In the grief-stricken months that followed, she had continued working in the emergency ward but that ended abruptly when she was attacked by a drug addict during her final trimester. Forced into an early labour, Sophy believed she had lost her baby but Julie survived and thrived in the weeks that followed.
Too traumatised to return to nursing, it was Maddie, her mother-in-law, who charted a new future for her. Her father’s greengrocery had been empty since his sudden death and Maddie, a successful childrenswear designer, was tired of travelling and constant deadlines. She was still not ready for full-time retirement and it was her idea to design a special collection of childrenswear for Sophy, who turned the greengrocery into Kid’s Chic. The Maddie and Laddie labels had been an immediate success, as had their business partnership. They had worked harmoniously together for over eight years until Maddie was diagnosed with cancer.
The shock of the prognosis had hardly been absorbed before she was gone from them and the slow corrosion of Sophy’s marriage began. Not that she had been aware of the cracks. She loved Luke and refused to heed the maxim that love was blind, deaf and incredibly credulous.
In her nightly conversations with Jack Hyland, she never discussed her husband or her broken marriage. If she did so, she would dissolve into tears, as she had done when Vivian Ford sat in her kitchen and asked her about ‘options.’ But the grim journey that led her to Hyland Hall was always at the forefront of her mind.
Luke was now coming to the end of his second month at the Oasis of Hope. He rang once a week to speak to the girls. Julie was always thrilled to hear him but Isobel took his calls reluctantly, and kept their conversations brief. Sophy had spoken to him only once on the phone since he entered the Oasis and their conversation had quickly deteriorated into an argument. A one-sided argument, she had to admit to herself afterwards. Luke had taken her refusal to engage with an intervention therapist quietly and had listened without arguing back to her angry reasons for her decision. She had neither the time nor the inclination to make the long journey back to Dublin to discuss the issues that had destroyed their relationship. Her hard, angry voice could have belonged to a stranger. These days, she had difficulty recognising herself. The sense of being adrift on feelings she was unable to understand was so crushing that the only way to relieve her inner turmoil was to muffle her cries into her pillow at night.
June came to an end and Julie’s school holidays began. She would be company during the day for Isobel, who had resolutely refused to adjust to Hyland Hall. Her clothes remained unpacked and those she wore were washed and ironed before being folded back again into her suitcase. Her dislike for Hyland Hall turned to disgust when she discovered that fly tippers were dumping rubbish on the estate. Charlie organised a clear-up but admitted that it had become a regular problem in recent months, despite the formidable entrance gates.
‘They’ll always find a way,’ Victor admitted when he called one evening on his way home from work to visit his uncle. ‘The estate has as many openings as a sieve.’ Since that first awkward night when he had entered the house so unexpectedly, he was anxious to help Sophy and the girls to settle down. He suggested they join the summer drama school and the pony club in Clonmoore. Julie had enrolled in both. She was determined to perfect her skill as a ventriloquist and had been an instant hit when she introduced Cordelia to the group. She was learning to ride a pony called Golden Eye and seemed to have adjusted completely to her new life.
Sophy’s days were uneventful, the evenings broken by Victor’s visits to his uncle. Sometimes, as she climbed the stairs with Jack’s medication or his evening meal, she would hear them talking. They always fell silent when she knocked and entered. The atmosphere while she was in the room was tense, as if they were anxious for her to leave so they could resume their private conversation.
She had found framed photographs of the two of them in one of the cabinet drawers. She’d had no idea what Jack had looked like before his accident but there was no mistaking his dark blue eyes or his tall, slim stature. In one of the