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

a trace. I didn’t tell the police my suspicions, of course. I should have, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.

‘She must have let them in, whoever did this – someone she knows, most likely,’ the female officer said. She had red hair coiled into a tight bun at the nape of her neck and a freckled nose. She looked about sixteen.

‘Is there anyone who might have a grudge of any sort? Had she fallen out with anyone recently, anything like that?’

I shook my head, swallowing a lump in my throat.

‘Everyone loves Mum,’ I whispered.

They went away for a bit then, leaving me alone to wait, shivering and terrified, for her to emerge from surgery. I’d jumped in the ambulance with her, asking Jacob to take the kids home and refusing Ruth’s offer to come with me.

‘I need to do this for her. Just me,’ I told her, and she squeezed my hand and nodded her understanding. The others all stood around watching, white faces etched with shock. As the ambulance pulled away I glanced out of the window at them, this little group of people who were, just weeks ago, my closest friends and allies, and I thought about how everything had changed so monstrously much.

Did one of you do this? Did one of you come here earlier, do this, then slip away again? You must have, mustn’t you? Or have I got this all wrong? I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore, and I’m so scared, so tired of it all …

Now my brain is too numb, too confused, to even begin to try and work it out. I no longer know what’s true, or real, or who to trust. Suspicions and doubts chase each other around the dark corners of my mind then fade away again, leaving me dazed. Now and again, there’s a sentient thought: did someone say Mum had told them she wanted to make some sort of announcement? What on earth was that about? But otherwise I just sit and listen to Mum breathing in and out, in and out.

The police returned briefly close to midnight, telling me they’d finished at the scene for now – a scene! My living room is now a ‘scene’ – and that the house was locked up and secure.

‘We found the weapon used to attack your mother, by the way.’ This was from the male officer who is tall and lean, his cheekbones sharp, his eyes deep blue.

‘It was a lamp that was sitting on the side. It’s in the shape of’—he looked down at the small, scrappy notebook he was clutching in his big, bony right hand—‘a pelican. A pelican-shaped lamp.’

A hint of a smile hovered on his lips, just for a second, then vanished again.

‘There’s blood … well, anyway, that was the weapon used, it seems. So probably not a planned assault. The attacker most likely grabbed whatever was to hand?’

He seemed to be asking me a question, and I stared at him for a moment then shrugged.

‘I don’t know … I wasn’t there, obviously. Yes, it’s a pelican. The one with the blue velvet shade?’

He nodded and made another note in his book with a stubby pencil, and I cringed.

Why did I say that? What does it matter if it’s a pelican or a frigging elephant? Someone grabbed my lamp and slammed it into my mother’s head; that’s all that matters.

‘Mrs Holland? How are you doing?’

I jump. Two people have come into the room without me even noticing – one of them a doctor I vaguely remember from last night. She’s petite with a brunette pixie cut.

‘Oh … hi,’ I say. ‘I’m fine. What’s the latest? How is she?’

I gesture at the bed, and she looks at the nurse who’s standing beside her.

‘Celia’s just going to do some bloods,’ she says, and the nurse nods at me.

‘Won’t take long,’ she says.

The doctor is sitting down now, pulling another chair a little closer to mine.

‘Your mother … well, she’s not very well,’ she says gently, and my stomach contracts.

‘But … I thought … the head injury, the surgery … I thought it went well?’ I say, but she’s shaking her head and my heart rate starts to speed up.

‘It’s not that. It did, and we do expect her to make a good recovery. It’s just …’

She’s frowning, looking down at the clipboard she’s holding.

‘Well, when we asked you last night if she had any underlying health conditions, you didn’t mention her cancer.’

‘What? Her … what?’

She sighs.

‘I was afraid of that. You didn’t know, then? We’re having some trouble tracking down her medical records; I’m not sure why. I’m waiting for an update. And obviously we’ve only scanned her head at the moment, but we think she’s probably been receiving treatment for renal cancer. Kidney cancer.’

My mind is racing and I’m finding it hard to catch my breath. The room suddenly feels hot, stuffy, and airless.

What’s she talking about? Has she got Mum mixed up with someone else? My mother doesn’t have cancer …

‘I … I don’t know what you mean,’ I splutter. ‘She hasn’t … She can’t …’

‘You brought her handbag in with you,’ she says. Her voice is gentle. ‘There was a leaflet in it about what to expect from your kidney cancer treatment. And she’s got radiotherapy tattoos. They’re tiny little pinpoint marks the radiotherapist makes on the skin so he can line up the machine properly. You wouldn’t have seen them, in the position they’re in, under her clothes. She’s probably had treatment quite recently …’

‘But … I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t she tell me? Why?’ I almost scream the words at her but she doesn’t flinch; she just sits there, looking at me with sympathy in her eyes, and now I’m remembering how pale and tired Mum’s looked at times recently, and how she went off to Cornwall to ‘see a sick friend’. Now I’m wondering about that, wondering if that was true, wondering if what she was really doing was something entirely