A deluge of freezing rain soaking through her clothes, seemingly to her bones. Alicia pulled her coat tight. Shivering as the wind whipped overhanging branches and fat raindrops plopped moodily around her, she wrapped her arms about herself and continued through the part of the cemetery where once proud Victorian headstones had submitted to the elements. Walking on, past weathered stones and wingless cherubs, she avoided reading the inscriptions. She didn’t need any reminders of how short life was.

Reaching her destination, a secluded spot surrounded by beech trees and overlooked by the church, she stopped. I don’t think a cup of tea’s going to fix this, Mum, she said silently, gulping back the lump like granite that was wedged in her chest. Swiping a tear from her cheek, she took a step closer, then looked to the pregnant grey sky and sank to her knees. ‘Sorry, baby,’ she said out loud to little Lucas. ‘Mummy’s not crying, sweetheart. It’s just rain. Just the rain.’

Her jeans already saturated and heavy, she didn’t care about the wet mud seeping through to her skin. She just wanted to stay here a little while with those she needed to hold her, those she needed to hold so badly.

She didn’t hear her phone at first, buried deep in her pocket. A message alert. She felt sure it was Justin, but she didn’t scramble for it. There didn’t seem to be much point any more. There was nothing she could say to him. Nothing she could stand to hear him say. Not just now. They couldn’t fix each other’s hurt. They had been able to once. They’d talked all night, made love the next morning and she’d held him then, held him so tight that she’d been scared she might hurt him physically. He’d bared his soul to her. Told her how scared he was, how inadequate he felt after losing his family. She’d sworn she would do whatever she could so that he would never hurt like that again. She would extract herself from the situation with Paul Radley by any means possible. But then Paul Radley had extracted himself from her life – suddenly. Miraculously, she’d thought then. She’d truly thought it was a sign that not telling Justin the child she was carrying might not be his was the right thing to do. Her man was hurting, and she could help him. She could provide him a family.

Oh God. Burying her face in her hands, Alicia allowed the tears to come. How wrong had she been? Had she been mistaken about everything? Every time she thought about it, every time she’d listened to Paul talking about her deceit, her denying him the right to see his child, a new doubt crept in.

Going over it yet again, half of her screaming at her that she was right, the other half telling her she could have been so wrong, she stayed where she was for a while. Rain and tears dripping down her face, she told Luke she had a cold, that was all. That’s why she seemed a little bit teary-eyed. A little white lie, this time to protect her child.

She checked her phone eventually. Justin had sent a text. Did you take the photograph albums? That was all it said. No sign-off. Nothing. She’d hoped he might have been trying to contact her to say he’d changed his mind and wanted to talk after all, to listen to what she had to say. Though what she could actually tell him she was growing steadily more unsure of. There was no hope now. She knew that. In looking for the albums, he’d obviously been seeking to salvage what memories she hadn’t poisoned. Or perhaps he was trying to clarify in his mind that they were all fake memories, woven around the lie she’d told, the life they’d built based on that lie. It had all come crashing down. The foundations had been crumbling since day one, and now it was submitting to the elements, just like the forgotten Victorian headstones. She couldn’t stop it. She was too weak. She always had been.

No. She texted back. And then she muted her phone. Not because she thought he might ring or text again. But because she thought he might not.