“Kinsley, look at me. Please, look at me.” Jesse’s forefinger lifts my chin but I can’t see him through the tears clouding my vision. “If I thought for a second the police were going to listen to a thirteen year old kid whose best friend had just passed away, I would have said something. They didn’t even look into his death as suspicious; a ‘hit and run’ they called it. Your mum didn’t even want a coroner’s report.”

“H-how do you know that?”

“It was in the papers, Kins. She went off the rails pretty hard for a while there.”

“You know.” I sniff, fighting off the tears. “I don’t even remember living with you and your mum. I remember being there a lot after Kyle died; having my own space to sleep in, walking to school from your house. But that’s it. Why can’t I remember?”

Jesse sits down on the floor. “Sometimes we subconsciously push things away when we suffer trauma, especially so early in life.”

“I miss her,”

“Your mum?” Jesse asks hesitantly.

I try to laugh but it comes out more as a muffled kind of choking sound. “No, yours.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Jesse

“Come on, sleepy head, we’ve got things to do and people to see today.”

“Who could we possibly need to see?” Kinsley mumbles into her pillow. “— And people meaning plural? I’m not sure I am up for that.” She looks up at me with a sleepy grin and rubs her eyes.

“Okay, just one person.” I throw a towel at her before I leave the room. “Go and shower, you look like death.”

We didn’t get to finish our conversation last night, or begin sorting through information on Lance. After Kinsley calmed down, I tucked her into bed. She was emotionally exhausted and needed to sleep. She asked me to sit and read to her, something Kyle used to do when she was young, on nights when her parents fought. He would always try to block out the noise; to keep her safe. But, even at such a young age, she knew they weren’t the happy-go-lucky family everyone assumed they were.

Kinsley and I pull up outside the cottage where I grew up. Mum is sitting on her porch swing, eagerly awaiting us. The garden is in full bloom; roses of every colour trimmed into round bushes line the verandah; just like they always have been. I watch Kinsley silently admire the garden, her eyes straying to the corner where she would play fairy gardens as a child. It’s purposely overgrown in the magical way a child would love to explore. Tucked in the corner, there was a little old birdhouse, painted beautifully and covered in sparkles. Kinsley would leave the fairies drawing and notes. Mum would always write back to her using special paper and a calligraphy pen; pulling out all the stops to keep the magic alive.