The Bad Mother Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure it’ll be good for us,’ she said. ‘Make it easier to start over.’
    ‘Right.’ He licked his lips. ‘Because I’ve got something to tell you as well.’
    ‘What?’ She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but she was tired, and had expected him to enter more fully into what all this meant for her. After all, it wasn’t every day you discovered you weren’t who you thought you were. But she saw the shutters come down and wanted to shake him.
    ‘You’ve probably already guessed.’ He gave a feeble laugh. ‘I’m moving in with Nula this week.’
    ‘Nula?’
    ‘Nula Simmonds,’ he reminded her, striving to sound patient. ‘She’s part of the company that did all the design work here. You’ve met her.’
    The mist cleared: Sam had been complaining for a while about the lack of space in his one-room flat. ‘But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ she said eagerly. ‘There’s no need for you to go on renting, is there? Not now this place is nearly done. Come home!’
    His hesitation was like a siren going off. ‘You mean you really don’t know?’ He looked hurt, as if she were deliberately making this harder for him.
    ‘Know what?’ asked Tessa, realising that she did indeed already know what he was going to say.
    ‘We’re going to live together.’
    Her distress burst out of her: ‘What about us?’
    ‘It’s been almost two years since I went to London.’
    ‘But we’re still married, still a family.’
    Sam licked his lips again, and then reached out to hookher fingers into his. ‘It was you who encouraged me to leave in the first place, to aim higher. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.’
    Tessa recognised that smile, knew he was cajoling her into doing the rest for him, but she was too shocked to speak.
    He looked around at the half-finished building. ‘It’s time we organised our business finances properly too.’
    ‘We can do that. Just talk to the accountant.’
    He swallowed hard and let go of her hand. ‘Two years is long enough for a legal separation.’
    ‘Don’t leave me!’
    ‘You’re upset about what happened today. We can discuss this another time.’
    ‘No!’ Tessa felt afraid of yet more ground shifting beneath her feet. Dazed, she struggled to stand firm. ‘Is this what you want?’
    Sam nodded. ‘We should get a divorce.’
    ‘What about the kids?’ She didn’t know what else to say to sway him, to win him back. She thought for a moment that she had never seen him so implacable, but then reconsidered: it was always by stealth that Sam got his own way in the end.
    ‘It’ll be better,’ he was saying now. ‘Clearer. And Nula’s got a spare bedroom so they’ll be able to stay with me. We thought we’d buy a sofa bed for the living room, so they don’t have to share a room if they don’t want to.’
    ‘So it’s all sorted?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How do we tell them? They’ll be devastated.’
    ‘Not really. They’re cool with it. They like Nula.’
    ‘They already know?’
    ‘That I’m moving in with her? Yes.’ He hung his head, his hair dropping forwards. ‘Sorry. I assumed you did too. That you’d realised.’
    The hint of injury in Sam’s tone reminded Tessa how conveniently he always assumed that people magically knew about matters he didn’t want to deal with. How his own sense of injury enabled him to ignore the pain he was inflicting. It had been the same when he’d returned from London and didn’t move back home. And, despite her misgivings at the time, she had allowed it to happen, telling herself she was being civilised and mature, just as she seemed to be doing now. Except that this time the pain was much worse.
    ‘I don’t want you to leave. I want you to come home.’
    ‘Be happy for me, Tessa,’ he warned, brushing his hair back with an impatient gesture.
    His earnest brown eyes looked at her in his old pleading way, and with a sinking heart, Tessa knew she would pander to him as she always did, would