Page 3 of Serenity Falls

And then she got an infection. A UTI. God knows how or where from. She’d never had a UTI in her life, as far as I was aware, but a mere eight weeks into her stay at Cedars Wood I was woken at 5 a.m. to be told that ‘Doreen Barker’ had passed away in her sleep.

The staff expressed condolences, told me it was peaceful, her heart simply couldn’t fight any more. They lit a candle for her in the communal lounge and put up a card: ‘In Loving Memory of Doreen Barker’. Then they gave me her clothes and personal belongings back in two large refuse sacks and billed us till the end of the month.

However, with Mum’s death, in a way, came release. We had already sold her bungalow to cover the care-home costs. But I worried constantly that the money would run out, and I certainly couldn’t find £1,500 a week in fees. Now, we had one less financial burden. Mum had left us that.

But she also left us something else …

‘Another house?’ I had stared at the solicitor in disbelief.

‘Yes, a property in Serenity Falls.’

Serenity Falls. The name rang a distant bell.

‘It’s in Florida – one of the exclusive gated communities built in the seventies and eighties by Harold Winsom.’

Winsom. Of course. The world-famous entrepreneur and philanthropist. The man behind hundreds of beloved children’s films and the largest ‘most magical’ theme park in the world: Winsom Wonderland.

In the 1970s he began a new project. To build perfect American towns. Advanced Residential Communities. An idealized version of the US that owed a lot to the fifties (and rose-tinted glasses). What was the tagline? ‘A place to grow up, grow your family and grow old together.’

Fairy-tale stuff, although, from memory, the towns had had mixed fortunes over the years. But Serenity Falls, the flagship, was still regularly voted one of the best places to live in America. Houses there cost a fortune, and I’d read that you needed to be approved by the Winsom Corporation to buy one. And Mum, my eighty-three-year-old, white-haired mum, who, as far as I knew, had never ventured further than the Isle of Wight, owned a property there.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘There hasn’t been some mistake?’

‘No. It’s a prestigious property on a sizeable plot,’ the solicitor continued. ‘Six bedrooms, a large yard with a pool.’

‘A pool?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this is for real?’

The solicitor regarded me patiently. ‘It is.’

‘Can I look? Do you have pictures?’

‘Indeed.’

He slid a glossy property portfolio across the table. The picture on the front featured a smiling all-American family: perfect dentistry, blond hair, blue eyes. Serenity Falls Welcomes You. I opened it. Inside, the photos showed a whitewashed colonial-style mansion. Pillars either side of the double front door, a massive wrap-around porch. A small green lawn leading down to – dear God – a white picket fence. I flipped the page. Inside, it was all cool marble and stylish appliances. An open-plan kitchen diner, a lounge probably big enough to swallow an entire floor of our current home, a sweeping staircase and, of course, the pièce de résistance – in the (modestly named) yard, a sparkling blue swimming pool.

I stared at it.

‘Are you all right, Mr Barker?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you have any questions?’

Plenty, I thought. How could you afford to buy this, Mum? Was it an investment? A holiday home? But then, why did you never use it or visit it? And why did you never tell me about it?

Right now, I concentrated on the important one. Beautiful as the house was, exclusive as the neighbourhood might be, the fact remained that I was not uprooting Sadie to move to fucking Florida.

‘How much?’ I croaked.

‘Sorry?’

‘How much is it worth? I want to put it on the market as soon as possible.’

The solicitor (Jason or Jacob?) cleared his throat. His Adam’s apple wobbled. I had a feeling. Not a good one.