My Husband Kissed His Girl Best Friend in Front of 200 People, So I Filed for Divorce novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Family Meeting

On Saturday at lunchtime, Sandra Seddon came up my path with a lemon drizzle cake in a tin and her son behind her.

I watched them from the front room window.

Alfie had shaved. He was wearing the blue shirt I'd bought him for his birthday.

Sandra had her church cardigan on, in July.

She knocked three times, sharp, the way she knocked on classroom doors for thirty years.

I opened it and stayed in the doorway.

"Natasha." She held out the tin. "We've come for a calm chat. As a family."

"I'm fine out here."

"Don't be silly. Put the kettle on."

"The kettle's mine," I said. "So's the kitchen. Say it here."

Her smile stayed exactly where it was. Only her eyes moved, to the windows across the road.

Number twelve was weeding her front garden. She'd been weeding the same bit of path since Thursday.

"Alfie waited for you on Thursday," Sandra said. "At the counsellor's. Forty-five minutes on his own."

"Did Steph keep him company?"

Alfie flushed.

"That's not fair, Tash."

"Neither was three million views."

Sandra put the tin down on my wall.

"I want to say something, and I want you to listen without flying off the handle."

"I've never flown off anything in my life."

"Stephanie was part of this family long before you were." She said it gently, like a diagnosis. "She was at our table every Christmas from when they were nineteen. She sat with me when Alfie's dad had his heart scare. She's like a daughter to me."

"Then she can have your son."

Number twelve stopped weeding.

"That," said Sandra, "is exactly the kind of thing I mean. You were always on the outside, love. You never tried with her. You never tried with any of us."

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