.

‘Go on, what happened,’ Jacs said, bringing us back to the point.

‘Well, apparently, Social Services called to arrange an appointment and then they came around to her house to interview her, and they interviewed the son at school.’

‘Why were they suspicious in the first place?’ I asked, my heartbeat quickening at the mention of Social Services.

‘It was a mum at school who made the allegation. She accused her of neglect.’

‘And they were completely innocent?’

‘Completely, apparently. It turned out the child had some allergy or something, which explained how skinny she was. They dropped the case in a couple of weeks. But Imogen remembers her friend went through hell. They spoke to their doctor and the child’s teachers, and all sorts.’

There was silence. Possibly, we were all thinking the same. I knew what I was thinking: no smoke without fire. When someone points a finger, you are naturally left wondering why. If it isn’t true, why accuse them in the first place? I recognised the hypocrisy of my suspicions. It was an insight into how other mothers might feel about me if it got out.

‘It won’t come to all that. As I’ve said, you’ve got nothing to hide,’ Jackie restated reassuringly.

Some of us have more to hide than others, I thought. I knew that my sister would never have had the urge to hit her children and I knew how shocked she would be if I told her that it came to me when Rosie was in a tantrum. I had never seen Jackie raise her voice to any of her four near-feral children. They wouldn’t know a boundary if it smacked them in the face and I had often judged her for it.

I stood to clear the empty cups of tea. ‘More tea, anyone?’

Jackie stood up. ‘Peter, come out to the paddocks with me and say hello to Still Standing. She’s doing so well.’

‘Love to,’ he said, and they both disappeared outside.

I was left alone with Mum, who helped me put the mugs in the dishwasher.

‘I was wondering, darling, if it might be a good idea for you to have a day out with Rosie this week.’

‘Actually, I was thinking of booking a surprise trip for all of us to Disneyland Paris, or something, as a bit of a treat.’

‘No, I meant, just you and Rosie. Something simple.’

‘Oh. Yes. That might be a good idea.’ Dread twisted in my stomach. I felt actual fear of a whole day alone with her.

‘Are you very busy at work at the moment?’

The potential promotion, which I had kept secret for now, loomed largely in my mind. ‘No more than usual,’ I said.

‘You know, I realised last time I looked after them that you arrive home terribly late at night.’

Here we go again, I thought. Jacs and Mum had obviously been talking. To save a row, I decided to ignore her, as though she hadn’t spoken at all. It was the way my mother and I had always operated.

‘Maybe I’ll take her into London to see a show,’ I suggested.

My mother seemed happy to drop it too. ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream is on at the Barbican.’

I tried not to laugh. ‘I was thinking more like a musical.’

‘She’s very bright. You don’t need to dumb it down,’ Mum sniffed.

When I was young, my mother would slam the door shut to the sitting room if Jacs and I watched a soap opera on the television instead of a documentary. ‘I’ll have a look at what’s on,’ I said, trying to placate her.

‘It’ll be lovely, darling, whatever you do,’ my mother said.

I wished I shared her optimism. Online later that night, the pressure to choose the right show sent me into paroxysms of indecision. The bigger shows were booked out, the smaller ones were not special enough, some were too grown-up, some too babyish. It was like choosing a party dress for her all over again, but worse. I was bound to get it wrong. After two hours of research, prevaricating hopelessly, I bought two tickets for a musical production performed by a circus troupe from Paris. And I crossed my fingers.