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

when I’ve finished Brenda leaps from her stool and throws her arms around me.

‘Beth … oh my goodness, I can’t believe this! And honestly, what happened back then, I mean, it’s awful, dreadful, so sad but, well, we all make mistakes. And you were so young and so unhappy. You’re a different person now, aren’t you? And— Oh gosh, now I’m wondering … oh my goodness, did Alison lie to us too?’

She releases me, spinning round to look at Barbara who claps her hands to her face.

‘Oh no! Bren, do you think so? I was so surprised, so upset by what she said, and it seemed so unlike Beth …’

‘What? What did she say?’ I ask. They’re both wearing horrified expressions now, and Brenda turns back to me and clasps both of my hands in hers.

‘She said … well, it was that last night when we came round, and you had a little bit too much to drink and fell asleep? Well, your mum’—she rolls her eyes—‘not your mum. That woman … When you fell asleep, she took us out here into the kitchen and said there was something she thought we should know. She told us that you’d been laughing about us, and saying how sad it was that you only had boring old women as neighbours, and that you only hung out with us because we were quite useful as babysitters and so on. She said she’d been a bit shocked by that, because she could see we weren’t old; we were about the same age as her but she felt she should tell us because she didn’t think it was right, her daughter disrespecting us like that …’

‘What? I didn’t … I would never … Oh Brenda, Barb, honestly, how could you think that?’

I’m aghast. This is awful, awful, and now I’m remembering what Alison told me the next day and I realise that she gambled on playing us off against each other, and that it had worked.

‘Listen, she said pretty much the same thing to me. She said that you two had told her how odd you thought it was that I didn’t have friends my own age, and that you only hung out with me because you felt sorry for me, because I didn’t have a mother, and that now that she was back you said that she could take over now, or something like that. And I was so upset because I thought we were friends, but she was so convincing … Oh shit, why didn’t we talk about this sooner? Why didn’t we have it out with each other? We might have rumbled her!’

‘Oh. My. God,’ says Brenda dramatically. ‘What. A. Cow.’

We all look at each other and we start to laugh, and suddenly everything in my world is just a little brighter, a little shinier, than it was ten minutes ago.

‘What twits we are,’ I say. ‘We’ve wasted so much time.’

‘We have. But the Busy Bees are back! Group hug?’ says Barbara, standing up, and Brenda and I smile and stand up too. We have one of those lovely, silly, swaying-from-side-to-side hugs, and then we sit down again, all of us with broad grins on our faces.

‘OK,’ I say. ‘So now … well, now I have something else to tell you. To ask you, really.’

‘Uh-oh,’ says Brenda.

Again, I’m watching Barbara as I relay the news that my real mum was the one who attacked Alison, but again she looks no more and no less shocked than Brenda does, both of them open-mouthed again.

‘But … how? I don’t understand,’ splutters Brenda.

‘No idea. But it was her. There seems no doubt about that, from both the police and from Alison,’ I say. ‘She was here, in this house, on Friday.’

Brenda looks around the kitchen with a wary expression, as if half expecting my mother to leap out of one of the cupboards.

‘I don’t get it. That’s so creepy,’ she says.

‘Barbara …’ I begin, then stop, and she looks at me quizzically.

‘Yes?’

I inhale and blow the air out again.

Just say it, Beth.

‘Look, this is probably completely off the wall, but … it’s not you, is it? It’s just that you’ve been acting really, well, strangely recently, ever since Alison arrived. You looked so shocked when you first met her, and then you were so quiet when you came round, just not yourself, and, well, it just made me think …’

She clasps her hands to her mouth again, and my stomach lurches.

‘Oh, Beth, I’m so sorry … Brenda?’

She looks at Brenda, who nods.

‘Better tell her, quickly!’

My heart has started to pound.

‘Tell me what? You’re not … are you?’

‘No! No, Beth. I found a lump. In my breast. I should have told you ages ago, but first I didn’t want to spoil your reunion with your mother, and then after we fell out … I was so scared, you see. My mother died from breast cancer and that should have made me go and get it checked immediately, but instead I did exactly the opposite. I was so frightened it was cancer that I buried my head in the sand and I didn’t tell anyone. But it was eating me up, the fear and the worry, and that’s why I was so distracted. I wasn’t myself for weeks …’

She’s standing up now, looking flushed and agitated.

‘Oh no, I’m so sorry, so sorry. And what now? Are you … are you OK?’

She sighs and nods.

‘I am. I finally told Brenda and she made me face it – even came with me to the doctor. It was just a cyst in the end; I’m absolutely fine. But, oh Beth, I’m so sorry that I made you think … Well, I’m just so sorry.’

A tumult of emotions washes over me but it’s mainly relief that my friend is OK. I swallow and try to smile.

‘That’s all right. And I’m so glad for you. That’s great news.’

‘Oh, Beth. What a big mess, eh?’

She takes a step closer. Her eyes are soft