A Single Breath. Lucy Clarke

feels consuming. She thinks of the strange lie Saul just told his father and a prickle of uncertainty travels over her skin.

      Jackson’s voice echoes in her head: You can’t trust him. He’s a liar.

      She feels a surge of hurt and confusion over the oddly abrupt ending to the evening. Her teeth clench around the words she wants to say. Yet something pulls her back.

      Saul is her – and her child’s – only link to Jackson. She feels the fragility of that connection as if it runs between them like a single fine thread. She needs to hold onto it tightly so it doesn’t slide out of her grasp.

      *

      Back in the shack, Eva shuts the door firmly and switches on all the lights. She tugs at the cord of the blinds, disturbing a moth that flies straight towards her, its dusty wings brushing at her cheek.

      Eva shivers, turning a circle in the room. Alone. I am alone. She tries to keep her breathing level and push away the hollowing sensation of loneliness.

      She sucks in a deep breath and crosses the room to the photo of her and Jackson at the jazz festival. She angles it towards the light, longing to be back there with the sun on her skin, hearing the rhythm of the music, feeling Jackson’s arm around her waist.

      In the light she can see two marks on the glass either side of the photo. They look to be thumbprints, as if someone has just plucked the photo from the shelf to look at it. Her brow furrows as she remembers polishing the frame this morning, removing every trace of dirt and grease. How can there be thumbprints?

      Perhaps she’d made them just now as she’d picked up the picture. Holding the frame, she places her thumbs in the exact spaces where the marks are.

      Yet the prints don’t fit; hers are almost half the size.

      She brings the frame even closer to the light so that she can be sure. She is almost certain that these are not her thumbprints.

      She sets down the photo with a sharp shake of her head. She’s being absurd; they must be hers. No one else has been in the shack.