“Flora found out,” I tell Dom. It’s a relief to say it out loud. The horrible thing I’d done, and how bad it made me feel, was nothing compared with the shame I felt when Flora saw the evidence. Most people successfully hide the worst aspects of their characters from everyone they know, all their lives. I was unlucky.

“She found out you cut Georgina out of the photo she sent you? Jesus, Beth. I don’t understand. At all.”

“When the Braids came around for the last time . . . You probably won’t remember, but you and Lewis went out to the Granta for a pint.”

Dom shakes his head. Of course he doesn’t remember.

“I knew Flora was thinking the same as me: we both wished you hadn’t gone and left us alone—well, alone with the kids. We were chatting, trying to pretend everything was okay, but deep down we both knew it hadn’t been normal for a while between us, and then suddenly Thomas started wailing. He’d pulled the skin off a blister on his heel and it was bleeding. Flora handed Georgina to me and started rummaging around in her changing bag, looking for a plaster. She didn’t have one, but I knew I had one in my bag. I totally forgot, in that moment, that the cut-up picture was also in there. I sent Zan to look for the plaster. A few minutes later, back she came with all of that.” I nod down at the photo pieces and the card. “She gave it to Flora and said, ‘Look. This was in Mummy’s bag. Someone’s torn baby Georgina out of the photo.’ She had no idea what she was doing, obviously. She just thought it was a weird thing she’d found, and that we’d want to know about it. I could feel myself turning bright red. One look at my face told Flora who the guilty party was.”

Dom looks appalled, understandably. “Why the hell did you keep it? Why not chuck it in the rubbish once you’ve gone as far as cutting it up? What did Flora say? Anyone cut one of our kids out of a photograph, I’d punch their lights out.”

“I didn’t give her a chance to say anything. I started talking at a million miles an hour—saying how sorry I was, that I didn’t know what had come over me. She was upset, but she said she understood. I explained how angry I’d been—that she’d not told me, and then sent the card and the photo, assuming I knew. She apologized for forgetting to tell me. She cried. It was a bit of an apology fest all around . . . and we both knew that was it, that we’d never see or speak to each other again.”

“Jealousy,” Dom says. “That was what came over you. Understandably, I suppose.”

“What? No. You mean the miscarriage?” I try to fight the feeling of disappointment that’s rising inside me. Dom’s bound to think this. What else would he think? How can he know what I’ve never told him?

“Me losing a pregnancy had nothing to do with it,” I say. “You might not believe that, but it’s true.”

“Then why the hell did you cut a baby out of a photo?”

“Because Flora never told me about her, and I was . . . more hurt than you can probably imagine. When she got pregnant with Thomas, she told me right away. When I knew I was pregnant with Zannah, I rang Flora within ten minutes of taking the test. I think I told her before I told you. You were in a meeting and I couldn’t get hold of you . . .”

Dom waves impatiently to indicate that he doesn’t care about not being told first.

“When we both got pregnant a second time, same thing: Flora phoned me immediately after she’d told Lewis and her mum. I phoned her within an hour of knowing I was pregnant with Ben. With my third pregnancy, it was different. I told Flora because I always had before, not because I really wanted to. Lewis had inherited his fortune by then, and . . . I don’t know if it was us or them, but somehow the idea of this huge wealth that they suddenly had came between us.”

“Did it?”

“I didn’t talk to you about it because I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. You didn’t notice or care, because Lewis never mattered to you the way Flora mattered to me. But we saw them a bit less, and it was awkward when we did see them. And I thought it had to be the money that had made things different, but . . . thinking about it now, the change happened at the same time that Flora must have found out she was pregnant with Georgina. Oh, God, Dom, I’ve been such a terrible friend.”

“You mean cutting up the photo?”

“Not only that.” I blink back tears. “I used to think that defacing a happy family photo like a psycho was the worst thing I’d done. Not anymore.”

“Beth, what are you talking about?”

“I’m trying to tell you!”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“When I had the miscarriage, I had to tell everyone who knew I’d been pregnant. Including Flora. She was really nice on the phone. Sympathetic. I thought, ‘Maybe we’ll be okay, maybe the awkwardness between us was just a blip and now things’ll go back to normal.’ We talked about meeting up and she said she’d ring me to arrange something, but she never did. We didn’t see or hear from her or Lewis at all, for months. It was like they’d forgotten us completely. And then, just before Christmas, those arrived.” I nod at the card and photo pieces.

“You mean . . . ?”

“Yep. Flora had been pregnant and had a baby and not told me. Not the day she found out, like she had with Thomas and Emily, and not ever. She went through an entire pregnancy and birth without telling me. I had no idea. And then suddenly, just before Christmas, a card arrives signed from all of them, including Georgina, and there’s the photo of the five of them and . . . it’s as if Flora’s forgotten, or doesn’t care enough to be aware of it, that she’s had another baby and told me nothing about it. That’s how I found out. From being sent that.” I point to the evidence: evidence of Flora’s awful behavior as well as mine.

“I called her. Soon as I’d finished crying, cutting up the photo, hiding what I’d done—inadequately, as it turned out—I called Flora. She sounded normal. Well, normal for New Rich Flora. I thought, ‘She has no idea why I’m calling.’ I said, ‘I got your Christmas card. Flora, I didn’t know you’d had another baby. I didn’t even know you were pregnant.’”

“What did she say?”

“She sounded puzzled at first. She said, ‘Didn’t you? You must have known!’ Then there was this long, horrible silence, during which she must have realized I couldn’t have known because she never told me. She’s not stupid, and she knows I’m not either. We both knew that any charade of us still being best friends was finished.”

“Maybe she didn’t tell you because of the miscarriage,” Dom says. “She didn’t want to rub salt into the wound.”

“No. There was no planning or strategy. If she’d thought about it, she’d have known that for me to find out in the way I did would be the most hurtful thing of all. She just wasn’t thinking about me at all. At the time, I thought it was because she didn’t give a shit about me anymore.”

“But . . . if this phone call revealed that the two of you weren’t close friends anymore, how did they end up coming around to ours with Georgina?”

“After that conversation, Flora briefly felt bad enough to make a bit of an effort. And I wanted to believe the friendship could still recover. But from the second they arrived, things were wrong and awkward and . . . bad. I assumed it was because Flora felt so guilty about not having told me, or maybe she didn’t want to be there and was just doing a duty visit, for form’s sake. I was wrong.”

“How?”

“I’m scared you’ll think I’m a terrible person if I tell you,” I say tearfully. “I’m scared I am a terrible person.”

“Don’t be silly. Just tell me.”

“All these years, I’ve been making it all about me. When Flora changed and seemed less interested in me, I put it down to Lewis’s inheritance. When months passed and I didn’t hear from her, it never once occurred to me that she might be in trouble. When she was pregnant and had a baby and didn’t tell me, I used it to back up my theory: that she and Lewis were rich now so she didn’t need to bother with the likes of me anymore. I didn’t ever think, ‘Flora wouldn’t treat me like this unless something was really wrong.’ And I should have thought that, Dom—because she wouldn’t.”

Finally, Dom sees what I’m driving at: “You think that whatever weird shit’s going on now started then?”

“Yes, I do. And . . . after that last time they came to ours, I drew the wrong conclusion again. Apart from their new address card, Flora never contacted me after the day she found out I’d cut up the photo. I assumed that was why . . . but it wasn’t. Sure, she’d have been hurt by that, but it wasn’t the reason. Flora never got in touch again because she couldn’t risk having me in her life anymore. She couldn’t risk being close to me—because if she was then I might find out the truth. The secret. Whatever that was. Is,” I correct myself. “Dom, whatever it is, it started before Georgina was born. Months before.”

“I wish we’d talked about this at the time. I had no idea—about any of it.”

“I didn’t want to talk about it. I was . . . ashamed, I guess. People aren’t supposed to feel jilted and have their hearts broken by their friends.”

Sudden ringing makes me jump. “Is that your phone?” Dom asks.

I nod, reaching down to pull my handbag up onto the bed.