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

‘What … what are you all doing out here? Is the doorbell not working? I’m so sorry I’m late. I went to the off-licence and got a flat tyre, but Mum’s here …’

‘We’ve tried ringing the bell and knocking and everything,’ Ruth says. She’s wearing a bright-yellow shift dress and her favourite string of coloured beads with a matching bracelet on her wrist. ‘We even tried calling the house phone. No reply. Looks like nobody’s in. And she told us not to be late too, which is why we all got here on time. She said she had some sort of special announcement to make?’

‘Announcement? I’ve no idea …’ I say, wondering what on earth she’s talking about. I feel horribly awkward now still in my scruffy jeans and trainers with my hair scraped back in a ponytail.

Where is Mum, for goodness’ sake?

I want to hug my children, but everyone’s watching me, waiting for some sort of explanation as to why nobody’s opening the door at this so-called party, so I pull out my house keys and say, ‘OK, don’t worry, Mum’s probably just got the music so loud she can’t hear the door. You know what she’s like.’ I wink at Eloise who looks at me blankly, and I shrivel a little inside.

There’s no music though. The house is silent and still as I push the door open and step into the hall, the others piling in after me. There’s no music, no clattering of plates, no sound at all. There’s something though, something that feels off, and as I move towards the kitchen I realise it’s a strange smell, just a hint of something sour and musty, like when you’ve had a plumber or decorator in the house and they leave a faint, unfamiliar odour behind. The kitchen is empty. Mum’s trays of canapés are sitting on the counter along with a baked cheesecake on a big white plate. I look around, bemused.

‘Mum?’ I call.

And then there’s a scream, one I’d recognise anywhere. I whirl around, and it’s Eloise, eyes wide with horror, hand outstretched. I turn to look at where she’s pointing, towards the open-plan lounge area, and then I see it too, at the same time as everyone else does. And suddenly the room is a maelstrom of noise and panic, cries and gasps, and I stand there, frozen, unable to comprehend what I’m seeing.

It’s my mother, though. I can see that. I blink and take a step closer, and now Gabby is rushing forwards, dropping to her knees and yelling for someone to ‘call a bloody ambulance, quick!’

It’s my mother, here after all, but instead of bustling around the kitchen, smiling, singing along to the music, and celebrating her sixtieth birthday, she’s lying still and mute in the corner of the room. Still and mute, a pool of already congealing blood around her head, and trickling down her face like rain down a windowpane.

Chapter 35

‘The doctor’s on her way down now. Would you like a cup of tea or anything?’

‘Thank you. And no, that’s kind but I’m fine.’

The nurse who’s popped her head around the door smiles and disappears again, and I watch her go, feeling lightheaded with weariness. The past twelve hours or so have been a haze of sirens, panic, questions, and fear. Now, after a night without sleep, I’m dizzy and nauseous, my back aching from sitting in this hard plastic chair. I turn back to the bed where Mum’s lying, head heavily bandaged, eyes closed, an oxygen mask covering her face. On the small table to my right, a half-drunk cardboard cup of tea, now cold, sits next to a paper plate, the sandwich on it barely touched and curling at the edges. I can’t even remember what sort of sandwich it is. Cheese, maybe? I found it in the vending machine down the corridor at about 4am after realising I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday; I was trying to be sensible, trying to keep my energy levels up, but I had no appetite. How can I eat, sleep, do anything normal, when my mother’s lying comatose in a hospital bed?

If I lose her now when I’ve only just found her again …

I feel the panic rising once more and push the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, taking deep breaths. We’re in a side room, private, quiet, and for that at least I’m grateful. The police, who arrived yesterday shortly after the ambulance and who followed us to Cheltenham General, spent an hour here with me last night, asking questions while Mum was whisked from A&E to CT scan to surgery. She’d been hit, hard, on the head, the resulting injury increasing the pressure inside her skull, but she’s going to be OK, we think. They’re keeping her heavily sedated, for now, and of course there are no guarantees, not with head injuries, as the kindly surgeon told me last night. But she’s in as good a state as she can be, for now. I know this, and yet I can’t seem to control the waves of dread and terror that keep sweeping over me, the cold sweat that breaks out on my skin, the trembling of my limbs.

Who did this? Who?

It’s all I can think about, and the guilt is almost unbearable, because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that although it’s my mother who’s now lying unconscious in a hospital bed, this attack was aimed at me. I took a daughter from her mother. And now, so many years later, my mother has – almost – been taken from me. The final part of my punishment. It’s perfect, isn’t it? Poetic, almost.

There was, as I told the police, no sign of a break in. No broken glass, no forced locks. Nothing missing either, as far as I could tell. Just my mother, battered and bloody on the floor, attacked by a ghost from the past who slipped in and out without leaving