Chapter One #3
“Stop, please, we don’t argue in this house.
” She sighed as though exhausted. Maddie’s heart lurched threateningly and it took every ounce of strength she had not to hurl herself into her mother’s arms. She often felt like this.
It was something that had started in the wake of Bowie’s death, an urge that had grown progressively more present in her day-to-day life.
She’d given it some thought, and deduced it was because she knew how bad she was feeling about losing her brother, so she dreaded to think how devastated their mother must be.
Everyone who knew Emma knew how hopelessly devoted she was to her children.
Losing Bowie to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had almost destroyed her.
If it hadn’t been for Marley and how desperately he’d needed her in those dreadful early days after his twin had died, Maddie wasn’t sure Emma would be here at all.
Maddie opened her mouth to apologise, but the front door behind her opened before she could.
“Marley!” Emma’s face softened, the way it always did when she laid eyes on one of her children.
Marley’s cheeks were flushed pink from what Maddie assumed had been a brisk walk from the cottage where he lived in the nearest village.
He paused briefly to take in the scene, then beamed at his mother and strode into her arms, letting the old oak door slam shut behind him.
He was alone. Maddie was disappointed. Nothing cheered her up like her nephew, Benjamin, or a visit from her friend, Marley’s partner, Autumn.
Still, Marley alone was a significant enough presence to lift her spirits a little.
For a while, they’d all thought they might lose Marley after the death of Bowie, the twins having always insisted they could not live without each other.
Maddie had also worried Emma might die of a broken heart.
But Marley had survived. They had all somehow survived.
When Marley had finished hugging their mother, Maddie opened her arms to receive her brother. She held him close, like she always did, trying in vain not to notice the similarities — how much he felt like Bowie, smelled like him and even chuckled her name in greeting the same way.
“Dad called — something about a pig?” He caught the eye of the stranger standing in their foyer. He moved to introduce himself, pointing with obvious recognition. “Shit — James Byron?”
“Good to see you, Marley.” James held out his hand.
“Fucking hell.” Marley’s profanity incited an exasperated tut from his mother. “I haven’t seen you in years. How are you?”
“I’m good, thanks. You?”
“Not too bad.” Marley nodded, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
Maddie realised this might be the first time since Bowie’s terminal prognosis that she’d heard Marley say those words in a way that didn’t sound laboured, laden with sadness or disingenuous.
She wasn’t sure if that was because he really liked James or because he finally really was ‘not too bad’.
She hoped with all her heart it was the latter, and she wouldn’t be surprised if it was. Marley had a wonderful life.
“Is this—?” Marley’s eyes slid pointedly between James and his sister.
“No!” Maddie and James exclaimed together. James cleared his throat and shuffled uncomfortably.
Despite the fact she was hardly ever embarrassed by her family’s nosiness, or coy about her love life, Maddie found herself blushing. Marley fought off a grin, his big blue eyes wide with mischief. Maddie shook her head a little bit. The message was clear. Don’t .
“James works on a farm,” Maddie said, eager to end Marley’s teasing. Her statement was immediately effective. Marley’s face dropped. Maddie continued, “A piglet escaped this morning. He was sent to come and find it. He wants to take it back there. To be fattened up. For food .”
Marley muttered something, and Maddie threw James an arrogant smile, tossing in a haughty eyebrow raise for good measure.
He narrowed his eyes at her, his irritation palpable.
Maddie felt smug. She did not like this man and he did not like her.
This was a competition and she was determined to win.
Was she acting like the spoiled little rich girl she was sure he thought she was?
She didn’t really care. Truthfully, all that really mattered now was saving the piglet.
Winning against him would be a bonus. And she had drawn her best weapon — her family.
Her mother in particular was a lover of all creatures and would do absolutely anything necessary to preserve life.
Checking the driveway for slugs before she drove down it was a regular part of Emma’s routine.
Through the years, Emma had nurtured many injured animals back to health.
Maddie had once returned home in desperate need of a toilet only to find a one-legged duck swimming around in the bathtub.
Emma’s love for animals had rubbed off on Maddie and Marley — and their siblings, Bluebell and Pip — and Maddie knew it was something Marley was actively working to pass on to Benjamin.
There was absolutely no way they would let James take this piglet back to the farm.
“Er—” James started, his eyes bouncing between Emma’s worried stance and Marley’s disapproving features. James liked Marley, Maddie could tell, and was torn as to what to do.
“Where is the pig?” Marley asked, looking around as though he expected to see it in the hallway.
“It’s in the orangery with Dad,” Emma said. “He’s googling things pigs can eat and feeding it everything we have in a desperate attempt to stop it wrecking the place.”
Marley rolled his lips in on themselves in a poor attempt to hide how funny he found the situation, and that prompted Maddie to do the same.
She knew her calm, animal-loving father would be acting in devoted service to his neat and tidy wife, doing everything he could to protect her brand-new orangery from the pig, while also making sure it was safe from harm, stress-free and comfortable.
It conjured up some pretty amusing images in Maddie’s mind.
Marley shook his head from side to side, as exasperated as he was amused.
“James, why don’t we have a cuppa and talk this through?” He motioned towards the kitchen.
“I have to take the pig back,” James said, though he stepped in the direction Marley pointed.
Marley nodded flippantly, but threw his sister a reassuring grin.
Maddie felt herself relax further. Marley was intelligent, imposing and charming — a deadly combination.
He could convince almost anyone to do absolutely anything.
James wasn’t taking that pig anywhere.
* * *
“It’s my first day,” James said, graciously accepting the freshly brewed coffee Marley was handing him. “It was literally the first thing that happened this morning. The pig escaped, and I was sent to find it. They’ll be wondering where I am.”
Maddie opened her mouth to say something cutting, but Marley shot her a warning glance.
“I don’t really want to work there because I’m worried I’ll get attached to the animals,” he continued.
“I eat meat, but I’ve never been part of the food system before.
I don’t know, I guess I’ve never really thought about it.
I googled it and apparently sometimes farm workers have to put sick animals out of their misery.
I’m worried about that, too. I don’t want to watch animals die. ..”
James carried on talking, but Maddie was no longer listening.
She had seen death firsthand. Bowie. Six years ago, she’d gone to bed with everyone else, given them a chance to fall asleep, then crept downstairs to meet Marley and Autumn.
It had been a rough few days. Bowie had been in considerable pain, relentlessly begging his family to kill him.
If it were up to Maddie she’d have given in to him earlier.
Bowie knew it, too. They both agreed that euthanasia should be a human right and a choice for the terminally ill.
He’d begged her extra hard to help him end his life, but she had insisted she wouldn’t do it unless everyone in the family agreed.
She hadn’t realised until that evening it was actually only Marley’s approval she needed.
Marley loved Bowie more than anyone else in the world, and he’d have done anything for one more minute with him.
If he thought Bowie was too sick to go on, then he was.
Together they’d said their goodbyes and given Bowie the tools he needed to fall asleep and die.
She hardly remembered anything after that, just blocks of commotion.
Her mother’s soul-shaking wail, her father crying, Autumn on the floor in the corner of the room hugging her knees to her chest. She remembered unhooking Emma’s arms from around Bowie’s neck and prising Marley’s hand from around Bowie’s wrist, hearing him sobbing ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry’.
The official story was that Bowie had been left alone for a short period of time and had committed suicide.
Maddie had a feeling the others suspected there was more to it, but they’d never asked and, even if they did, she would never, ever tell them what they’d done.
Six years had passed since that night. Yet that morning, sipping coffee in the kitchen while James Byron word-vomited his justifications for eating meat, Marley’s mask slipped, too.
He was an actor, but there it was. Just a flicker of pain, a visual confirmation that Marley was also reliving that extremely painful night.
Marley straightened his expression in less than a second, but it was too late.
Maddie’s stomach lurched. Her brain flooded with memories.
Bowie’s pain. His eyes. His gratitude. She had loved him so much.
She still did. She wanted to burst into tears, or go to bed and never get up again, or both.