A Part of Me. Anouska Knight

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      I didn’t give the obvious answer of James’s golfing buddies. Instead, I opened the front door for him and watched him through it.

      James turned on the step, his eyes cautious. He was sizing me up, surveying me like one of his buildings, working out where was safe to tread. ‘Look, I’m mostly on site for the rest of the week so I won’t hassle you, Ame. But we are gonna talk soon, right?’ I was still nodding when he leant in unexpectedly and kissed me chastely on the mouth. I watched, rigid and ineffectual as he turned and walked away. James was efficient in the art of closing deals. For some reason, I remembered the time I’d nearly been had by a smarmy car salesman.

      I closed the door after him.

      ‘Everything all right, sweetheart? I was just coming to put the kettle on.’ Mum was about as subtle as an atom-bomb.

      I nodded and passed her into the dining room. She knew not to ask, leaving me to tidy up my work things in peace. I didn’t spend long at my laptop, I didn’t even sit. James had thrown my head for the rest of the night, so I fired off Bywater’s email and, much to Mum’s dismay, headed upstairs.

      I was hoping sleep would find me more easily tonight, but the hours soon slipped away as I replayed James’s visit through my mind. At least the time issues we were facing with Anna were something we were both aware of. A small voice had been whispering to me that James might take the upheaval of the last couple of weeks as his opportunity to change his mind, to pull out altogether, but he’d sounded genuinely concerned tonight that we be ready for our next meeting with Anna.

      I tried to visualise it all being okay, the two of us and the child we didn’t yet know, living somewhere picturesque and wholesome, like the mill. Fishing on the riverbank, balloon-adorned birthday parties on the lawns, friends and family coming over with their own kids. We didn’t need a super-home. We didn’t need anything but the people in that picture, yet still it felt like an unreachable fantasy. And still sleep evaded me.