uncomfortable. She had often pulled away from Jo’s touch as she was seldom in the mood.
All her attention had been on her kids, she was surrounded by love and need and physical affection from her children. She needed space. But it was an awful time for Jo to do what he did. He should have waited for her to recover. All men must get frustrated with their wives after having children, when their children are very young and monopolize their mother’s attention. And labor is hard. God, the hardest thing she’s ever had to endure. It takes time to recover. And instead of looking after her, instead of staying home more and looking after the children, to give her a break. What did he do? He started going out more. He was completely selfish.
I should have left him then, Sarah thought. But she couldn’t, she felt trapped - how would she cope without Jo? She loved him regardless, and didn’t want to move back in with her parents. However much she loved them she couldn’t live with them, they would drive her crazy. Anyway, Jo had met someone else. He’d slept with her for God’s sake. And she had stayed with him. She still loved him. And yet she hated him. Hated the situation he’d put them in. The ridiculousness of the situation! She pretended everything was ok but it wasn’t.
Coming out of her reverie she looked into Daniel’s eyes - he was regarding her closely. Almost as though he was watching her thoughts. Sarah shook her head, there was no point dwelling on that now, but she looked down and put some more chicken in her mouth, as tears came to her eyes. She blinked them back - she would not cry about this again.
At that point Daniel leant his leg against hers. Oh my God, Oh my God.
As heat rose up her neck she concentrated on swallowing and looked over at Bea who was now climbing off her chair as Alice tried to clean her with a napkin. She didn’t move though, she couldn’t move her leg away. Her leg was tingling delightfully and she had to concentrate to stop herself from shaking. She picked up her glass and took another sip as she looked back to Daniel over it. He looked perfectly composed, but just for a moment she had thought she caught a predatory look in his eye.
Predatory for her.
She felt shocked. Why would he feel that way about her? I am a mother. I’m married. She lived in a small town. She didn’t do anything - didn’t work. Well, she tries to write, but so far she was unpublished. She hadn’t achieved anything.
Trying to keep things normal she thought she would take a stab at regular conversation.
‘So, where else have you lived in your tour of lots of places?’
He laughed, a small but free and heart-warming sound.
‘I actually grew up in the South, near New Orleans. But my father was in the army and we moved a lot. We lived in a couple of places in America, along with some time in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. I went to university in England, and since then I’ve spent some time studying at Harvard. But I wanted a change. I wanted some peace. I wanted to try a job I wouldn’t find so taxing so I could focus my time on writing.’
‘Oh really, what kind of thing are you writing?’ Sarah was pleased she’d finally gotten him to open up, but was he telling her the whole truth? Something in his manner caused her to suspect otherwise.
‘I’m writing a fantasy story, about vampires and werewolves.’ He looked at her closely, like he was very intrigued by how she would take this information.
‘How compelling,’ she smiled at him, ‘I love fantasy, it sounds exciting, I love plunging into a book and exploring different worlds.’
‘I plan on setting this book here though, in our world. I want to imagine how it would impact a community like this if it was besieged by the supernatural.’
‘Yes, that would be interesting to imagine,’ yet she shivered, wondering where he was going with this. ‘You know, I’m also writing a book.’ She looked across, into his eyes, interested in how he would respond. She was starting to feel more relaxed now they were actually talking. But his knee was still touching hers and she was very conscious of it.
‘Really, what’s your subject matter?’ he asked, raising his eyebrows.
‘Ghost stories, hauntings and