Page 112 of Somewhere Only We Know

Jackson. I kept having to pinch myself to check that this wasn’t a dream, that I really had reconnected with him after all this time.

We’d be heading straight to the airport to collect Brontë’s book from Lola. I was desperate to have it back in my possession, read the Bali pages and see what she had planned to do when she got here. I wanted Jackson to see the book too, for him to get to know his daughter through it. Each page was infused with her personality: her words, her thoughts, her dreams. I was already brimming with pride, knowing how much he’d enjoy looking at it.

Jackson and I had brought our food back to the hotel last night and eaten outside at a table by the pool. There’d been no on else around and only the light of the moon and its pale silver reflection on the water to see by. We’d talked some more, mostly about Brontë, and I’d managed to log into my iCloud on my phone and show him all the photos I had stored of her. The temptation to quiz him about his life grew stronger by the minute, but I’d forced myself to hold back, not wanting reality to intrude into such an incredible night.

Jackson had finally left me at one a.m., saying he needed to get back. Get back to whom, I’d wondered; a girlfriend, a wife? We’d bid each other goodnight with a kiss on the cheek before he left, and I’d floated off to bed on a cloud, emotional, exhausted and, above all, filled with gratitude that Brontë had led me back to this man.

Now, I made a cup of coffee and opened the patio doors. Instantly the room was filled with birdsong and the scent of tropical flowers, I savoured the warm air on my face, a sharp contrast to the air-conditioned cool behind me. It was a beautiful day, this place was a paradise, and I was so, so lucky to be here. I thought of yesterday and how everything had felt bleak. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, there were chinks of light appearing in the darkness.

‘A new day is dawning,’ Lisa had said yesterday. ‘The sun will rise again.’

It felt very much as if her prediction was already coming true.

I fetched my phone, and settled down in the shade on my terrace to send Kat a message.

Call me when you wake up x

My phone rang immediately.

‘What’s wrong?’ Kat demanded. She was puffing and panting as if she was out running.

‘Nothing,’ I assured her. ‘Only good stuff.’

‘I’m so pleased,’ she wheezed. ‘You’ve sounded so down since losing Brontë’s book.’

‘Good news on that front. It’s been found and I’m being reunited with it later.’ I gave her an update and she shrieked down the phone with joy.

‘Where are you? You sound out of breath.’

‘I’m walking next door’s German shepherd with our dogs today. I say walk, but it’s more of a sprint.’

‘Isn’t it only five a.m. in the UK?’

‘Yes, and dark and bloody freezing. But I volunteered to help out on Sam’s school trip to the museum with the big dinosaurs. We’re leaving at seven and I haven’t done the packed lunches yet. Or had a shower.’

‘Sounds exhausting.’ I sipped my coffee and noticed a bee zigzagging lazily between hibiscus flowers. ‘You need a mum’s gap-year trip, if only for one week. Seven days of me-time without running around after everyone else.’

‘I like doing it all.’ She sounded tetchy. ‘I’m the hub of the family and I love being the one they rely on.’

She and I had very different lives, but our crushing need to nurture was the same.

‘I know you do, but everyone needs to stop and fill their own cup every so often. You can’t fill from an empty cup,’ I said, quoting Lisa.

‘That’s true, I suppose. Is that why you called? To make me jealous of your sunlounger-and-cocktail day ahead?’

‘Not quite. I’m …’ I paused to savour this moment, knowing how my sister was going to react. ‘Kat, you’ll never guess who I was with last night.’

‘You’re right, I won’t. Tell me. It’s too early and I don’t have the headspace to guess.’

‘Jackson.’

Silence down the line and then, ‘Shit the bed.’

‘I fainted in the hotel lobby and when I came to, I heard his voice. And there he was, larger than life and sexier than ever.’

‘Oh my God, Mags. I bet you nearly fainted again.’

‘Correct. And then I cried because the first thing I had to tell him after all these years was …’ A lump formed in my throat as I recalled how his look of happiness faded to dismay.