Chapter Four
As February drew to a close, the first few weeks in Brookleigh Bay were measured in trips to the tip, hours spent taming the back garden, and the constant, low-level thrum of five children finding their feet.
He’d done the first safety checks the night they arrived, of course, but now it was time to turn instinct into routine.
William had a few weeks before his first shift, and he was determined that by the time he put on his uniform, this house would be a fortress.
“Right,” William said on Tuesday morning, tapping a clipboard on the scarred kitchen table. “Before Grandad arrives with the ladder for the roof, we’re doing the walk-through. It’s Testing Tuesday, so every Tuesday the alarms will be checked.”
Ollie groaned through a mouthful of toast. “Not the drill again.”
“The drill again,” William said firmly. “This house is three storeys, Ollie. It’s old, the stairs are narrow, and the doors are thick. If the alarms go off, I need to know you can move without thinking.”
He had spent the previous day installing interconnected smoke and heat alarms in every hallway and the kitchen. If one went off, they all did — a piercing, synchronised wail he had tested the evening before, much to the children’s noisy disapproval.
He led them through the house, pointing out the primary and secondary exit routes. In the attic, he spent extra time with Ollie and Jake.
“If the stairs are blocked,” he said, crouching by the front window, “this is your exit. There’s a flat roof section just below. You climb out, stay low, and stay exactly where you are. Understood?”
Jake looked wide-eyed at the window. “Will you come with the big ladder?”
“I’ll come however I have to,” William said, his voice softening just enough for the boy to lean against his side. “But once you’re on that roof, you stay still. That’s the rule.”
Soon afterwards, his parents arrived. Sam brought a heavy-duty extension ladder and a bucket of bitumen sealant for the attic leak, while his mother, Jean, marched into the kitchen with a stack of paint tins and a look of grim determination.
“The cleaning was a start, William,” she said, tying a plastic apron over her cardigan, “but these mismatched cupboards need to be brought into line. We didn’t have time to do the kitchen before you moved in.
We’ll do the frames in this Sage Green and the wall cupboards in a nice, clean Off-White to keep the light in here.
That will go nicely with the marble countertops.
Mia, grab a brush. We’re doing the prep work first.”
While Jean and Mia tackled the kitchen, William followed his father up the ladder.
Standing on the roof, William felt the salt wind whip at his fleece.
From this height, he could see the true scale of the garden’s neglect — the gardening project Jake had begun was going to take months to complete.
He could see more of the house next door from up here, and it looked empty and as neglected as his own garden had been.
The gulls swirled around and the view of the bay was stunning.
“Flashing’s gone on this side,” Sam noted, pointing to the chimney stack as he prepped the sealant. “Likely what caused that stain in Ollie’s room. We’ll get it sealed before the next rain.”
“Thanks, Dad,” William replied, steadying the bucket.
By the end of the week, the house felt different.
The kitchen was no longer a mismatched relic; the combination of green and cream had pulled the room into a coherent, country-style warmth.
The attic repair had held, and Ollie’s ceiling remained dry.
The back garden had been cleared of the most dangerous brambles, leaving a wide, wild space for the children to run.
On Friday night, after the children were finally asleep and the house was silent except for the quiet ticking of the AGA, William walked the perimeter one last time. He checked the locks, the window latches, and the clear paths he had insisted the children keep in the hallways.
He stood by the back door, looking out at the dark garden.
He only had a few weeks left until his first shift at the new station.
Weeks to make sure they were okay without him for twelve hours.
He felt the weight of it in his chest — a familiar, heavy coil of responsibility.
He had not been able to protect Eliza or Rosie.
He had not been there. But he would be the shield for these five.
Every rule, every drill, every coat of paint was a brick in the wall he was building around them.
He turned off the kitchen light and headed upstairs, his hand trailing on the polished banister. He was exhausted, but for the first time in a long time, he did not feel like a guest. He was home. Or as close to it as he was ever going to get.
He had built the walls and checked the locks, but he knew the real safety of this place did not come from bitumen or paint.
It came from the hands he had been leaning on long before the world broke — the same hands that had held him through every whispered prayer since he was a boy, and through every shift since he joined the fire service.