Chapter 1 Darcy

1 DARCY

NOW

She’s dreading leaving the boys.

Nine days away from them. The longest ever . Charlie isn’t speaking to her, either, which makes leaving even more difficult. What if he doesn’t say goodbye? He’s twelve, and Marsha said her boy was the same at that age. If the newborn stage was tough, parenting a tween feels like masochism, and it’s especially tough now that she’s divorced. Last year Charlie was still giving her cuddles and telling her he loved her. But he’s always looked up to Jacob, his father. He looks like Jacob, too, his clone: that same intellectual forehead, same feathery blond hair and deep-set blue eyes. When Charlie took a lead role in the school play, she offered to help him prepare. She loved theater as a teenager, excelled at it. But her attempts to help backfired, and now he isn’t speaking to her.

Through the bedroom window Darcy sees the metal gates fold open, a black car gliding up the driveway, and takes a deep breath.

“He’s here, Marsha,” she calls to her babysitter, who is downstairs with the children.

“Right, come on, boys,” she hears Marsha say. “Let’s say goodbye to Mommy.”

Darcy’s suitcases are in the hall already, but she spends another few moments scanning the room in case she has missed something. Of course, she hasn’t missed anything—this is Darcy, Queen of the Lists, and she’s already checked her Maldives list a dozen times over—but nerves are kicking in, drawing a cloud over her brain. She inspects herself in the mirror, tugs a strand of freshly dyed chestnut-brown hair over her ear. She frets for a moment about the shade of pink the manicurist painted her nails—it’s so bright, not the sort of shade she imagined wearing at forty-one years old. Camilla had encouraged her to go for acrylics with some kind of nail art—miniature cacti or llamas, for God’s sake. She wasn’t sure if Camilla was pulling her leg. The pink was already outside her comfort zone. For the flight, she’s picked a knee-length cotton day dress from Boden—navy with a white scalloped hem—and matching navy espadrilles, a delicate gold chain at her neck. No makeup. Darcy never has any time for that, what with running around after three boys.

She deserves this trip. God knows she deserves it.

She heads down to the entrance hall, where Ben and Ed, seven and nine years old, respectively, are standing like two little soldiers against the radiator, waiting for her as Marsha suggested.

“Thanks for babysitting at short notice,” she tells Marsha. She’s a woman in her sixties whose own children have flown the nest. She looks after the boys sometimes when Darcy is at meetings.

Marsha gives her a kind smile. “Pleased to help.”

“Jacob will pick them up at six, but any problems, just make sure to call me.”

“Darcy, I’ll be fine,” Marsha says warmly. “Make sure you enjoy yourself. You deserve it.”

She smiles at Marsha and touches her on the shoulder.

The boys look crestfallen as she bends down to them.

“?’Bye, Mommy,” Ben says. “Will you call us?”

She touches his face. “Of course I will. You be good for Marsha, OK?” Then, turning to the doorway where a sliver of Charlie’s body is visible: “Love you, Charlie.”

No answer. She takes a step toward him, but the door closes with a bang in her face. She sighs and glances at Marsha, who gives her a sympathetic smile.

“Have a great time,” Marsha tells her as she heads to the taxi. “And try not to worry. Everyone will be fine .”

Heathrow sits just thirteen miles away, but traffic is usually bad, and she pulls out her phone to check if there are any messages from Camilla and Kate. Nothing from Kate, but one message from Camilla, with the usual stream of emojis:

At Terminal 5—buying gin! See you outside Pret?

She feels her heart lift. It’ll be worth it, this trip. Sometimes you have to remind yourself why you’re doing something to push away all the mom guilt.

This is her divorce trip, the mother of all celebrations to herald the end of a terrifying custody battle and a full-scale war to ensure she received the financial recompense that she deserved. Jacob’s business specializes in artificial-intelligence software, and he’s made a fortune at it. Darcy helped him set it up. She did his books in the beginning, wrote emails, proofread his contracts, drafted project bids. She never thought to ask for a slice of the company. She assumed her marriage was a done deal. The only contract she needed.

It’s also the anniversary week of a devastating moment in her life, one that changed her forever.

The cabdriver takes her bags, and she waves at Marsha, Ed, and Ben, a tear in her eye.

“Sorry,” she says to the taxi driver, plucking a tissue from the box between them. “First time leaving them.”

And then they’re off, the house and her three boys behind her.

What was it the lady at the counseling place told her? Not my circus, not my monkeys. It was a mantra Darcy was to repeat whenever she found her thoughts flinging back to her marriage, to the old life. One of the wonderful things about the otherwise unfortunate business of divorce was all the freedom she now had, all the autonomy .

She tried to focus her mind on that. Autonomy, power, independence… The thing is, she isn’t bothered about those things. They’re important to people like Camilla and Kate. Darcy, however, thrived on being the figurehead of her family, the one who found keys, made meals, washed clothes, removed splinters, cut toenails, endured field day. Two years in a row, she’d stayed up all night to make costumes for World Book Day. From scratch. Jacob didn’t even know how to work the dishwasher, for God’s sake. Darcy was the captain, a full-time wife and mother, the CEO of their family—and she did it well.

And now, it’s all gone. She has sacrificed her body, her career, her time, and her identity, for—what? Her roles as chair of the parents’ committee at her children’s school and elected parents’ representative for both their swimming and football clubs gave her enormous pride. But her reputation had been blighted by gossip when Jacob left her, and she had ended up stepping down from her positions, citing “lack of time” to save face. The real reason was shame. She couldn’t bear to be treated differently, with pity. Her dignity erased.

Everything in Darcy’s life had been ordered with the kind of precision that would have pleased her navy lieutenant father, had he lived long enough to see it. She had thought she and Jacob were happy as a result of her efforts. But a lipstick smear on a shirt collar blew it all to shit.

She’s reduced to a cliché. Spiraling like a condom wrapper in the tumble dryer. For the first time in many years, she feels an old itch under her skin, demanding to be scratched.

Heathrow is dizzying and chaotic, travelers bustling past, knocking into her. She feels flustered, irritated, until a voice calls her name from behind.

“Darcy?”

She turns to see Camilla waving at her, wearing a floppy fedora with an orange ribbon. She’s had hair extensions put in since they last met, twelve inches of glossy black curls tumbling down from either side of her hat. She’s wearing an orange silk dress—no bra—a mass of gold necklaces, heeled sandals. Her chest and arms ripple with muscles, and her shoulders glisten, round and solid. Darcy feels instantly frumpy in her presence.

“Camilla,” Darcy says, squeezing her tight. Camilla always smells and looks gorgeous. She steps back and looks Darcy over, her dark eyes twinkling. Camilla is of Filipino heritage, though she was born and raised in Cambridge.

“You ready for this?” she asks.

Darcy lifts her eyes to Camilla’s. The nerves she felt a moment ago dissipate, and she gives an assured nod of her head. Her phone pings with a flight notification.

“Ready.”