The Reunion

at him?’
    Natalie could hear the fridge opening, the clinking of bottles. ‘Sometimes I’m afraid, you know, that I won’t be able to get that out of my head, that it’ll hurt us…’
    The ping of bottle tops landing in the bin. ‘Do you remember the way she looked at Conor?’ Andrew asked him. ‘I’m serious, can you actually remember accurately the way she looked at him? I don’t think I can. Is it possible that she won’t love you in exactly the way she loved him? Yeah, I’d say so. Does it matter? No. It’s what you feel, here and now, the commitment you make to each other, what you’re prepared to give, what you’re prepared to give up. Not the way you look at someone.’
    Natalie’s heart was thumping in her chest, she was sure it was so loud they’d be able to hear her. This was what he was like, her husband, the good man, who knew what counted, what love was. This was the way he used to talk, and in that moment she saw how she had hurt him, with her talk of penance, that the giving and the giving up was important to him, it was what made their marriage, it was worthwhile.
    She got to her feet and crept down to the bottom of the stairs. She popped her head around the door. They were sitting at the kitchen table, side by side, beer bottles in front of them.
    ‘Hi,’ she said softly, and they turned as one, and Andrew raised his arm, beckoning her forward. He got to his feet and put his arms around her waist, he lifted her off the ground and kissed her neck, and he whispered into her hair, ‘I think it’s time you and I went home.’

 
     
    14 October 2013
    Dear Dan, Jen and Isabelle,
    Andrew and I would like to invite ourselves to spend Christmas with you in France. Do you think that would be all right? (We’re bringing the girls, and Zac, too.)
    Lots of love to you all,
    Nat (and Andrew) xxx

Chapter Fifty-two

    November
    IT WAS STILL dark when she woke; through the gap in the curtains she could see that the snow had started to fall. She shifted a little, raised the blanket, carefully lifting the arm which curled around her waist, familiar to her now, with its old stain of ink inside the wrist. She disentangled herself and looked back at him; he was fast asleep. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and shoved her feet into a pair of sheepskin-lined slippers, then reached for the robe hanging over the back of the chair and wrapped herself up. Outside, the hillside was already white, the storm was coming.
    Isabelle’s first snowstorm. Not that she’d be aware of it, but still. A landmark, a rite of passage. Her daughter was oblivious, fast asleep in her crib in the room next door. She’d been a terrible sleeper for weeks and weeks and then, all of a sudden, for reasons Jen couldn’t quite fathom, she’d settled down and now she slept well, sometimes right through the night. It seemed miraculous, this gift of sleep, it settled over the whole house. Jen felt as though they were nesting, going into hibernation, preparing for the long, dark winter.
    She relished it, she was looking forward to it – to cooking hearty stews, sitting round the fire in the evenings, spending days and weeks holed up here without seeing another soul. She told Dan they would stay until Christmas, and then they’d see, but in her heart she knew that when Christmas came, she wouldn’t want to leave. There was a job waiting for her, the one she’d taken in Oxford and then left, they wanted her back. She could start in January, they said. She’d have to find a nursery, childminders; she would live in a perfectly comfortable flat in a converted Victorian house somewhere in Summertown or Headington. She would be lonely.
    A few days previously, before the weather turned, they’d walked down to Villefranche, Dan, Jen and Isabelle, for pastries and coffee in the square. On the way back, they passed the little village primary school. The children were playing outside at break, shrieking and laughing and running around, and Jen caught herself lingering, watching them. Dan noticed too; he smiled to himself, though he didn’t say anything.
    Dan knew about the job offer in England, but Jen hadn’t told him that the firm she worked for in Paris had been in touch, too. They were eager to get her to work for them on a freelance basis, remotely. No need for nurseries or childminders, no lonely nights in Summertown. She could stay here, with Dan. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told him, she knew he wanted her