The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

to the supermarket, love, and do you know what? I’m going to buy us some Easter treats. Cheer you up a bit.’

I look up. I’m on the sofa, half watching the cookery segment on This Morning. The chef’s decorating a batch of Easter cupcakes, adding tiny white chocolate eggs to the vanilla buttercream icing.

‘You don’t have to, Mum.’

‘I know I don’t have to; I want to. All those Easters I missed, Beth. All those Easter eggs I didn’t buy you. Let me, please.’

She looks pale again, tired, but so wistful and so eager to please that I haven’t the heart to argue. And anyway, I’m feeling a little more cheerful today because it’s the Thursday before Easter weekend and tonight is Eloise’s school play, finally. I may not have the children for Easter, but at least I’ll see them tonight. I bought their eggs weeks ago – big, fancy ones from the posh chocolate shop on The Prom, personalised with their names. I can’t wait to hand them over this evening, can’t wait to hold my babies again, to kiss their soft cheeks. I miss them so much it’s like a physical ache.

‘Oh, go on then. Do you want a lift?’

I smile at Mum and she beams.

‘No, no, I’ll walk. I can manage a couple of shopping bags; it’s not that far.’

She heads for the door, waving over her shoulder.

‘See you in a bit.’

When she’s gone I switch the TV off. I’m still feeling low, but the thought of tonight’s keeping me going; I need to find something to wear to the concert and wash my hair. I’d been so looking forward to Liv coming up for tonight, as she’d promised, but she called yesterday apologising profusely, saying someone had gone sick and she now had to work over the holiday weekend instead. I wondered, briefly, if this was a lie, if the real reason she wasn’t coming was because she was ashamed to be seen with me after the porn site debacle, but I let it go, more worried about how Eloise is going to react when her aunt doesn’t show. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her when I called last night. I didn’t want to upset her before her big day, and anyway our phone calls have been so brief and so perfunctory for the past couple of nights. She knows something’s up, that much is clear.

‘There’ve been rumours at school,’ Jacob said gruffly, before passing the phone to the children on Monday night. ‘Nothing specific, just something about embarrassing video footage of you on Facebook. Eloise isn’t happy. She wants to know what’s going on. I’ve managed to fob her off for now, but she may well find out sooner or later. Nothing I can do about that.’

I’m trying to stop dwelling on it all now, just trying to look forwards. Mum was, I think, relieved when I told her what Mike had said, and that I’d now accepted I was imagining seeing him all over Cheltenham colluding with my friends.

‘Just as I told you, love!’ she said. ‘Now, no more worrying. Whoever did it will get their punishment one day, you’ll see. And nothing else has happened since Robin left, has it? So it probably was her, wasn’t it? It’s all over now. Just forget it. We’ll have a nice Easter, and then hopefully you can get back to work, and the children will come home, and we’ll have a wonderful summer together. It’ll all be fine, OK?’

And maybe she’s right. It’s true, nothing else bad has happened since I fired Robin. So maybe it is really over after all, I think now. It’s just that something still doesn’t feel right about it being Robin, and yet …

BRRRR.

My mobile phone is ringing. Jacob.

‘Hello?’

‘Beth.’

Just one word, yet already he sounds so … so angry, and my throat constricts.

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve just got back from the school. I had a call just after ten saying that Eloise was terribly upset and that I needed to come and pick her up.’

‘What? What’s wrong? Is she sick?’

I’m starting to panic, clutching the phone so tightly my fingers are hurting.

‘No, she’s not sick.’

He practically spits the words into my ear.

‘Well … what, then?’

‘It’s you, Beth.’ A pause, a heavy breath. ‘She’s finally found out. One of the boys in her class somehow got his hands on that video of you. He was showing it around in the playground before lessons this morning. Ten-year-old children, Beth, looking at videos of you naked, touching yourself. I can’t even …’

He sounds like he’s struggling to form the words.

Oh no. Please, no …

‘And Eloise? She’s … she’s seen them too?’

My voice is a strangled whisper.

‘Yes, she’s seen them. She’s mortified, Beth. She says she doesn’t want to go back to school and is refusing to take part in the play tonight. She’s upstairs now, crying her little heart out …’

‘Jacob, I need to see her. I’m coming over, now, please …’

I slump down onto the nearest chair. I’m feeling so dizzy I might actually faint, but I have to get to my daughter, I have to comfort her.

‘Please, Jacob, is that OK?’

‘NO!’ He shouts so loudly I jump. ‘No. You are not to come over, do you hear me? She doesn’t want you anywhere near her. She doesn’t want to see you, or speak to you. She made that very clear in the car on the way back here.’

‘But—’

‘Listen, Beth. The answer is no. Our daughter is very, very upset, and you’re the cause of it. All that work, all those hours of rehearsal … She’s devastated, but she says there’s no way she can go on stage tonight with everyone laughing at her. Laughing at you … Do you see? Do you see now the awful consequences of your recent behaviour?’

He’s angrier than I’ve ever heard him and that’s scaring me, but it’s what he’s saying that’s scaring me more.

Eloise, my darling girl. I can’t bear this, I can’t …

‘But Jacob, please …