Chapter 29
Leah sipped cold tea on the edge of the sofa, staring out at the garden as if it might explain something.
It didn’t.
A grey sky, dead leaves plastered to the fence. The garden gnome Maisie had painted purple last spring leaned sideways in the damp. Even he looked miserable.
Maisie had retreated upstairs an hour ago, claiming homework. Leah had checked once to find no books, just her daughter curled under the duvet, headphones on, the blue glow of the screen against her face.
She hadn’t pushed it.
Not tonight.
Earlier, Leah had suggested the cinema, bowling, ice skating, even a spontaneous trip to the city.
But Maisie had just shrugged, eyes half lidded with boredom, and mumbled something about being tired.
She’d settled on the sofa for a while before drifting off to her room, leaving Leah with a half-watched baking show and the quiet hum of disappointment.
How had her daughter turned into a moody kid before her very eyes?
But she couldn’t blame her. Adults had a way of letting her down. Leah included.
They didn’t have much family nearby. Dylan’s parents had emigrated to Australia in their old age, and he was an only child. No cousins to speak of.
When Erica moved to Rock Cove, Maisie had lit up like a string of fairy lights. Every afternoon: “When’s Auntie Erica coming?”
And now there was nothing to say.
Leah had hoped this time would be different. That London had been the worst of it. That coming back here meant settling.
But Erica had folded inward again. And hope, Leah was learning, was not something to rely on.
After all, it was Erica who had called Leah when she needed to leave London.
It had seemed like a turning point. For a time, things had levelled out.
Erica had laughed more, Maisie had flourished with another adult to lean on, especially since Dylan and Leah had started to argue more than they talked.
Dylan.
He’d said six. It was now half seven.
She checked her phone again, though she already knew there’d be nothing.
She was right, no message. No explanation. Just the quiet assumption she would wait.
That silence scraped at her.
Then a thought hit her, should she worry? Maybe something had happened. Maybe she was being unfair.
But no, the feeling in her chest was steady. Not fear.
He was fine.
That was almost worse.
It wasn’t something she often admitted, even to herself, but she had a kind of sixth sense for these things – a nudge in her chest when something was off.
She’d felt it the day her father died – a cold stillness that started in her spine.
Or the time Dylan had gambled money they didn’t have.
No matter how many times he denied it, something in her churned …
A stupid, reckless thing. Their savings, gone.
Dylan had said he wanted to feel alive again. That must be the rite of passage at forty. A midlife unravelling. But what was her crisis? Was she just the one who stayed behind and swept up the pieces?
She looked around at the living room. Crumbs on the rug, stale air and the faint smell of wet dog. She cast a disapproving eye over at Dusty sprawled on the floor by the front door. He was waiting for Dylan, like she was.
She stood up, wrestled the vacuum out of a cupboard and began to clean – not aggressively, but with the practised rhythm of someone who had done it a thousand times before. Vacuuming the same spots, wiping down the same surfaces, chasing a kind of control in the little things.
She moved to the hallway cabinet, pulling it open to tuck a pile of mail inside. The envelope lay where she’d hidden it, beneath takeaway menus and unopened bills.
She knew the shape of it without looking.
Her mother’s handwriting slanted across the front. No return address. Just Leah.
She carried it upstairs and sat on the edge of the bed.
Nepal. A school in the mountains. A life described in careful, distant sentences.
I often think of you and your sister. I hope you are living fulfilling, nourishing lives. Look after each other.
Look after each other?
Leah’s jaw tightened.
In the hospital, nurses had asked gently, “Is your mum on her way?”
Leah had said yes. She had said it so many times it almost felt true.
The note had been short.
I can’t do this.
Leah had folded it away and carried on. The baths. The medication. The nights her father gripped her hand without knowing who she was.
She refolded the letter now with the same precision.
No address. No invitation.
Just words that didn’t ask for anything back.
Leah’s phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from the school: parent-teacher evening next week.
She rubbed her eyes.
Downstairs, the floor creaked. Maisie’s soft footsteps heading to the kitchen.
Leah followed, finding her daughter half-heartedly poking through the fridge.
“Fancy the zoo tomorrow?” Leah asked. “Just us?”
Maisie didn’t turn. “I’m not five anymore, Mum.”
The fridge hummed between them.
“I know,” Leah said.
But Maisie was already walking away.
Leah stood still, the fridge door humming beside her. She watched the magnets, the crooked school photos, one of Maisie in a paper crown at age six. A world away. And yet her daughter was still a child. Just a child hurting.
Upstairs, she heard the soft click of Maisie’s door closing again.
Leah sat heavily on the sofa and stared at the envelope one more time, willing it to reveal something it never had before. An answer. A reason.
Dylan was still out. Erica was silent. And her mother was somewhere in the mountains.
Leah looked around the room and felt the same quiet she’d been living in for years. Motionless. Suspended between one obligation and the next.
She wanted it all to be fixed. Wrapped up in a neat little bow. But life wasn’t like that. Some people left, and some stayed, and some just cleaned the same living room every day, hoping something would shift.
Dusty lifted his head at a passing car, then let it drop again.
It wasn’t just Leah waiting.
Waiting for someone else to arrive.
Leah leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
Tomorrow would come. It always did.
Tonight, she would sit in the quiet and let it be hers.
Without realising, her hand reached for her phone again.
Then stopped.
She would take action tomorrow. Whatever that may be.