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

and I know instantly that this is a dream. A dream I’ve had many, many times before.

No, not a dream. A nightmare.

I know this is a nightmare, just a nightmare, not real, but I still can’t make it stop. I’ve never been able to make it stop, never been able to wake myself up once it starts.

And so I stand there, under the old wooden beams in the half-light, listening to the noise.

Creak, creak, creak.

The bedroom is cold. My breath hangs in the air in front of me, like little puffs of ghostly candyfloss. But I’m not cold; I’m sweating. My armpits are damp as the panic rises inside me again. My heart hammers painfully against the wall of my chest.

And yet, I know this isn’t real, that I’m not really here in this room.

In fact, despite being able to see it in all its horrific detail in my nightmares, I’ve never been in this room.

And so I do what I do every time. I tell myself that everything is OK, that I’ll wake up in a minute, that this isn’t happening.

That this never happened.

And for a moment, or two or three, I’ll believe it, and great waves of relief will come crashing over me. My heartrate will slow, my muscles will start to relax, and the sweat begin to dry on my skin. But the relief won’t last.

Because then I’ll wake up.

And as I lie there alone in the dark, I’ll remember again, slowly, agonisingly.

I’ll remember that it is real after all.

It was the night that changed everything.

Every choice we make in life has consequences, doesn’t it?

Chapter 6

‘Let’s just go up to Lonely Tree, then turn around, OK?’

It’s ten o’clock on Saturday morning, and I’m up on Cleeve Hill with Ruth and Deborah from work. It’s a semi-regular thing for us on a weekend morning – my few-times-a-month attempt to take a little exercise. This involves a brisk walk up the hill – the highest point in the Cotswolds – then some restorative (and probably benefit-cancelling) coffee and cake at the little hotel on the way back home. This is my happy place though, a thousand acres of limestone grassland criss-crossed with footpaths; the views are breathtaking. It’s common land up here, with hundreds of sheep and cattle during the grazing season, but right now in early March it’s just walkers – many with dogs – runners, and the occasional mountain bike or horse. We take many different routes, the three of us, during our weekend walks, but we often end up at Lonely Tree. Some call it Lone Tree, or Single Beech, but I prefer Lonely Tree because it really is lonely; a solitary, twisted, windswept beech tree, the highest tree in Gloucestershire, surrounded by a memorial wall with plaques dedicated to those who loved the hill.

‘Race you to the top!’

Deborah is off, her long legs powering across the scrubby grass. Ruth and I roll our eyes and follow at a more leisurely pace. It’s steep though, and if I’m honest I’m a little hungover from last night – a tad too much cava consumed – but I grit my teeth and keep moving. I’ve put on a few pounds recently. My size fourteen jeans are tight across my tummy and I know I need the exercise today – for my body as well as for my head. The exertion is helping me to forget the gnawing anxieties of last night and the nightmares that visited me yet again in the early hours. There’s a chill in the air, but we’ve been walking uphill for the past fifteen minutes and I’m sweating, too warm now in my old navy puffer coat.

‘Phew!’

Finally, Ruth and I are at the tree; Deborah is smugly waiting for us. We pause for a few minutes, reading some of the plaques.

1950-2018

John Evans, who walked his dogs here for 25 years.

Love you always, forget you never.

In loving memory of Ellen McDuff, 1944-2016.

Here forever, enjoying the view.

‘I want one of these, one day. Make a note of that, Ruth, will you? You’re the organised one,’ I say.

‘What do you want it to say? In memory of Beth Holland, who used this hill as a hangover cure and an excuse to eat cake?’ asks Deborah, and we all snort with laughter.

‘Something like that,’ I say. ‘Come on, let’s sit for a bit.’

There’s a bench nearby and we slump onto it. There’s silence for a few moments, as we take in the view.

‘Rain coming. Not for a while though,’ says Ruth. She’s right; there are dark clouds gathering in the distance, but the sky above us is still a clear baby-blue.

‘So how was last night? Have fun with the Bees?’ asks Deborah. She’s tied her barely shoulder-length bob back into a tiny ponytail at the nape of her neck for the ascent, and now she pulls at the hairband to release her hair, letting it swing round her face.

‘Yeah, it was nice,’ I say. Apart from the phone call, I think, but I don’t say it.

‘We should organise something for all five of us one of these days. A girls’ night out. Fancy it?’ I add.

‘Definitely,’ says Deborah, and Ruth nods too.

‘That would be fun.’

It makes me happy that my friends all get on so well. I invited Deborah and Ruth, along with a few others from the surgery, to a house-warming drinks party a couple of months after I moved in last year when the decorating was mostly finished and I finally felt the place was ready to welcome visitors. As my immediate neighbours, I’d popped invitations through Brenda and Barbara’s doors too, more to be polite than anything; I’d only spoken to Brenda a few times when we’d seen each other in the street, and Barbara had only moved in a fortnight or so earlier. That night though, we chatted like long-lost friends, and long after everyone else had gone home, the three of us, plus Ruth and Deborah, were still gathered around my