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diplomatically, using the need to shop as an excuse, she got up to leave, promising to call her sisters that afternoon.
    “They’ll be very upset you haven’t spoken to them about this before now, so be prepared,” her mother warned gently as they walked together to the front door and out to the car.
    Esmée rolled down the window to bid her final farewell as her mother bent down to look in at her.
    “Esmée, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve been much help to you. I know it’s very different for you, but please think very seriously about what you’re doing.”
    Esmée smiled reluctantly up at her, doing her best to make the smile real.
    “I will, Mum, I promise.”
    “And no matter what you do, I’m with you, all the way.”
    With that, she leaned in the window and planted a soft kiss on Esmée’s cheek.
    “Drive safely, pet!” she called, withdrawing to safety as Esmée reversed out of the driveway.

Chapter 6

    Half an hour later and Esmée was wandering vacantly around the supermarket, struggling with a dodgy-wheeled trolley that appeared to mimic her gradually faltering confidence. She felt she was floating, disconnected from reality. Like Big Brother watching his specimens’ every move through a lens, she watched herself wander from aisle to aisle, placing apparently essential groceries into the wonky trolley, item by item. Would she even need all this stuff? Would she be back in that house by this time tomorrow? Questions! Questions! Too many questions that, for the moment anyway, were impossible to answer for sure.
    As she stood in the queue for the checkout her mobile rang and, digging it from the depths of her bag, she recognised her sister Penny’s number.
    “That didn’t take long!” she commented smartly and without so much as a second thought pressed the reject button, its vibrations a moment later telling her that her sister had left a message, which she also ignored. The morning’s conversation with her mum had confused and drained her and she just wasn’t willing to go through that again.
    It rang again as she packed the shopping into the boot of her car, only this time it was Lizzie.
    Well, what did you expect? she asked herself as she again diverted the call, threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove the short distance from the supermarket to the cottage.
    Unpacking the shopping and deciding as she went along where things should go was pleasantly uplifting and magically therapeutic. The house had a delightful warmth and charm that seemed to massage her aching soul and ease all her stresses elsewhere. She glanced at the clock on the microwave and gave herself two hours before she had to collect the kids and with that in mind, sauntered into the lounge, kicked off her shoes and sank into the luxury of the couch. Balancing her freshly brewed mug of coffee on her knee, she let her head tilt onto the soft cushioned back, closed her eyes and rolled her disjointed thoughts round and round, trying to make out the rights and wrongs of it all.
    Her mum’s words echoed annoyingly in her head. Family values! “Family values, my backside!” she said aloud. It was family values that had helped her put up with Philip for this long but even they had a limit. She didn’t want to put Matthew and Amy through this turmoil but, she asked herself: Doesn’t there come a point where enough is enough?
    She thought about her dad and what he might or might not have done. It was so hard, impossible in fact, to get the earlier revelation out of her mind. She didn’t believe it for a single moment – her normally intellectually astute mother must have made a mistake. But what would he want her to do now? She pondered as she sipped her coffee. She was sure that he wouldn’t have wanted her to be unhappy, but in her heart of hearts she knew that he would have agreed with his wife. He might have instigated a quiet man-to-man chat with Philip, warned him probably, but his overall advice would probably