The Broken by Tamar Cohen Page A

carrying a very red-faced September.
    ‘Mummy left me,’ the little girl said, in the gulping voice of someone who’d been crying a long time.
    ‘I’m so sorry, darling. I’m a naughty mummy, aren’t I?’ Sasha had her head buried in her daughter’s neck as if she was trying to tunnel into her.
    ‘She’s a very naughty mummy,’ September told Hannah, gazing directly at her.
    Only later on, when Hannah was on the way home from nursery (‘Seven minutes late, Lily was getting anxious,’ the head of nursery reprimanded her), did she start to think how very out of character the incident with September had been. Sasha was always so in control. That was her thing. How distraught must she be to forget her own child?
    Later that evening, Hannah almost jumped with shock when she heard the key in the front door as she and Josh were settling down to watch Newsnight .
    ‘I forgot we had a house guest.’
    Seconds later Dan appeared in the doorway, holding a bottle of wine in each hand. ‘I couldn’t remember whether you preferred red or white, so I got both. Do I win the prize for being the best visitor or what?’
    ‘Our best visitors always bring champagne and oysters,’ said Josh, getting up to fetch glasses from the kitchen.
    Hannah, who’d been thinking about going to bed before long, felt a pang of annoyance. Things had been so emotionally fraught recently, she’d been enjoying relaxing with Josh and forgetting about everything else for a bit. But then she remembered Sasha’s gaunt face and September’s red-rimmed eyes and felt ashamed. Trying to talk some sense into Dan was the least she could do.
    ‘Have you spoken to Sasha?’ she asked, when they were all sitting down around the coffee table with a glass of chilled Sancerre in front of them.
    Dan frowned. ‘I did go round there the day she found out about Sienna, but she wouldn’t let me in,’ he said, looking up as if seeking brownie points for effort. ‘And since then I’ve been so busy and I kind of thought she might need a bit of cooling-off time.’
    ‘So you haven’t bothered to contact her?’
    ‘I’m going to. Of course I am. I’m just waiting for the dust to settle before I talk to her about the next step.’
    ‘Which is?’
    ‘Well, me moving out on a more permanent basis.’
    Dan said it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Hannah felt the air going out of her as if someone had taken a pin and deflated her.
    ‘So you haven’t changed your mind then?’
    Dan looked startled. ‘Changed my mind? No. If anything, the last few days have made me realize I’m definitely doing the right thing. I feel lighter, like a big weight has been taken off me. Being married was suffocating, you know?’
    Hannah didn’t like the way he addressed that last comment to Josh, throwing up his hands as if hoping for agreement. Something occurred to her then.
    ‘You haven’t been seeing Sienna, have you?’
    Dan’s big blue eyes widened, as if hurt. ‘No. I gave you my word. Like I said, the thing with Sienna was completely separate. I’m focusing on my marriage right now, and what’s best for Sasha.’
    Since when did Dan start talking like a marital self-help book?
    ‘If you really want what’s best for her, you’ll go back to her. She looks absolutely awful.’
    ‘You’ve seen her?’
    ‘Yes, she turned up here today.’
    ‘How was she?’
    For a moment, Hannah thought of telling him about the shadows under Sasha’s eyes and the look on September’s face when she was finally rescued from the car. But something held her back. Incredible to think that less than a week ago Dan would have been the first person she’d have gone to with any concerns about Sasha’s wellbeing, and now she just wasn’t sure. It bothered her more than she could admit, this realization that you could go from being a couple, a unit, to two individuals in the time it used to take her mother to marinade a good steak.
    She shrugged. ‘She’s about