He sketched Freya’s image behind his lids, testing himself with the detail, thinking of how people often said she had his eyes and how the cliché secretly pleased him, whether they really meant it or not. A falling sensation jolted through him as her face slowly dissolved into another. The girl from the pages of that file, the girl he had failed, and the mother whose dark hair and pale skin were emerging from the depths of his memory.

10.

KATE

Twenty-five years earlier

There’s a knock on my bedroom door, and Mum’s voice: “Kate, you busy? Mind if we have a quick chat?”

For a second I think the “we” is me, her, and him. Then I remember it’s Saturday morning and she’s got work in an hour. He won’t be coming round till later. I’ve got the day to myself but I don’t fancy going into town or to the park. I just want to hide in here and read my library book.

“Come in,” I call.

“Can you put my hair up for work?” she asks, walking in. “I’m so rubbish at doing it myself.”

She sits down at my little dressing table, in front of the cracked mirror that Becca always deems bad luck. I stand behind her and brush the frothy dark waves I’ve only semi-inherited—my hair is light mousy brown with a halfhearted kink. Mum closes her eyes. She loves me playing with her hair, though I’m not particularly good at styling and she doesn’t really care what it looks like anyway. Becca’s much better, of course, especially now she’s finished her training. Auntie Rach wanted her to go to university and become a teacher, but Becca dreams of her own salon with gleaming surfaces and a galaxy of spotlights in the ceiling. “You’re not the boss of my brain cells, Mother!” she always says. “I can use them how I like!”

I stick a row of bobby pins into my mouth, spitting them out when Mum says, “I know you’re not keen on Nick.”

As I try to protest, she studies my expression in the mirror. “It’s okay, love.” She reaches back to put her cool hand over mine. “It must be hard for you, having a man around after all these years of just the two of us.”

I shrug and blush, trying to focus on holding all her wild hair on top of her head. Strands break free, spill down to her neck. I notice again how narrow her back and shoulders seem.

“I haven’t had a relationship since your dad left, have I? So I know it must feel strange.”