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  “It’s a fact of life, that’s all. I’ve helped him as much as I can. I got him started as a personal trainer, sorted him out with that job at the gym. I’ve done my best to get along with him when he’s round here. I realize the kids like him, and I know he dotes on them. He’s always very generous to them, but—”

  “But he had all the attention from your mum and dad, and now it feels like he’s getting it from your kids. Getting the cuddles they should be giving you.” The penny suddenly dropped. It wasn’t about Annabel. Not specifically. It was about Max always hogging the attention of anyone Dom loved.

  “Don’t psychoanalyze me,” he bit out. “I just don’t want him muscling in on my family, that’s all.”

  “Muscling in? Or being part of it?” I refused to let it go. The children did need family around them. Dom was overreacting.

  “I didn’t invite him. You did. Come for Sunday lunch, Max. Come over and have coffee while Dom works his fingers to the bone.” The finger jabbing in my face underlined his accusation.

  “The kids love seeing him, but they adore you, Dom. You’re Aidan’s hero, you know that. And Annabel’s always been a daddy’s girl. You have no reason at all to be jealous.”

  It was a bad choice of word, and if I’d known the reaction it would provoke, I would have kept my mouth shut. The slap to my left cheekbone sent my body tumbling to the living-room floor and my whole world crashing around me.

  “Don’t you ever say that to me again,” Dom said through gritted teeth, looming over me. “I’m not the jealous one here.”

  “What on earth do you mean?” My voice was hoarse with shock; I could hear it echoing in my ears. I reached for the coffee table, shakily pulling myself upright. Gingerly I pressed my throbbing cheek with trembling fingers. I wanted to stand up, but Dom was blocking my way, leaning over me to continue the tirade I’d unknowingly unleashed.

  “You’re always tougher on Annabel than you are on Aidan. Always picking little faults, letting him off lightly but coming down hard on her. You’re soft on that boy, and you’re jealous of Annabel. Her spark. Her exuberance. She’s the angel on top of the Christmas tree, and she outshines you every single day of her life. And you can’t bear it.”

  “That’s rubbish. Utter nonsense. I’ve no idea what you—”

  “You want to throw your psychology degree at me? Well, two can play that game. I see right through you, sweetheart.”

  “I love them both the same,” I insisted. “I don’t favor either of them.” My chest was painfully tight. He was going to bring up our holiday; I just knew he was.

  “Oh, come off it. Who got your attention first that time in Cornwall?”

  Oh, God.

  “I told them to go to Annabel,” Dom went on, “but oh, no. You said help Aidan.” His voice was low, but every word sounded like gunfire in my head.

  I knew exactly what he was talking about; I would never forget that awful day. But Dom was wrong: I didn’t direct the crew to Aidan first because I favored him. I saw his little face turning blue and I knew he had less than a breath of air left in his tiny lungs. It was a split-second impulse. The paramedic looked to me, and I gestured to my son.

  I picked Aidan.

  TEN

  I can hear beeping, like the sound of a truck reversing, and it’s driving me mad. It must be Mr. Cooper next door having his shopping delivered, I think. I wish they’d hurry up and park the van, stop that infernal beeping. I’m trying to remember what happened after that row, what else Dom said to me about Max coming round to our house all the time, and about Annabel. The jealousy he accused me of feeling. But I can’t concentrate with that repetitive high-pitched sound: beep, beep, beep, beep ...

  I’m beginning to remember that after the thrill of our whirlwind romance and the joy and excitement of our early married life, seismic cracks had begun to appear between me and Dom. That first slap created a fault line that destabilized everything. It shocked me, and I thought it would also have shocked Dom into changing his ways. It didn’t. I realize that the strained atmosphere in the house now isn’t only due to my grief, my post-traumatic stress: it was like this before. Dom looks right through me now, but his aloofness isn’t entirely due to the choice I made; we were drifting apart long before we lost Annabel . . .

  I feel like a stage curtain has been lifted after the interval, only for me to realize I’ve been watching the wrong play. I thought Dom was being so calm, so caring after the death of our daughter. I thought he was being so understanding of my guilt, patiently giving me space to deal with my pain and remorse. It’s bewildering to realize that I’ve completely misinterpreted it—or that it might all be an act . . .

  Where does the truth lie? I need to carry on trying to remember. I know I’m getting closer . . . I can see a little more clearly through the clouds in my head now. I can remember that Dom and I really weren’t getting on well, and that our marriage was floundering and that I was feeling . . . what was I feeling?

  I try to pin down my emotions but there it is again, that beeping sound. It seems to be coming from the back garden, though, not the street at the front of the house. How odd, I think. And then I notice that I’m downstairs again, in the back sitting room, which is supposed to be the formal dining room but we’ve always used it as more of a playroom because it has French doors that open on to the garden. I look around in panic. I can’t remember coming down here; I have no idea how long I’ve been standing, looking out at our neat lawn with its vibrant evergreen borders. The swing, the slide, my tranquillity garden with its quirky diminutive population of statues, the sprawling wisteria winding lustrously, lazily along the fence towards the laurel hedge at the back.

  I must have blacked out again. I wonder if Dom has noticed this happening to me; I wonder if he thinks I’m not safe to leave in charge of Aidan, and that’s why he’s taken him off with Lucy—why he’s always taking him off. Dom has assumed responsibility for everything now, I realize. Everyone is treading on eggshells around me. They’re too worried about my state of mind to engage with me—perhaps the pressure would be too much, they think; perhaps I will fall apart if they expect me to take up my usual duties: housework, shopping and cooking, making Aidan’s packed lunches, washing his uniform, listening to his moans about the volume of homework.

  Or perhaps it’s just that they simply can’t bear to talk to me.

  Unneeded. They’re coping perfectly well without me. Dom, Aidan, Lucy, Jasper. I’ve become irrelevant, sidelined. Maybe this is how it always was and I just needed to believe I was important, because if I wasn’t the center of my family’s world, what was I?

  I remember longing for the twins to say my name for the first time: “Mum-my. Mmm-mum-my.” I would say it over and over, trying to coach them into giving me the ultimate affirmation—the recognition of my importance in their lives. Lucy laughed when I confessed my frustration that “Dad-da” popped out months before “Mum.”

  “Seriously, it’s got nothing to do with who they love best. It’s all about speech development, which sounds are easiest for their little mouths to make first.”

  “I know that now. At the time, though, well . . .”

  “Besides, you don’t need them to say your name to know they love you,” she said. “Jasper barely calls me Mum even now. He doesn’t need to, though, does he? I’m always right there. It’s a continuing conversation. Who else would he be talking to? We’re part of each other, as you are with the twins.”

  “Part of each other. Yes. The twins do just seem to feel what the other’s thinking. I guess it’s the same with me. I hope so. They certainly take it for granted that I’m always here, always listening. Is that a good thing, though?”

  “Good thing or not, we’re part of the furniture, hon, you and me. Aidan and Annabel will only really notice you when you’re not there. Take my word for it!”

  They’ll only notice me when I’m not here.

  Well, I’m still here, but I might as well not be, I think; I
’m not the mum I used to be, and it doesn’t seem to bother Aidan in the slightest.

  “Dad. Dad! Can you come and practice keepy-uppies with me?”

  As if thinking about him has conjured him up, I hear Aidan calling out to Dom in the garden. They’re back from the café, then, I think, puzzled, until I notice that the light is fading and the hazy summer evening swathes the garden in an orange and gold sunset. I must have slept the afternoon away, locked in my dreams, my stuck memories. I hear the wind chimes clang eerily and I feel unsteady and displaced, like I’m trying to walk across the deck of a ship that’s pitching and rolling on ocean waves, even though my feet feel rooted to the spot. I’m really losing it, I think desperately.

  Don’t go near the roses.

  My heart beats faster as I suddenly worry they will kick the ball into the rose bushes and disturb Annabel.

  Please, be careful; please let her rest in peace . . .

  * * *

  “Mummy?”

  I freeze.

  “Mummy, where are you?”

  I glance frantically out at the garden but Dom and Aidan have disappeared; it isn’t my son calling to me.

  “Annabel? Annabel?”

  And then I’m running, blood pounding in my ears, chasing a glimpse of a white shirt and a gray school skirt, and suddenly I’m in my daughter’s bedroom, eyes darting around the messy room (I’ve left everything exactly as it was; not a dress has been hung up or a book put away), wide eyes staring back at me from pop-star posters on the walls, a sharp pain in my heart and my breath choking in my throat as I see that her duvet is still half off her bed where she always kicks it to the floor during the night. Her bed is empty. Un-slept-in.

  I sink down on to the edge of the mattress and then swing my legs up, lying down, head resting on Annabel’s rose-printed pillow, the scent of her shampoo teasing me, making me believe she could be right here, lying next to me along with her panda bear, his huge glassy eyes staring knowingly at me: You poor deluded soul. She’s not here. She’s never going to be here again.

  I feel my throat closing up and I cough suddenly, air shooting up into my nose and mouth. My body feels heavy and lethargic as adrenaline surges through and then ebbs out of my bloodstream.

  “Annabel, angel, where are you?”

  I know I haven’t conjured up her ghost; I don’t believe in spirits wandering the earth. I know my daughter isn’t going to twirl into the room, kick off her slippers and snuggle up next to me on the bed and rest her head on my shoulder, as she’s done thousands of times before. I know that no matter what I promise the universe, there is no deal to be struck.

  She won’t ever come back, but she will always be here—in this room, her private sanctuary, the theater of her secret dreams that played out as she lay in bed each night, staring at the ceiling. I feel my daughter inside me always, but I see her here, in this tiny bedroom with its view over the back garden. Preening in front of the mirror, making up funny little plays with the china animals she loved but pretended she’d outgrown, practicing her latest dance by hooking up her dressing gown on the wardrobe door and holding on to its outstretched arms. In this gold and cream bedroom Annabel slept as a baby, played as a toddler and threw tantrums as a pre-teen. Every inch of the space is a reminder of her; I visit it every day and each time a new memory wraps itself around me.

  I pull one closer and surrender to its comforting magic.

  ELEVEN

  “Read me a story, Mum. The one about the magic ballet shoes.”

  There is no ghostly apparition except in my imagination. All I’m left with is silvery, flickering memories of sitting next to her, perched on the edge of her bed, the soft evening lamplight catching the contours of her pretty face that seemed to be changing in front of my eyes, inching away from the baby softness of childhood and towards the angles and hollow planes of a teenager.

  Too fast: the twins were growing up way too fast.

  Too soon: I lost her far, far too soon.

  “Aren’t you too old for bedtime stories?” I smiled as I teased her.

  “Never too old.” She smiled back, allowing me to squeeze her hand. I smile now at the familiar conversation, remembering how our bedtime chats always ended with Annabel opening the book at her favorite page, the scene she liked best in the story. The one where the little dancer girl pirouettes so fast that she is lifted into the air and flies away, hair floating through the night sky and getting tangled round the stars, her magic ballet shoes whisking her away to a beautiful land full of giant flowers and talking animals.

  “Wouldn’t it be lovely,” I said, “to be able to fly?”

  “I wish I really believed in magic shoes. Magic isn’t real, though, is it, Mummy? Nor is Father Christmas. Or the Tooth Fairy. Or the Easter Bunny. Or—”

  “Hey, hold your horses, darling—where’s all this come from? For magic to be real, you have to—”

  “Believe. Yes, I know. That’s what Aidan says.” The sparkle was gone; her eyes looked sad and tired.

  “And you don’t believe your brother? If you really, really want your dreams to come true, angel, they will. You’ll find a way. Anything is possible.” I stroked her cheek, wondering how long it would take her to shrug me off; she wasn’t really one for kisses and cuddles. But she didn’t move, staying crushed against my side like a baby lamb.

  “The other night I dreamed about Matthew Jones getting squashed by a giant enormous bug. Will that dream come true?”

  One day those beautiful, flashing, clear blue eyes, full of defiant spirit, will torment boys like Matthew Jones—and Jasper March—in quite a different way, I thought.

  “Oh, Bel.” Tentatively, I cuddled her, feeling the fine silk of her hair tickle my cheek, inhaling the scent of apple shampoo, squeezing her delicate shoulders that were far too tiny to be carrying the weight of any worries. “Is that boy still bothering you? I did have a word with the teacher about Matthew what’s-his-name. What’s happened now?”

  “Nothing, really. Just, you know. Stuff.” She buried her face in Panda’s tummy.

  “Bel, is there anything you want to tell me? Because, you know—”

  “Yeah, I know, Mum. Everything’s OK. Don’t worry. You have enough to worry about,” she said, sounding far too grown up.

  “Do I?” I laughed but realized with a sinking heart that she must have heard me when I yelled those very words at Dom the night before. Stop going on at me about that school. There’s nothing more I can do about it, and I have enough to worry about!

  * * *

  I allow the painful fragment of memory to drift away. Softly, I close the door of my daughter’s room behind me.

  Nighty night, darling. Love you.

  But I can’t close the door so easily on the sudden worry that’s surfaced; I can’t shake off my guilt that the constant rows between me and Dom had made the twins unhappy. Because we had started rowing a lot of the time. I realize that now. Had Annabel been scared in our home? Were the last hours of her life full of trembling anxiety? Dom accused me of being too hard on my daughter, and the barb lodged deep. Is that really what Annabel thought—that I chivvied her too much? That I wasn’t the mum she needed, wanted me to be?

  I take deep breaths until the pain of this thought passes, then I force myself to think back to the past once again, desperate to reassure myself that my beautiful birthday girl didn’t die without knowing that her ten years on earth were the absolute best of my life, and that Mummy loved her.

  TWELVE

  “Please, darling, can you stop leaning over the railings. Step back just a little, please?”

  I remember I’d taken the twins down to Brighton for the day on the train during the May half-term break, and Annabel was deliberately provoking me by hanging over the railings at the end of the pier. The wind lifted her hair, and her body was so slight I was terrified she would be carried off, too. Or fall in.

  “Look at me! I can fly!”

  “Annabel. Enough, now. Please. Ju
st don’t push it.”

  “Spoilsport. I’m not going to fall in and drown, you know,” she said, reading my mind. “I’m not a little kid any more. I’m a better swimmer than you or Daddy. So you can stop freaking out every time we’re near water. Bull’s-eye!” she added, picking up a stray crust dropped by a toddler and throwing it at a pigeon.

  “Let’s go and skim some stones,” Aidan said. “I challenge you, Bel. Winner gets to sit by the window on the train home!”

  Aidan. Always the peacemaker. He wanted to pacify; Annabel wanted to provoke.

  But she was right. I had to stop worrying. They were both excellent swimmers now, I’d made sure of that, and since that one terrible incident when they were toddlers, we’d been to Cornwall every year for our summer holiday and nothing bad had happened. I needed to lighten up.

  “Come on, love,” I said more gently. “Let’s get some candyfloss. Bet you can’t eat it without licking your lips!” I ushered them towards a stall selling every kind of unhealthy snack I usually tried to persuade the twins to avoid.

  “I thought you said candyfloss is bad for your teeth!” Aidan said, laughing as he took hold of one enormous, fluffy pink cloud of gooey, sticky sugar.

  “Sugar gives you spots.” Annabel was trying to stay grumpy, but I could see her eyes twinkling.

  “It sure does. Huge pink ones.” I pulled at a soft strand of candyfloss and dabbed it on the tip of my nose where it stuck like an enormous hairy pimple.

  “Look, I’ve got measles,” Aidan said, joining in, sticking little fluff-balls to his chin.

  “No, you’ve got a humongous pink beard, Aid!” Annabel crowed, grinning at last as she tore off a huge handful and shoved it in her brother’s face.

  “Well, let me just wave my magic pink fairy wand and I’ll transport us all in the blink of an eye all the way down to the shore where we—Oi! Cheaters!” I called after the twins as they beat me to it and scampered off the end of the pier and down the steps towards the pebble beach.