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How, how, had she got a job at PES without my finding out? I’m on the PTA, I attend every event – Mr Whitlow once made a joke about putting me on the payroll.
I read everything I can find twice and then force myself to stop and get trapped scrolling on Vinted instead.
And then I realise the time: three fifty-six. I meant to go out so I could come back at six, as if I were coming home from work. But the children will be home any minute.
I watch for Ash’s car from the living room window.
I’ll say I came home early to talk to my baby about her first rehearsal.
She was nervous – she pretended she didn’t want to do it – but she’ll have been just perfect and it will have been so good for her, got her out of her shell, let the world see the beauty hiding behind those hideous headphones.
Dust rises above the hedge that runs along the lane and I go to check myself in the mirror before heading down. I look tired and pale. A bit like how I looked after the last time I saw Georgia. I sigh and try to plaster on some freshness.
In Tristan’s kitchen, Ash drinks orange juice from the bottle and Ava rummages in the fridge’s bottom drawer. They have my brother’s athletic build and their mother’s jet-black hair and skin as tanned as teak.
‘Get me the yoghurt,’ says Ash.
‘Which one?’
‘You know – with the stuff.’
Ava rummages.
Jenna isn’t here.
A little itch of fear tingles at the back of my neck, which is ridiculous, and I press the smile back on my face. ‘Hey, guys,’ I say. ‘Where’s Jenna?’
She’s in the year below them at PES and they’ve been giving her lifts since Tristan got them matching black Range Rovers for their eighteenth birthdays this past January.
‘Here,’ says Ava, pulling out a large pot of gourmet yoghurt.
‘Ash? Ava?’
They turn to me, the fridge still open, perfect eyebrows raised. When they were babies, I struggled to tell them apart.
‘Hi, Auntie Fran,’ says Ava. She smiles and I feel calmer. She’s such a kind, mature young woman. She’d never let something happen to her cousin.
‘She said she’d find her own way home.’
‘Oh, okay,’ I say, walking over to give her a hug. She gives me a peck on the cheek.
The cold of the old stone floor, warped like melted wax by generations, seeps up through my heels and I shiver. Jenna will be home in a minute. She just forgot to text. But she always gets a lift with her cousins. Or sometimes from Tristan or his assistant. But I always know if that’s the case. She doesn’t normally make her own way. Has she ever done this before?
I imagine my father rolling his eyes, and I realise he would be, of course, right: no need to lose my head. Ava has just given me a perfectly good explanation.
It’s just… any other day I could relax. But after this morning, a silly little part of me wonders: will I ever relax again?
6
NOW
‘Hey, baby girl, it’s Mummy – sorry – Mum.’ I wince, remembering her telling me I don’t need to say who it is when leaving a voice note, and feeling a thousand years old. ‘The twins say you’re finding your own way back. Do you know when you’ll be in? Call me.’
I hang up and catch myself in the huge hall mirror, the silver mottled with age.
Big smile, Frances. Neuropeptides, come to Mama. Smile smile smile.
Everything is fine. Everything’s okay. Jenna’s sixteen. She’s making her own way home from school. It’s normal.
