The House Guest by Charlotte Northedge

Author:Charlotte Northedge [Northedge, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-04-06T17:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

The realisation came suddenly. It was a feeling. An almost imperceptible change in my body, a metallic taste on my tongue. It was early morning, and I lay still, trying to reason with myself. But the certainty flooded through me as quickly as the dread. How had I let this happen?

I listened for voices. The house was silent, empty. Della must have taken the children outside to the pool. She’d said the evening before that I could have a lie-in, since I was feeling so tired. I counted the days since my last period with mounting panic. I remembered there had been a day when it had been so heavy, I hadn’t been able to get in the pool. I’d explained to Della and she’d asked Mark to watch the children. That had been before Sophia arrived, even before Jonathan and Dee. Which meant that on the Friday before Mark left, I would have been ovulating. And we hadn’t used contraception.

I hadn’t thought to bring any with me, and Mark didn’t have any condoms, but he’d withdrawn every time, he said. There was no need to worry. At the time I’d been more concerned about covering our tracks. About what Della might find out. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid, so caught up in the moment. What had I been thinking?

I tried to calm my breathing. I was probably being paranoid. In a few days, my period would arrive, and I would look back on this moment as one of those near-misses that almost sends your life on a very different track. Perhaps I would even laugh about it. For now, I felt like crying.

On Wednesday morning Della, the children and I drove home from the market with a fully stocked car. It was nearly September, and the days were getting cooler, a whisper of autumn spreading through the woods around us.

The fatigue and headaches had improved slightly over the previous days, and I had convinced myself that it was just my time of the month. I was certainly feeling moody enough. All I needed now was to take the pregnancy test I’d slipped off to buy in town, and I could put the whole thing behind me, ride out the next couple of weeks and return to normal life.

‘How are you feeling today?’ Della asked as we laid out bread and cheese for lunch. It was beginning to rain and so we were setting the table in the kitchen.

‘Oh I’m fine, really. I’m getting my period, so that probably explains why I’ve been feeling so tired.’

‘Are you?’ Della asked, her back to me as she sliced the baguette. Putting the knife down with a clatter, she called the children down for lunch.

After a subdued meal I tried to sneak away, but Della wanted to lie down, so I had to be the one to take the children to the pool and watch impatiently as they splashed and played and sang annoying songs, ignoring the obvious chill in the air.

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