It was too late anyway. Ben was looking at her, that broad, encouraging smile reassuring her that he believed in her, that she could do this, that all she had to do was believe in herself and she could pull it off.

Audrey managed to prize her dry lips apart, felt her diaphragm expand, and then she heard the sound of her voice singing into the microphone clipped to her daffodil-yellow blouse. And there was a split second of shock at its volume, how all-encompassing it was, her ears full of the sound of her own voice.

She sang note-perfect, her voice so much more confident than she had ever imagined it could be, and it was as though her sixteen-year-old self were holding her hand, singing alongside her, reminding her of all the things she had once hoped her life might be. There, in her voice, was the optimism she had once felt for the future, the plans she had once dared to make, the courage she had lost sight of for so many years and only now regained. Wrapped inside Audrey’s singing was all the love, the loss, the grief, and the guilt that she had been carrying inside her for almost thirty years.

Chapter 39

Jess

Jess leaned forward in her seat, oblivious to the fact that she was blocking the view of the person behind. Her hands gripped the armrests, her knuckles the color of chalk.

That was her mum. Her mum. And yet it was someone else entirely: someone who was wearing the same black trousers and yellow blouse as the woman who’d left her house earlier today, but who was doing something Jess could never have imagined her doing. This woman was standing onstage and singing a solo in front of five thousand people as though she’d been doing it all her life.

Her mum’s singing was rich and deep and resonant, a sound that awakened in Jess a sequence of memories that had been long forgotten: a sound that had, once upon a time, sent her to sleep every night accompanied by the gentle sweep of fingers through her hair and kisses across her forehead. A sound that had been whispered into Jess’s ear—warm and comforting—as she had lain awake through the night, encased in her mum’s arms, while her twin sister occupied a hospital bed two miles away. A sound that spoke of refuge from bee stings, bullying classmates, grazed knees, and bad dreams. It was a sound of love and hope, encouragement and comfort.

As Jess stared unblinking at the stage, listening to her mum sing for the first time in decades, her scalp tightened as a cold, unwanted knowledge crept into her head. It was knowledge Jess had kept locked away—not daring to look at it, not daring to admit its presence—ever since she had been told nine months ago. Now, for the first time, the thought opened up in her mind that her mum would not be around forever. That there would come a time, very soon, when she would no longer be there to listen to the story of Jess’s terrible day at work or to answer prosaic questions Jess had asked countless times before but always needed to ask again: how long to roast a whole chicken, when best to have her flu shot, which month she should plant her bulbs. There would come a time all too soon when her mum would no longer be there to provide all the support and reassurance Jess had spent a lifetime taking for granted.