if I’m happy.’
She stared out the window at the shadows of the icy fir trees that lined the edge of the street. ‘Just making sure …’
‘Erin?’
‘Uh-huh?’ She leaned forward towards the heated air coming from the front vents.
‘Promise me something?’
‘Anything.’
‘Believe that I’m happy. I wouldn’t be here with you, with you both, unless I wanted to be. So, after today, no more making sure, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise not to ask you if you’re happy again, unless I’m really unsure for a very good reason.’
Dom shook his head. ‘Negotiating already! Christ, what have I done?’
Minutes later he pulled the car to a stop just outside the building they lived in. ‘Thank you, parking fairies,’ Erin whispered. 27 Hawthorn Avenue had, in Victorian times, been home to single families; gentile people whom Erin often imagined roaming through the rooms. Today, the building was divided into three flats and she and Dom lived in the high-ceilinged rooms of the ground floor, giving them access to their own private garden. Despite having Gerard and Sophie Carter as landlords, Erin loved living there; loved the original ornate cornice and ceiling roses, loved the stone fireplace in the living room, the picture rail in their bedroom, and the groaning wooden floors with years of story in every creak. Having come from a sixties-built, two-up two-down that her parents had mortgaged to buy from the local council, Erin loved the fact that she could feel the history in this house.
‘Right,’ he said, putting an arm around her and locking the car with the remote. ‘How are we going to do this?’ he asked as they neared the main front door. ‘Is this the threshold or is it the door to the flat?’
‘Dom, no, it’s too awkward, I’m too—’
Before she could finish the sentence, he handed her the keys and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her with one arm under her back and the other under her knees. She opened the door laughing. ‘That’s enough!’ she cried.
‘No! We have to do the other one too. Just in case. It might be bad luck!’
After entering the flat, Erin was lowered to the floor. And as Dom feigned an injured back, rolling on the hard, varnished wooden planks, his hand hitting against their three-foot plastic tree with its red and green baubles, her own hand rested on the moving child. Their baby was laughing too.
It was, according to things she’d read on the subject, nature’s way of preparing her but Erin was tired of being tired, of not being able to sleep at night and having to snatch catch-up naps during the day. She shook the kettle on top of the Aga and moved it to the centre of the heat, careful to stand there as it came to the boil; the thing had a high-pitched whistle and she didn’t want to wake Dom.
As she stirred a camomile teabag in a large mug, she walked past the sink, towards the pile of presents sitting on the kitchen table. Her empty teacup from this morning, when she’d been a single woman, sat upside down on the draining board. She took a seat at the head of the table – solid oak, country style with carver legs and a cutlery drawer at one end – it had been a present from the Carter family. They had offered to pay for a wedding; probably somewhere like Erin had dreamed of, but neither she nor Dom had wanted to accept, sensing a disapproval of Erin that was never discussed.
She ran her hand over the array of gifts. There was only one in the tall mound that she was interested in opening, one she knew Dom wouldn’t mind her getting the first look at. Fitz had wrapped it in old newspapers, bound it with blue ribbon.
The box was flat, A4 size and inside it, amongst layers of tissue paper, lay a leather-bound notebook. A bitter chocolate colour, soft nappa leather, with an opening flap like an envelope. From the point of the flap came a single strand of leather to tie around it. Picking it up, it felt lighter in her hand than she’d imagined. Her forefinger traced the embossed words on the front:
What am I?
I am The Book of Love,
The pages of truth with its light and shade.
I am Love,
And if real, I will never fade.
Opening it, a card fell to the table and on the back, her father’s handwriting:
Erin and Dom, your mother and I used to do this. I’d swear it rescued us from many sticky times so this is a ‘borrowed’ idea for your gift. I hope you use it like we did – to talk to one another – to write down whatever it is you can’t bring yourselves to say. In years to come, this book will be a place where you’ll look back and read about the things you were possibly too young or naïve to understand. Only two rules – First, don’t do it too often, it’s a route to talking about difficult things, not the only place to mention them. And second, when you write something, start and end it with love, like ‘My dearest Erin/Dom’ etc. and always, ALWAYS end it with a reminder to each other that you love each other and why e.g. ‘I love you because …’
Erin appreciated the thought in the gift but still replaced it in its box shaking her head, unable to imagine a time when she and Dom couldn’t simply say exactly what they wanted to one another.
The sound of the soft pad of his feet on the tiled floor made her turn around.
‘Come to bed, love.’ Dom, wearing striped pyjama bottoms but bare chested, rubbed one of his eyes.
‘I can’t sleep.’ From behind, she felt both his arms circle her waist.
‘It’s three a.m.’ he yawned. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘A gift from Dad.’
Dom pulled a chair up beside her, took a sip from her mug and grimaced. ‘No wonder you can’t sleep. That stuff is powdered shit.’ His head jerked towards the gift. ‘So, what is it?’
‘It doesn’t matter – just one of Dad’s hare-brained ideas.’
Dom took her hand. ‘You remember when we first met, Mrs Carter?’
She laughed. ‘It was only a year ago. Of course.’
‘Lydia’s New Year party. The first time I saw you, you were dancing, all five-foot-ten of you.’ He stroked the downy hair on her arm. ‘You were doing that weird hippy-sway-thing you do, those long limbs of yours flailing about.’
‘You called me Tree-Girl and I hated you.’
‘You fancied me.’
‘Okay, I fancied you a little. I hated the nickname.’
‘I knew I’d marry you, right then, that first moment I saw you.’
‘You did not.’
‘I did so.’
Erin cupped his stubbled
