The moral right of Linda Green to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Ebook ISBN 978 1 78429 280 5
Print ISBN 978 1 78429 281 2

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

You can find this and many other great books at:
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Praise for Linda Green

‘A well-written, thoughtful read about when love is put to the greatest test’
Daily Mail

‘Smart, witty writing’
Elle

‘Utterly riveting’
Closer

‘Heart-warming and inspiring – a great read!’ Katie Fforde

‘Warm, well-written, thought-provoking’ Dorothy Koomson

‘Warm and wonderful’ Milly Johnson

‘Inspiring and moving’ Kate Long

‘Keeps you guessing right up to the end’
Sun

‘Heartwarming and original . . . will leave you full of hope’ Vanessa Greene

About the Author

Linda Green wrote her first novella at the age of nine. Unfortunately, the pony-based time travel thriller genre never took off. She did however go on to achieve her childhood ambition of becoming an author and has written six previous novels. Linda is also an award-winning journalist and has written for the
Guardian
, the
Independent on Sunday
and the
Big Issue
. She lives in West Yorkshire with her husband, eleven-year-old son, two rescue guinea pigs and a lot of mess.

Also by Linda Green

The Marriage Mender

The Mummyfesto

And Then It Happened

Things I Wish I’d Known

10 Reasons NOT to Fall in Love

I Did a Bad Thing

For Susan Stephenson, for holding my hand on the journey into motherhood and for bringing such love, light and joy to the world

‘I watch a bird as it brings food to its chicks. How it looks after them, how it protects them. And then I say to myself, “You’re a better mother than me” ’

Hatidza Mehmedovic, mother of two sons murdered at Srebrenica

Your body realises you have lost your child before your brain does. The invisible umbilical cord between you snaps. Everything inside you goes loose and limp. Only then does your brain register what is happening. It kicks into action, trying to prove to your body that it is wrong. You do what it tells you, of course. You scramble in every direction. Pulling and pulling on your end of that cord. Hoping that if you pull hard enough, if you shout and kick and scream, if you can only get to the other end, you might somehow find your child still there.

When they are not. When it is clear that they have gone. That is when the guilt kicks in. You are their mother. You have a duty to look after them. And you have failed in that duty of care, therefore you are a
failed mother. How can you be anything else when it happened on your watch? While your eyes were closed, for goodness’ sake.

That is when you start to shut down inside. One by one, your vital organs cease to function. It is hard to know how you carry on breathing, how the blood pumps around your body, because you are certainly not doing it willingly.

You wish that somebody would be kind enough to put you out of your misery. Until you realise that this is the price you must pay – to suffer in the way that your child has. You deserve nothing less for letting them down so badly. And so you live your non-existent life. And every day when you wake up, if you have been lucky enough to get any sleep at all, the first word you say is sorry. They can’t reply, of course. But you say it all the same. In the hope that somehow they will hear and forgive you. Even though you know you will never forgive yourself.

1
Lisa

‘You haven’t seen me climb up to the big slide yet, have you, Mummy?’ says Ella, who is lying on top of our bed in her grubby
Frozen
pyjamas.

I am not the sort of mum who beats herself up about missing ‘firsts’. I missed Chloe’s first steps (though Mum, bless her, described them to me afterwards with a commentary befitting the moon-landings), but I wasn’t particularly bothered about this because trying to earn enough money to get our own place was more important to me than being able to tick off a list of milestones in some crappy baby book that your mother-in-law gave you. (I didn’t have a mother-in-law at the time, on account of Chloe’s father not having hung around long enough after I told him I was pregnant for me to even meet his mother, let alone marry her son,
but if I had done, I reckon she would have given me one of those books.)

But today, for some reason, Ella’s words sting a little. Perhaps it’s the fact that since she first conquered the route up the rope climbing frame on Monday with Mum watching, Dad, Alex and even Otis have all seen her repeat the feat. Or maybe it’s the fact that today is her last weekday of freedom. Ella starts school on Monday. And although she is excited about it now, I am well aware that when she realises she also has to go to school on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, not just the first week but every week from now on, she will be furious at being denied the chance of spending her afternoons in the park, as she has this week.

‘No, how about I come and see you do it today then?’ I say. Ella beams at me, her dimples showing and two rows of tiny teeth bared in one of those smiles which children stop doing when they become self-conscious.

‘I thought you had clients this afternoon,’ says Alex, rubbing his eyes as he comes round.

‘My three o’clock’s cancelled, and Suzie’s already offered to do my last one if I want to get away early. It’ll give Mum a break too. She’ll be shattered after the party.’

‘What party?’ asks Alex, who has never been able to get his head around our children’s packed social calendar.

‘Charlie’s party,’ says Ella before I can answer,
jumping up and down on the bed. ‘He’s going to be four but he’s still not as old as me.’

We both smile. Charlie Wilson lives next door to us. He and Ella are almost a year apart but will be starting school together next week. And she is so not ever going to let him forget who is older.

‘Where is it?’ asks Alex.

‘Jumping Beans,’ I reply.

‘Oh, shame you’ve got to work then. You’d have enjoyed that.’ Alex turns to me with a wry smile, being well aware of my aversion to soft play centres in general and the one with the crappiest party food in town in particular.

‘Yeah, never mind eh,’ I reply. ‘I’m sure there’ll be plenty of others once she gets to school.’

Pretty much every other weekend, from what I can remember with Otis, who will thankfully soon be entering the more chilled-out going-bowling-with-a-few-mates party phase.

‘Are you going to come and see me get my football medal then?’ asks Otis, who has been lying quietly on the other side of Alex (we have got the four-to-a-bed thing off to a fine art).

‘Yeah, as long as you behave and don’t do a Luis Suarez on the last day.’ I smile. Otis grins back. Having been blessed with his father’s temperament, we all know this is highly unlikely.

‘Are you coming too, Daddy?’ he asks, climbing over onto Alex.

‘No. Sorry, mate,’ says Alex, ruffling Otis’s hair, which has grown longer than it probably should have over the holidays. ‘I’ll drop you off at footie camp, but then I’ve got to go to a meeting in Manchester. You can show me your medal when I get home though, can’t you?’

Otis nods. ‘And Grandad,’ he says. ‘I’ll take it to show Grandad too.’ My dad has a bet on Otis playing for Leeds United and England by the time he’s twenty-five. Otis is good but I’m not sure he’s that good. Not that it matters. The important thing is that he prefers to spend his time running around outside kicking a football, instead of hunched in front of an Xbox or a tablet. How long that will last I don’t know, but I’m going to make the most of it while it does.

‘Right,’ I say, stretching out under the duvet. ‘We’d better get up and get sorted then. Last one down to breakfast has to clear up afterwards.’

Ella and Otis scramble up in a blur of limbs and hair and disappear from our room. Alex rolls over to me. ‘When do you think that one will stop working?’

‘I don’t know. Hopefully not until they start having lie-ins.’

‘And remind me when that is again,’ he asks, tucking a strand of my hair back behind my ear. ‘It’s all a bit of a blur to me.’

I smile, remembering how Alex, having earned countless brownie points for being such a brilliant stepfather
to Chloe, then lost as many by being utterly hopeless with sleep deprivation when we had Otis and Ella.

‘I think Chloe was about twelve.’

‘Great, only another seven years to go until the end of the early mornings then.’

I dig him in the ribs before kissing him. His breath is warm. His lips taste of mornings. I pull him closer to me, wishing we could have a bit longer in bed. Sometimes I feel the need to introduce myself to him when we finally grab a few minutes together.

‘Hey, don’t start all that stuff,’ he says.

‘Why not? We are married, apparently.’

‘Are we? When the hell did that happen? Did I actually wake up in time for the ceremony?’

I kiss him again to shut him up. ‘Only just.’

‘Anyway, I need a shower,’ he continues. ‘Sticky night. I smell like a pig.’

‘No, you don’t,’ I reply (working in a gym qualifies me as something of an expert on this subject). ‘And anyway,’ I add, running my fingers down his back, ‘even if you did, I could put up with it.’

‘Shame someone will be barging in here in two minutes complaining that his sister has nicked the Coco Pops then, isn’t it?’

I smile and give him one last kiss.

‘They won’t like it next week, you know,’ I say. ‘When it goes back to being boring, healthy stuff for the school term.’

‘Well, if you set yourself up as the evil cereal dictator, you have to deal with dissent in the ranks.’

‘Thanks for your support.’

BOOK: While My Eyes Were Closed

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