Where the Memories Lie

 

nurse called Elaine. ‘I was going to go to the supermarket soon, but that will have to wait, I suppose. I got tied up with taking Anna clothes shopping yesterday and forgot to go. Just about managed to rustle up some stale toast for Anna’s breakfast. I’m such a bad mother.’

 

‘You’re not. Anyway, thank you.’ She turned around. ‘Let’s head back now. I’ve got accounts coming out of my ears. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to concentrate.’

 

Nadia worked as an accountant and office administrator from home, pretty much single-handedly running Tate Construction, the building firm Tom had started forty years ago. It was a family effort, with Ethan as the company’s architect and Chris as the project manager. She also did the accounts for several local children’s charities for free, and organised fund raisers for them.

 

I don’t know how she juggled it all with Charlotte as well. I found it enough juggling five hours of work a day and looking after the house and Anna. Then again, I wasn’t a super-efficient organiser like Nadia, although sometimes I wished I was more like her.

 

She always got the job done, whereas I was often late, forgot to organise Anna’s packed lunches in advance and missed appoint-ments. Nadia was the complete opposite. Always early and had a week’s worth of dinner menus worked out in advance. She was three years older than me, so I’d never had much to do with her at school, but when I’d started going out with her brother, and then married him, we’d naturally become close over the years. She was like the big sister I’d always wanted. A natural nurturer, she organised all the family get-togethers and was the first one to step in and offer help if any of us needed it. The strong one. If she was an elephant, she’d be the matriarch, which was not surprising, really: Eve, her mum, had died of a sudden brain aneurism when Nadia was nine years old. Ethan was six at the time and Chris was three, so Nadia had naturally stepped into the role of caretaker, 8

 

Where the Memories Lie looking after her brothers, learning to cook ? she’s an amazing cook, unlike me! ? and generally helping her dad out in any way she could. I asked Nadia once how she’d kept it all together with such a huge responsibility from an early age, but she’d just said it was easier to be strong when other people needed her. Her craving to help others stopped her falling apart. Eve’s death eventually brought the Tates closer together, and they had a bond that went deeper than just being family. They were part of one another, and I was a part of them.

 

We said goodbye at the end of the path and I gave her another hug.

 

‘Will you be all right?’

 

‘I’ll have to be, won’t I?’

 

‘Oh, Nadia, I’m so sorry this is happening. I just—’

 

She shook her head to cut me off. ‘Don’t say anything. It’ll be fine. You’ll see. I’m glad I’ve got you to talk to, though. What would I do without you?’ She let me go and walked away, leaving me standing on the path, watching as her shoulders shook with the tears she was holding inside.

 

After settling Poppy in her basket in the kitchen, I drove into the nearby town of Dorchester. Mountain View nursing home was on the outskirts, set in three acres of lush, well-tended gardens.

 

Tom had always loved working in his own garden at Tate Barn when he had any spare time, and he missed it now he was unable to. He had to settle for walks in the grounds these days instead.

 

When I moved into my first house and got a garden of my own, I always wondered how he’d ever found the time, what with bring-ing up Chris, Ethan and Nadia single-handedly, running a busy construction business and looking after his own home. But he said gardening relaxed him. In a busy, chaotic world, it was his little haven where he could empty his mind of the stress and not have to think about any problems for a while.

 

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