Chapters (55)
- Cover
- ANNA WHARTON
- Dedication page
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- Praise
- THE IMPOSTER
Josie looks at her, and Chloe looks at Maureen. Everything they’d shared that morning undone in front of her eyes. She doesn’t know why but deep in her stomach, Chloe feels the ugliness start to stir. Maureen says nothing, just looks down at her hands wrapped round a warm mug of tea as if it were a lifebuoy in a particularly troubled stretch of water. Chloe looks between the two women. How many times have they sat across from one another over the years? How many years has this friendship endured? And has she always spoken to Maureen like this? Poor Maureen. She thinks of Patrick laying out the rules of her grief, and now Josie not allowing her a moment’s fantasy. Perhaps it was Josie who had stirred sugar into sweet tea on the day that Angie disappeared. Couldn’t she just allow her a little fancy now instead of shaming her for it? Why do people insist on being so tied to reality?
Maureen’s chair scrapes the kitchen floor.
‘How about a slice of cake?’ Maureen says, trying to sound cheerful.
Is this how it’s been for Maureen all these years? Both Patrick and Josie denying her an escape from real life, dragging her back to her heartbreak. She thinks of Park House, the residents there entitled to pick whatever year they want from their lives to revisit. They are living with a disease inside their brains, but is that really any different from the trauma Maureen lives with every single day? She thinks of that bathroom cabinet, and all the pills inside it that Maureen has to take just to get through the day. It’s all right for Patrick, all right for Josie. How dare either of them judge how this mother grieves?
Chloe pushes her chair back abruptly, knocking the table a little as she does.
‘Chloe?’ Maureen says. ‘Don’t you want to stay for some cake?’
‘No, I’ll leave you two to it,’ Chloe says, and she’s sure she sees a smile curl at Josie’s lips as she does. Maureen doesn’t argue with her, and as Chloe leaves the kitchen and climbs the stairs, she hears the two women talking, returning once more to the safety zone of their usual chatter.
THIRTY-ONE
Chloe stays in her room for the rest of the afternoon while her signal comes and goes on her phone. She sends Hollie a text wishing her a good trip, and feels grateful to have a best friend like her and not Josie downstairs, one who doesn’t ask too many questions. Through the gaps in the floorboards, their voices float up to Chloe’s bedroom, not that she catches any of their discussion. She doesn’t know why but something about Josie makes her feel nervous. She can’t put her finger on it. Perhaps it was simply the way she looked at Chloe.