few months, not wanting to burst into tears in front of Aline or Fionn or Regan. She’d had to be strong for them. Strong for herself, too. She’d refused to allow herself to cry; not when the police came, not when she identified Ken’s body and not at his funeral. The anger helped, of course, while staying dry-eyed became something to hold on to, something to get her through the difficult days. And then it became an end in itself. My husband drove his car off a pier and I didn’t cry, she’d think. And she’d feel proud of herself for that. She wondered if the young woman in front of her felt the same.
When Deira opened her eyes again, she saw that Grace was watching her, quiet and serene.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I got a bit . . .’
‘That’s OK,’ said Grace. ‘You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.’
‘It’s just that . . .’ Deira rubbed the corners of her eyes. ‘It’s stupid really. Nothing special. Nothing I should be crying over.’
‘If you need to cry, you need to cry,’ said Grace. Seeing other people cry made her feel good about her own ability to remain dry-eyed. It reinforced her feelings of strength. Of being somewhere that Ken’s actions couldn’t reach her.
Deira used one of the paper napkins on the table in front of them to wipe her eyes.
‘I loved him and we were happy; like you said, we were a power couple, and we were working through the problems with Marilyn and the girls. Everything was perfect until we talked about starting a family. Well, to be strictly accurate, I talked about it. He listened. He said no.’
‘Straight out?’
‘Straight out,’ confirmed Deira. ‘He said that he already had a family.’
‘But you and Gavin were a family too,’ protested Grace.
‘I know. And when I reminded him of that, he agreed with me straight away. But he said he couldn’t possibly upset the girls further by having children with someone else.’
‘I can see where he was coming from,’ said Grace. ‘But he was bloody insensitive all the same.’
Deira picked at the paper napkin. ‘After I talked about having a baby, he made an even bigger effort to get Mae and Suzy involved in our lives. He insisted that Marilyn allow them to come on holiday with us and have them over more often.’
‘But that’s not the same as you having a baby of your own!’ exclaimed Grace. ‘Surely he could see that?’
Deira shook her head. ‘His children, our children. He seemed to think it was all the same.’
‘Men are such fools.’ Grace’s tone was heartfelt.
‘At least my relationship with the girls improved to the point that they stopped trashing my stuff,’ said Deira. ‘Gavin was pleased that we all seemed to be getting on.’
‘But . . . but . . . didn’t you tell him it wasn’t enough?’
Deira shook her head. ‘I knew the girls were enough for him. He hadn’t left them just to do the same thing all over again. We were a different sort of family, he said. A family of two adults. He didn’t want to upset it by bringing a baby into the mix. He reminded me that I didn’t know anything about babies. That he was the one with experience. That they totally disrupted your life. That you never got to give them back.’
Grace raised an eyebrow.
‘I know. Put like that, it sounds selfish. But he didn’t mean it to be. He was pointing out how we were currently living compared with how we’d live if there was a baby.’
‘Didn’t you discuss it at the start? Before you moved in together?’
‘We should have. But it never occurred to me. I was so in love and I guess I thought that over time the baby thing would happen. Besides, a lot of our emotional energy was taken up with his bloody divorce.’
‘But in the end you agreed with him about the baby? Or did you?’
‘I had to,’ said Deira. ‘He wasn’t going to change his mind. And . . . well, children had never been a priority for me. It wasn’t something I wanted to rush into. So deciding I wanted a baby was a bit left-field. Anyhow, Gavin was right about my lack of experience. My home life was disjointed. I would probably have been a hopeless mother.’
‘Not at all,’ said Grace. ‘You’re a kind person. You would have done just fine. You could still do just fine,’ she added, ‘if