The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler (electric book reader txt) 📕

away is going to cost me twenty pounds but they can do it tomorrow, which is a relief.

The rest of the day passes quickly, and when I arrive home just after six the house is buzzing. Eloise – her school’s Easter play is, it’s emerged, a musical take on the life of Shakespeare, and she’s playing the Bard’s assistant – is boogying around the kitchen, accompanied by an upbeat dance tune (which, to my ears, sounds distinctly un-Shakespearian) blasting from the speakers in the ceiling. Finley is sitting at the island, his bad leg propped up on the stool next to him, tapping away at the iPad on his lap, engrossed in some sort of driving game. Mum is at the cooker stirring something in a big saucepan, and the room smells deliciously of garlic and spices.

‘Making a curry, darling,’ she yells.

‘Amazing,’ I shout back, and grab Eloise as she whirls past me.

‘Eloise, fabulous dancing, but please can we have a little less volume on the music?’

‘Be finished in two minutes. I can’t dance if it’s quiet!’ she bellows, pink-cheeked and breathless, and prances off again. I sigh and give up. Leaving them to it, I push open the patio doors and wander out into the garden. It’s a lovely mild evening and, trying not to look at the lopsided trampoline, I wander around for a few minutes, stooping now and again to pull a weed from a flowerbed, making a mental note that the birdfeeder needs topping up. There’s a soft, sweet scent in the air, the promise of warmer days to come, and I feel my spirits lifting. I’ve always loved being outdoors, loved this time of year when winter finally gives way to spring. I love seeing new buds on old trees and watching the first flowers pushing their vibrant heads above the soil. There’s something comforting about knowing that no matter what else is happening in the world, the seasons march on, gliding seamlessly into each other. Nature knows exactly what it’s doing, even if nobody else does …

What’s that?

I’m still wandering up the garden, but now I stop abruptly and stare at the flowerbed that runs along the far fence, the one that finishes right outside the doors that lead out into the garden from the lounge. The spot where, last night, I thought I saw a face, outside in the dark, peering in at me.

But that wasn’t real, was it? I was drunk, half-asleep, I imagined it …

‘Mum!’

I jump. Eloise has poked her head out of the kitchen door.

‘There’s an important letter for you from school. I’ve left it on the kitchen island, OK?’

I wave a hand, still distracted.

‘Yes, OK. I’ll look at it later. Be in in a minute.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’

She disappears and I turn back to stare at the flowerbed again. I was so sure, this morning, so sure that the figure I’d seen out here had been part of my muddled dreams. But now, seeing what I’m seeing, a shiver like a bolt of electricity runs down my back. I take a step closer, and another, and now there’s no doubt in my mind. Somebody was standing out here last night because there, in the soil, right outside the window, are two indentations, side by side. They’re footprints.

And figments of your imagination don’t leave footprints, do they?

Chapter 22

‘It’s tonight, isn’t it? Have an amazing time … Can’t wait to hear all about it on Monday!’

I’m just switching my computer off for the weekend when Ruth pops her head round the door.

‘Thanks! She’ll be there when I get home. Her train got in about an hour ago and she was going to hop in a cab to Prestbury. I’m so nervous. Is that silly?’

Ruth shakes her head.

‘Of course not. It’s your long-lost sister … I’d be freaking out! But it’ll be fine; you know it will. And at least you’ve chatted on the phone. Stop worrying. Now go!’

‘I’m going, I’m going!’

I scan my desk for any errant belongings, stuff my phone and diary into my bag, and make my escape. The Friday evening traffic is slow, and as I slam on the brakes yet again as I pass Pittville Park, I take some deep, calming breaths then check my face in the rear-view mirror, smoothing a stray hair and running a finger under my eyes where my mascara’s smudged a little. It’s been a long week, but I’m definitely in a better place now than I was on Monday, I think, as the car in front slowly begins to move again.

I’ve tried to put the footprints I saw in the flowerbed outside the lounge window firmly out of my mind. I still think I imagined, or dreamed, that face looking in at me, for who on earth would be standing in our back garden so late at night, and why? And although I didn’t dream the footprints – they were there, right in front of me, clear as anything – well, anyone could have made those in the previous few days, couldn’t they?

They were, if I was being really honest, too big to have been made by Finley or Eloise, unless they were messing around in adult’s shoes, but I’m glossing over that in my head now. I’m glossing over the fact too that it’s highly unlikely that my mother would have gone out into the garden and suddenly decided to stand in the flowerbed, and that I certainly don’t remember doing that myself either – not there, in such a strange position, right up close to the glass of the patio doors. But I’m confused about a lot of things right now. Maybe it was me, maybe I stepped onto the soil when I was weeding, and didn’t notice, didn’t remember. I’m letting it go because I have other priorities. Robin for example.

Still sounding huffy, she finally called me back on Wednesday morning and she agreed to come round and see me after work. I apologised profusely for what I’d