Chapter Three
“Good morning, my darling,” Emma said, pouring her a mug of coffee from the cafetière.
Maddie kissed her on the cheek. “Morning, Mamma.”
Ben put his coffee on the table before him and held open his arms to receive her. Maddie bent down to hug him. “Good morning, love,” he said.
“Morning, Pops.”
“Morning, boss,” James quipped, tipping his flat cap. Maddie picked up her coffee cup and wrapped her hands around it, rolling her eyes. She hated conversation first thing in the morning. Her father, who was excusing himself to visit the bathroom, nudged her pointedly as he passed.
“I think the first order of business should be to build a pen for the pig,” Emma said to James.
“We moved all of the furniture out and he’s fine in the orangery for now, but he really is destroying the place.
We need a dry-stone wall and a shelter. We have a load of rocks left over from when we replaced the wall at the bottom of the garden. ”
Maddie concurred with a grunt.
“I built a dry-stone wall once in Spain,” James said.
“Oh, how handy!” Emma was thrilled.
“How big do you want it? I reckon I can knock up six metres a day.”
Emma paused thoughtfully and then said, “I think perhaps twelve feet by twelve feet? Maddie, what do you think?”
Maddie grunted again.
“Marley will give you a hand when he can,” Emma reassured him. “Pip is home for Christmas in a few weeks, too.”
“What about Bowie, where is he these days?” James asked.
Emma and Maddie snapped to attention. James glanced awkwardly between them, his eyes wide with uncertainty.
When Emma and Maddie didn’t answer, he opened his mouth to continue, but Maddie shook her head, so he closed it.
He shuffled uncomfortably, shooting her an accusatory glance when Emma wasn’t looking.
She knew what he was accusing her of. Omitting something terrible from their conversation about Bowie the day before.
“Erm—” Emma had always struggled to talk about what happened to Bowie.
He’d taken half of her heart with him when he died.
She had taken for granted that she would never have to live without any of her children right up until the last eighteen months or so of Bowie’s life.
Even then, she hadn’t believed it, not really.
She was sure something would happen, a miracle cure of some sort.
A reality without one of her children was not a future she could ever imagine, and the prospect of it had driven her closer to Bowie in the last few months of his life.
When he’d died, Maddie had been certain Emma would not survive it.
Before anyone could answer, Ben sauntered happily back into the kitchen, whistling a tune and swinging his arms as he crossed the stone floor. Maddie’s father, who had an uncanny ability to detect his family’s feelings, picked up on the atmosphere immediately and froze before them.
“My goodness, what’s happened?” he asked. James put his head down. Maddie and her mother stared at each other, and Maddie found herself wondering if this ever got any easier, if they would ever not be rendered speechless by grief.
Tortured by silence, Maddie took it upon herself to answer. “James asked about Bowie, Dad. Unfortunately, James, we lost Bowie six years ago.”
James met her gaze and she saw flashes of accusation, humiliation and hurt.
She felt in equal parts defensive and ashamed, but couldn’t bring herself to confess to her parents that she’d had the opportunity to tell James about Bowie but hadn’t.
She didn’t want anyone to know how much she struggled with saying the words aloud.
Her mother would force her back into therapy, and she didn’t have time for that.
James gave up waiting for her to say something and apologised. “I’m sorry, Mr and Mrs Whittle. I didn’t know.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, how could you?” Ben said reassuringly. James’ eyes flickered to Maddie. She met his gaze for a second, then planted her eyes on the floor. Ben continued, “He was a glorious man and we’re honoured you remember him after all these years.”
James threw Ben a small smile and nodded.
The colour that had paled from his cheeks returned a little bit, although he graced Emma — who looked like she might burst into tears — with a concerned glance.
They stood there for a moment, an awkward party of four, Ben’s eyes on Emma, Emma’s on the floor, James watching Maddie, Maddie watching James.
James coughed, breaking their trance. “I should probably get on. Can someone show me where the rocks are and where you’d like the pigpen building? If you have a wheelbarrow or a trailer or something, that would be great.”
“I’ll show you,” Maddie said. She didn’t really want to be alone with James — she knew she’d have to explain, and that was the last thing she wanted to do — but he’d seemed so shocked and hurt by her omission.
She hadn’t meant for this to happen and felt it was important she tell him that.
James nodded, but seemed reluctant. Luckily, Ben and Emma were still too distracted to notice.
Maddie pulled on her boots and Bowie’s big jacket over her pyjamas, then motioned for James to follow her.
The moment they opened the side door, Maddie was distracted.
A barrelling ball of fur bounded out of the treeline and careered towards them, her mouth wide open and eyes shining happily.
This must be Stevie Licks. The dog launched herself at James, who caught her in his arms. She was big — he stumbled with the weight of her — but Maddie could tell by the grace of the action that they did this whenever they saw each other.
He kissed her head and lowered her to the ground, where she snaked between his legs in a figure of eight.
Maddie was sure she’d never seen any dog happier to see their human.
“This is Stevie,” James said.
Maddie bent low and held her hand out for Stevie to sniff. “Hi, Stevie.”
“Don’t talk to her, Stevie, she’s mean,” James said. Maddie stood up straight, her mouth agape. James glared. “Don’t bat your eyelashes at me,” he said. “What happened back there was awful and all your fault.”
Maddie softened. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated about it? I mentioned Bowie in the present tense yesterday — that was your cue to say ‘actually, Bowie is no longer with us’. I’d say ‘I’m so sorry’, you’d say ‘don’t worry about it’, end of conversation.”
Maddie sighed. James made it sound so simple, but it never felt that way.
She’d learned that talking about Bowie’s death sometimes kicked up dangerously sad emotions, the kind that would incapacitate her from feeling anything else for weeks.
It was easier to pretend nothing had happened — that her gloriously charming, funny, kind, sensitive, curious brother had not died — especially if the conversation was small talk.
“I didn’t know you’d be working here,” she said, defensively. “I thought we were just having a little chat and that would be the end of it.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not weird,” he pointed out.
Maddie scowled. “Clearly you’ve never lost anyone in a tragic way.”
James’ gaze hardened in a telling manner.
She got the distinct impression he was holding himself back, avoiding saying something that would silence her on this matter for good.
He could have spat it at her, but he didn’t.
Instead, he fixed his eyes on Stevie — sniffing Emma’s flower bed — and kicked the ground with his wellie.
“Show me where these rocks are,” he said.
Maddie took him to the rock pile, gave him a wheelbarrow, chose a spot for the pigpen, then left him to it.
She told him there’d be lunch in the kitchen at one o’clock — her father made sandwiches every day and would almost certainly make extra for him — but James told her curtly he’d take Stevie for a walk at lunchtime instead.
Maddie bid him an awkward goodbye, and left him to his work.
She had so much to do today and hardly any time.
She pushed James and his mood out of her mind and headed for her bedroom.
She quickly changed into an old pair of overalls, refastened her hair into a messy bun and put sunscreen on her face — a habit Emma had instilled in her children in youth that they’d all carried on into adulthood.
When she was done, she stared longingly at her bed.
The endorphins that had been present when she’d woken were long gone.
* * *
Maddie spent the rest of the day painting.
In preparation for the big switch from family home to recovery retreat, they’d hired a contractor to erect dividing walls in several bedrooms, turning Ben’s and Emma’s room into three smaller rooms and Bluebell’s into two.
Maddie had spent the last few days painting every single dividing wall in the same vanilla-pudding shade they’d used on most rooms in the house at her mother’s insistence.
The paint was plain and nondescript. Boring but practical.
This way, Emma had reasoned, they could swap out the furnishings whenever she felt like a change, without having to re-paper walls or paint over stubborn shades.
Maddie had to admit her mother’s cautious colour choice was going to make redecorating the house easier than if it had been tailored to a very specific Whittle taste.
Still, the freshly painted plasterboard made the other walls look grubby, so absolutely everywhere needed at least the lick of a brush.
Maddie was managing a room a day. With the rest of the work she had to complete, she reasoned it would take her at least a month to finish.
Overwhelmed, she wandered aimlessly from room to room, mentally jotting down everything she still had left to do.
She wondered, as she did so, if she had made a hasty decision when she’d decided to open the retreat.