The One Day You Were My Husband (36)

I sigh. “You’re probably right. But there’s a surgeon there I really want to talk to. And the Roof conference felt like the perfect vehicle. It all just feels right.”

She pushes her point a while longer, because she still thinks she knows better than I do about what’s good for me, but eventually says she has to go; she and Gail are going for a bracing sea swim. Cold-water swimming is one of many things Mum uses competitively in conversation with me. She makes a point of swimming in the sea or the river Dart whenever she comes down, and the kids hero-worship her for it.

Robin doesn’t ask what Mum said, but he sees my face when I come downstairs and he gives me a hug. “You have always deserved better,” is all he says—which makes me feel mildly guilty because for once, Mum’s actually trying to protect me.

Later, while we’re trying to explain the King’s Christmas Broadcast to the children, Maya arrives with gifts for them and a strange look in her eye.

“Auntie Maya!” the kids yell, hurling themselves at her. Maya, who flew over to support me when they were born, has made a point of video calling them every week of their lives.

“Did you bring presents?” Maeve asks, before Maya’s even had time to wish them a merry Christmas.

“Yes, you horrible child,” Maya laughs, and Maeve jumps up and down, delighted with both the news and the insult.

“I’d really like a quiet Christmas walk with my sister,” she tells Robin, twenty minutes later. The kids are building the giant marble run she’s bought them. “Just a quick one. Is that OK?”

“Is Dad OK?” I ask, quickly.

“Yes. Well, ish. But no dramas. I just wanted to…well, have a quiet walk with my sister.”

“But I’d really like a quiet Christmas walk with your sister!” Robin says. The marble run is already out of control and in need of extra support; he’s busy running back and forth with astronomy books and lens cases to support the teetering runs. Thank God for my husband, who always makes their harebrained projects work.

“Dad!” Maeve yells. “QUICK!”

“OK, bye!” Maya says. She takes me by the elbow and walks me out of the door. “I’ll have her back within the hour!”



* * *



—

We climb through woods to Easdon Tor and stand on the rocks. The moor stretches out, white and crackling, while the sky is pink as a cocktail. The sun will set soon; by the time I return, Robin will have turned on the fairy lights outside and lit the fire.

I love my life here. Whatever Maya’s about to say about risking what I have is probably right.

“I got your message,” she says. “And a call from Mum, saying you’re still planning on going to Sweden.”

I don’t reply.

“Is there a part of you that still loves him?” she asks. “That’s what I want to know.”

“No! Absolutely not!”

She says nothing, just watches me.

“Is this the kind of ambush you set for your clients?” I ask. “Because you must be a very unpopular therapist if so.”

She smiles. “I have a long waiting list, as it happens. My clients pay me to ask good questions.”

“Well, here’s the thing: you’re not my therapist. And that wasn’t a good question.”

She thinks about this, poking the toe of her boot into a gap between giant granite rocks. “Fair enough. If you don’t want to talk to me about it, that’s fine.”

“Except it’s not fine. Because you’ve kidnapped me and dragged me up to a remote spot on the moor with the specific intention of interrogating me.”

Maya laughs, but says nothing.

“I hope you don’t take your clients hostage.”

“I do have to dial myself back in at times,” she admits. “For better or worse, I am still my mother’s daughter.”

I smile briefly, then look back out at the view. To me, this is the single most beautiful place on earth. A great raw wound of defiant land, thrusting up above the gentle rolling hills of Devon in ancient, weaponed peaks, unafraid of anything the gods can hurl at it.

“You know how hard I worked to put it all behind me,” I say, after a while. “I even went into therapy, at your insistence.”

“You saw her for three months! That’s barely getting started!”

“Maya. Will you please fuck off?”

“Sorry,” she says. “I just…I just love you very much, Carrie.”

“Hmm.”

“It just really worries me that you’re going ahead with this trip.” She pauses. “I know how hard you worked at moving on. But do you really think you did? Properly?”

I’ve wondered this myself at times. I was entirely ready to move on by the time I met Robin. But had Johan disappeared completely from my system? Every trace? I’m not sure. All I know is that the twins’ birth blew everything else out of the water.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see her studying me. Maya’s cut her hair short and it looks sensational, although—and I would never dare say this—it does make her look a bit like Mum. She’s wearing a beautiful woolen scarf so large it may well be a blanket, but she pulls it off.

More than twelve years have passed since my little sister went off to start her new life but she’s still glowing, while I’ve become the sort of pasty mum who says things like, Oooh, I’d pay for skin like hers. (I would.) In spite of her radiant appearance, though, I sense something’s up with her. She hasn’t told me what it is yet; I suspect she’s building up to it.