Where the Memories Lie

 

 

she snapped. I might’ve found the irony of that funny in any other circumstances.

 

‘Anna, I don’t want any more arguments from you. Get the laptop and your bag of clothes and meet me downstairs.’

 

‘What? Where are we going?’

 

‘We’re going back home.’

 

She pushed herself up to a sitting position. ‘We can’t go back there. There’s a dead girl,’ she whined, her eyes imploring me.

 

I felt like a bad mother. A horrendous mother. And maybe I was. Maybe I was paying for every mistake I’d ever made. Maybe we all were. I wanted to hug her. Squeeze her tight. Squeeze Charlotte tight. Cradle them both in my arms, as I’d done when they were babies, and promise them that everything was going to be all right. That I was there to look after them. The whole family was. I had a duty to protect my daughter and Charlotte from harm.

 

From evil things happening in their world. Rose had failed to do that with Katie; I couldn’t fail to do it with my miracle child and my niece. And yet here I was, powerless. Powerless to change the direction of their lives or the hands that they had been dealt.

 

Powerless to take the fear and grief away from my daughter and the pain and disease away from Charlotte. I had to be strong ? strong for everyone. Nadia and Lucas would need us now, too, more than ever. But all I wanted that second was to fall apart.

 

I took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go and take Poppy out for a walk on Chesil Beach and then we can talk about things, OK? You haven’t been out of the house for days. It will do you good to get some 236

 

Where the Memories Lie fresh air.’ I was expecting a drama, another tantrum like the ones she’d suddenly succumbed to since Tom’s death, but she just looked tired. Weary with it, as we all were. ‘I’ll buy you an ice cream,’ I said lamely, every mother’s best bribe.

 

‘And then are we coming back, though?’ Her lower lip trembled and she was about to burst into tears. ‘I want to come back.’

 

‘Come on. We’ll get that ice cream first.’

 

I left a message for Ethan to come home as soon as he could and drove Poppy and Anna to the beach.

 

Poppy barked excitedly as we pulled up in the car park, her head poking through the unwound window. I opened the door and she shot out just before I managed to undo her lead. She bounded towards the sea, barking at the waves.

 

‘I know you don’t want to go home at the moment, Anna, but Charlotte and Lucas and Nadia need their space.’ I put my arm around her as we walked along.

 

‘No, they don’t. We’re family. Me and Charlotte are like sisters.’

 

She shrugged me off.

 

‘Yes, I know that, darling, but . . .’ I glanced at a green piece of glass nestled in between the pebbles that had probably started off life as a bottle but been smoothed away by the sea to an odd shape, like a bone.

 

I shuddered, a vision of Katie’s bones lying under the garage flashing into my head, but pushed the image away.

 

‘We can stay with Nadia and Lucas until we sell the barn, then.

 

They won’t mind,’ Anna said.

 

‘I have some bad news.’ I stopped, my hand resting on her shoulder. ‘It’s almost certain that Charlotte’s got leukaemia, sweetheart. I found out today. They need their space to deal with this. She’s going to have some pretty hard treatment and she’ll be feeling very ill with it, and probably very down. It’s going to be a terrible time for everybody.’

 

237

 

Sibel Hodge

 

Anna’s eyes grew huge. ‘What do you mean, leukaemia? You mean, she’s going to die?’ Her cupid bow lips opened in a gasp.

 

I took her hand and we sat on the pebbles, looking out to sea while Poppy turned her attention to chasing after the seagulls, which took flight in a blur of white.

 

‘Hopefully not. She has a good chance of going into remission.’

 

‘So she’ll definitely live, then, won’t she, Mum?’