The Legacy by Caroline Bond (e book reader for pc .TXT) 📕

She never found the child.

That her brain was tormenting her was disturbing, and tiring, but it made sense to Chloe. It was her punishment for not being there when her father died and for failing him ever since.

The night of his death she’d slept soundly and dreamlessly while he lay suffering in a room directly beneath her. It had taken the weight of Megan sitting on her bed, and the pressure of her hand on Chloe’s shoulder, to wake her. Groggy as she’d been, she’d known immediately that something was wrong. Megan never came into her room. ‘Is it Dad?’ She’d pushed herself upright.

Megan hadn’t answered her – not at first – but patted her shoulder awkwardly. Her touch through the thin material of Chloe’s T-shirt had felt shockingly intimate. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’ Another ineffectual, invasive pat of sympathy. ‘He’s gone.’

She’d believed Megan – why wouldn’t she? – but automatically she’d been difficult. ‘What do you mean, “gone”?’

‘Chloe. He’s died.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

Megan had reached out and touched Chloe again. This time it was quite an aggressive motion, both hands on her shoulders, pushing her back against the pillows. ‘I’m sorry, but he has!’ The image of her dad lying dead downstairs tumbled like the fragments of a kaleidoscope through Chloe’s mind, gaining and losing coherence. Megan spoke slowly and firmly. ‘He just stopped breathing.’ The shaky image sharpened and settled. Megan took her hands away from Chloe’s shoulders, as if finally convinced that her news had got through.

‘Was it bad?’ Chloe finally asked. There was a pause.

‘No. It was quick at the end. He’s at peace now,’ Megan said. ‘No more pain. No more frustration.’ It was a logical thing to say after all the distress of the past few years, but it sounded trite. How was Chloe supposed to be thankful that her dad – who was laughing and being sarcastic not eight hours ago – was now dead? Gone. For ever. Megan leant forward and Chloe tensed, expecting another awkward physical exchange, but Megan was not reaching out for a hug, she was reaching for the light switch.

She clicked on the bedside lamp. For a few seconds Chloe was blinded. Once her eyes had adjusted, she found herself face-to-face with her father’s… partner, lover or, Noah’s favourite, mistress. They had never settled on an accurate description of what precisely Megan was. His death wasn’t going to make that any easier. No label seemed to fit accurately, or comfortably. But at that point, in the middle of the night, in a big, dark house on the edge of the cliff, perhaps it didn’t matter. Because in the light of the lamp, Chloe saw the face of a woman who had been robbed of the one person she loved more than anyone else in the world.

‘What now?’ Chloe forced herself to speak.

Megan pulled a hank of her hair over her shoulder and unconsciously stroked her own neck with the end of it. Her eyes strayed from Chloe’s face to a point on the wall above her head. ‘We obviously need to call your brother and sister to tell them.’

‘And we need to call Mum.’ Chloe suddenly, desperately, wanted it to be Eloise sitting in her bedroom, not Megan.

‘Yes.’ Another self-calming stroke – comfort dredged up from wherever it could be found. ‘But not yet. There’s no point ringing any of them at this time of night. It won’t change anything. We’ll call them in the morning.’ She seemed to lose momentum. She stared at the wall for a few seconds, saying nothing. The only sound was the soft rasp of her hair against her skin. ‘The thing we need to do now, apparently, is call a doctor to come and certify the death.’

The kaleidoscope shook again and Chloe ‘saw’ her father, lying on his back in the empty room downstairs, eyes open, robbed of movement and speech, looking like death but still alive, trapped inside a body that had gone from malfunctioning to collapsing. ‘Christ, he is definitely dead, isn’t he?’

Chloe’s sharp tone brought Megan back into the present. ‘Of course!’

But Chloe was already pushing aside the covers, and Megan. She scrambled out of bed, preparing to come to her father’s aid.

‘Chloe. Stop. He’s dead. Lisa checked.’

‘Lisa?’ Chloe paused, confused.

‘Yes. She’s downstairs with him.’

‘What’s Lisa doing here?’

‘Helping.’ The vagueness was back.

‘Since when has she been staying overnight?’

‘Not now, Chloe.’ They faced each other. ‘I’ll see you downstairs, when you’re ready.’ And with that, Megan walked out of the room slowly, closing the door with great care as she left.

And that’s when Chloe really failed her father.

Because although she forced herself down the stairs and to the doorway of his room, she didn’t go in. She couldn’t. She stood in the hall, trying to slow her breathing as a way of controlling the scrabbling fear, but it didn’t work. The room on the other side of the door was silent, and it was that lack of noise that truly terrified her. Her dad had never been a quiet man. He was a talker, a holder of opinions, a benign but articulate dictator when it came to family matters. Then, with the onset of MND, he had become noisy in a different way. His clattering walk, his breathing, his laboured speech, even the way he swallowed – it had all had a new cadence and volume. It had been impossible to live with her father and not be aware of his presence. But now, standing outside his room, Chloe could feel his absence, and she couldn’t face it.

Plus, she had never seen a dead body before.

The sound of movement inside the room jolted her. She took a few steps backwards. The door brushed the carpet as it opened. Lisa came out. She stopped when she saw Chloe.

‘Ah, Chloe. There you are.’ It was said kindly. ‘You can come in.’ Her voice was shockingly normal. There was no whispering or reverence in her tone. When Chloe didn’t move, Lisa gave a slight nod. ‘It’s