As the dust slowly began to settle, Libby was forced to piece together a new routine for herself and Izzy. Zoe had kindly agreed to extend her childcare days to five days a week so that Luca could be excused from his parental responsibilities on Fridays. Apparently Luca and Jules were still in Sussex. He had been phoning her frequently since the night he left, but it had taken her a good three weeks until she felt able to answer the phone.
‘Luca,’ she said, her hand trembling as she finally clicked the icon to receive the call.
‘Libby, thank you for answering,’ he said, relieved to have finally got through. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine.’ She couldn’t talk to him about what he had done, about her feelings. It was too raw and too painful.
‘I’m so sorry—’ he began.
‘Don’t.’ Libby interrupted him. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m not answering the phone so that we can have a conversation about what you have done, Luca. I’ll talk to you about Izzy, but that’s it.’
He paused. ‘I understand,’ he said. She could picture him so clearly, her heart hurt at the thought. She wondered whether Jules was by his side, listening, and she hardened her heart once more. ‘How is she? I miss her.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have left her.’ She couldn’t help it; tears smarted in her eyes. Calming herself, she gave him a cursory update to let him know that his daughter was all right.
‘Will you let me see her when I get back to London?’
‘Are you still in Sussex?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jules too?’ It pained her to even say Jules’s name.
‘Yes.’
She waited for a minute, knowing what the right thing to do was but reluctant to agree to it. ‘I’ll let you see her,’ she said.
Despite everything he had done, she knew that she didn’t want Izzy to miss out on having a good relationship with her father. Her own dad had meant the world to her, and nothing Luca did could alter the fact that he was Izzy’s father. She would have to put up with his treatment of her for her daughter’s benefit, even though all she really wanted to do was cut him out completely from her life and delete him from her memory. But life was never that straightforward. She didn’t have to see Jules, though, and she told Luca that when he was with Izzy she did not want Jules to be there too. He agreed, promising that he would see Izzy alone. She had hung up the phone before her resolve crumbled, too proud to let him hear the emotion in her voice, and then given way to the inevitable tears.
The days continued to roll by. With each day that passed, Libby regained a slither of her former independence, but at night, as she lay alone in bed, she was all too aware of the empty space beside her. Luca had vacated their home, and the lack of his presence left a gaping hole. She felt as though she had been plucked from the security of her relationship and dropped into the middle of an ocean. She was paddling manically to stay afloat, to juggle everything that was required of her at work, and to look after Izzy without her partner’s support. She felt incredibly isolated. She imagined it must feel similar when your partner died; the decision was entirely out of your control, but here you were, alone, and with no choice other than to somehow keep going, to acclimatise to your new circumstances the best you could.
Libby missed him, yet she could barely contain the rage she felt at his and Jules’s betrayal. It took all her strength to try and remain civil when they spoke on the phone. How she was going to manage it when she saw him face to face she had no idea. She had shed so many tears, crying herself to sleep, going over and over events in her mind, reliving the happy memories she had shared with Luca in Italy when it all began. She combed through her memories obsessively to try and find some telltale sign she had missed, glances between Luca and Jules as they’d plotted and schemed behind their backs.
Libby felt Jules’s betrayal most bitterly. Luca had been in her life for two years, but Jules had known her for nearly all of her thirty-four years. Their friendship had been sacred to Libby. If she could have named one person she knew would never, ever do something like this to her, it would have been Jules. She felt unbelievably foolish that she had trusted her so deeply and implicitly. She couldn’t get her head around the fact that Jules was capable of such deceit. It seemed unthinkable.
She thought back to the early days when she had first started seeing Luca. She remembered Giulia’s warning. She should have listened to her. It was clear now to Libby that Giulia hadn’t been jealous of her, she had been genuinely concerned. When was she going to learn? Her character judgement was clearly way off track. She needed to stop being so naïve and trusting. She was determined not to let anyone close to her, and to Izzy, again.
She thought about Helen, how she had once said that everything came so easily to Libby. How wrong she had turned out to be. Or maybe she had been right. Perhaps it was Libby herself who was at fault. She should have taken the time to really get to know Luca before rushing into things. She should have paid more attention to the signs that things were not quite right between them, that they hadn’t been these past few months. She should have seen Jules for what she really was.
Jules called her often, desperate to explain herself, to apologise and try to make amends, but Libby couldn’t have been less interested. Her blood boiled at the mere sight of her name on the screen of her phone, and she knew that she would never forgive her. Her days seemed an awful lot emptier without them, but life ploughed on with its unstoppable force, oblivious to the dramas that trailed in its wake.
Helen and Miriam rallied around her with a stoic show of support. Libby was grateful that Helen was in so much happier a place.
‘Of all the people,’ Miriam said, giving her daughter’s hand a squeeze. They were sitting at the kitchen table drinking cups of tea.
‘It is quite unbelievable,’ agreed Helen, who had known Jules for just as long as Libby had. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘Better now that I’ve had some time to get used to it. I’m sorry I’ve been so hard to get hold of. What with getting my head around all this, work and looking after Izzy, I’ve just needed to focus on getting through each day one by one.’ She hadn’t wanted to see her family immediately.
‘I understand completely,’ said Miriam. ‘It’s been a shock for us all. It’s just so unexpected.’
‘Have you seen them?’ asked Helen.
‘No, they are in Sussex apparently,’ said Libby.
‘Sussex? So they really are together then?’ asked Miriam.
‘It would appear so. They have “serious” feelings for each other, according to Luca, so that justifies their actions apparently. They would never have run off together unless it was the real deal…’ Libby laughed ironically. ‘Clearly being engaged and married respectively was not the real deal – who would have thought it?’
‘How’s poor Angus coping?’ asked Helen.
‘Do you know what, he has been amazing,’ said Libby. ‘A complete rock for me and Izzy, despite everything he is going through.’
‘You said they hadn’t been in a great place for quite some time,’ said Helen. ‘Perhaps that helps.’
‘It doesn’t make it any easier, but I think deep down he suspects that it might be for the best. It’s just so shocking, though. To think of them going behind our backs like that…’ Libby trailed off, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘How could they?’ Miriam was clearly disgusted. The scandal of the affair had been the talk of Kent. She was glad that she had John by her side to help her deal with all the gossiping locals. ‘What are you going to do about Luca seeing Izzy?’
‘Well, that’s the hardest part in a way,’ said Libby. ‘The fact that I can’t just forget about him and move on. I have to accept that we will be in touch for the rest of our lives because of Izzy. I suppose that that’s just what happens when a relationship ends and a child is involved. The sooner I face up to him, the better.’
‘So you’ll see him as soon as he comes back to London?’
‘Yes, I’ll have to.’
‘Will you talk about it?’
‘We’ll see. I’m not sure how I’ll feel. But yes, I suppose we should. I need to force myself to be civil towards him for Izzy’s sake, and the sooner I do that the better.’
‘You’re so brave, darling,’ said Miriam. ‘I’m so proud of you.’
‘You’ve handled this amazingly well,’ said Helen. ‘I honestly don’t know what I would have done if it had happened to me…’ She gave her sister a big hug.
Later they left Libby as they headed back to Henry and John. Libby couldn’t help but envy them their happy relationships, and wonder if she would ever find happiness like that again. It would be very hard to trust someone after all this. She felt as if she had clamped a metal cage around her heart and she knew that it would be incredibly difficult to open it. She was doing what she had to do to stay strong for her daughter, though, and for Angus. But she was terrified that her resolve would fail and she would end up in a pit of despair so deep that she would never be able to climb out.