Chapter 5
The following day Aria stood in front of the family home, eyes sweeping over the property she believed was rightly hers.
She fished her key out of her pocket and when it failed to open the door, panic tightened her throat.
There was no manual for this homecoming – only that letter and the will laying out her uncertain future.
Fearing her heart might beat out of her chest, she rang the bell, gripping the useless key in her palm.
As she waited for her stepmother to come, she took a few steps back down the path and looked around.
The garden was overgrown, while the rotten windows competed with the shoddy roof for the prize of most neglected.
Putting her dad’s letter under her arm, she picked a dandelion clock and blew on the feathery globe, counting the weeks since her dad had died with every puff.
‘One, two, three…’
Fluffy umbrellas whirled and a gust of wind whipped the envelope into the air.
As she scrabbled to retrieve it from the foot of a tree, the front door opened, and a barrel of sandy velvet shot out onto the path.
Ears flapping, nose to the ground, the pug accelerated quickly before slamming on the brakes, beating her to the document.
‘Hello, Tiger,’ Aria said, as the little fawn fiend lolloped over with the letter.
She wasn’t terribly familiar with her father’s pet.
He’d bought him after she’d left, encouraged by the animal loving Felicity.
However, knowing how fond of him her dad was, she gave him the benefit of the doubt along with a tickle under his chin.
Poor thing. He must be wondering where Eddie had got to.
She reached to retrieve the letter from his jaw, but he wouldn’t play ball.
‘Drop it, you annoying creature!’ she said, feeling mortified when Felicity grabbed Tiger’s collar and yanked him away.
‘Did you ring the bell? It’s been playing up for weeks.’
Aria stuttered out an excuse for being rude to the dog while opening her palm, revealing her key. ‘Did you change the lock?’
Her stepmother shook her head, confused. ‘It’s temperamental, like everything else around here at the moment. Sorry if you can smell horse on me. Haven’t had time to change. Do come in. It was so busy I—’
‘I’m running late,’ said Aria.
‘Late for what?’ Felicity’s question caught her off-guard, before she was further unbalanced by her stepmother linking their arms and guiding her through the porch.
‘As expected, I have a house full of sausage rolls and cakes, and not much appetite for eating on my own. You must join me and help me polish it off. Like your dad, I hate waste, and Tiger will drive me mad begging for scraps. He loves picnic food.’
‘I er…’
‘I won’t take no for an answer. Come on in,’ she instructed.
‘Don’t worry about muddy feet or standing on ceremony.
The house is exactly how you last saw it, if not worse.
Your dad wasn’t himself in recent months and neither of us had the will or money to do much in the way of maintenance.
I’m glad you brought a suitcase, but you may need binbags too. I’ve left some out.’
Aria prickled. ‘I didn’t know he was ill. His heart attack came out of the blue for me. Shouldn’t I have been informed of any symptoms?’
‘You know what he was like. Always carrying on, saying he was fine despite the breathlessness. He put the occasional chest pain down to age, even though I nagged him to see the doctor.’
Reluctantly following her stepmother, Aria had a sudden desire to run back to her stunted flat and beg for work from the company who had let her go.
Meanwhile Felicity gestured to a huge pile of stuff at one end of the kitchen – topped off with a string-bag of toys.
Aria pulled a face at a half-chewed duck with disproportionately long legs sitting on top of the pile.
Felicity’s high-pitched laugh rang around the stone walls. ‘Yep, it’s a monstrosity, but if you throw it for him to fetch, he will shower you with love. I’ll make us tea while you pack up. There’s a lot of it, isn’t there?’
Aria noticed afresh that Felicity’s eyes were the same colour as her own. Her dad used to joke he had a fancy for emeralds and her mother’s eyes had been the most vibrant colour of all.
‘I was trying to sort it out for you, but I got distracted with a crisis at work,’ her stepmother continued. ‘Now, would you like tea or coffee?’
Aria declined the drink. With Felicity, ‘a cuppa’ was code for a counselling session. Apparently, she psychoanalysed horses, or something like that. Aria wondered what a crisis at the stables would look like. She’d never heard of a stallion having a breakdown.
‘So, shall we get going on the nibbles or would you prefer to plough straight into the cakes? There’s everything from chocolate cake to lemon drizzle,’ Felicity pressed her.
Aria wished the woman would stop yapping about food.
She hadn’t eaten since yesterday and the idea of it made her feel sick.
And all this baggage confirmed she couldn’t take the dog.
Her suitcase was full of her clothes, and she wasn’t even sure where she’d be spending tonight, let alone the rest of her life.
Felicity spotted her lack of enthusiasm. ‘I know! It’s more than Eddie left behind,’ she laughed, before looking ashamed of her inappropriate joke. ‘I assume you’ve brought a car?’
Aria chewed her lip. She was still upset about her vehicle being scrapped and didn’t have money for another.
Neither did she have a house, a partner, or a job.
But she wasn’t going to mention any of this to Felicity who hadn’t earned any of those things.
Instead, she made non-committal noises as she perched on a chair, deciding to refuse her dad’s pet.
She knew very little about animals. How often did a pug need walking?
How much did they eat and how long did they sleep for?
‘I didn’t know how you’d feel about taking Tiger,’ Felicity interrupted Aria’s thoughts.
‘As I’m sure Eddie informed you in his letter, he was determined to gift you what he called ‘the hound and the hut’.
But I told him you might not have space for a dog, especially with your busy life.
I could always adopt him, if it’s not convenient for you to look after a pet.
I’m sure he would have understood. And Tiger is obviously used to living here… ’
Aria’s head jerked up. So, Felicity had been left the house?
Although she’d half expected this, it was still a punch in the stomach.
Her stepmother had already inherited the earth, leaving Aria with only a patch of it and a tumbledown shack.
And now she had designs on the dog? ‘I’ll be delighted to take Tiger,’ Aria said firmly, leaving no room for further theft.
‘Super. And, if you don’t have the necessary transport right now, feel free to come back with a van and pick up any bits you’d like. I’m aware a lot of the furniture was around before I appeared. I’m not attached to any of it, so have free rein.’
How magnanimous, Aria thought bitterly, taking in the photos on the walls and the antique copper pans that had hung from hooks on the kitchen walls every day of her life.
This was all just furniture and equity to Felicity, but for Aria it was so much more.
It was her childhood and her security. This was where Mum had taken her photo on her first day at school and Dad had taken it on her last. It was where she’d baked award-winning apple pies for town fetes, argued about the climate over long Sunday lunches, and warmed herself with hot chocolate on winter days.
She’d practised cartwheels on the flagstones and fallen asleep at the table after a drunken prom.
She had been so close with her mum, a closeness which intensified with Dad once they were on their own, until her stepmother turned up years later looking for a husband.
Why on earth had Eddie made Felicity his favourite?
Had he even realised what he’d done? No one over fifty had any idea of how difficult it was to get a foothold on the Lakeland housing ladder – quite honestly it felt like ascending a beanstalk.
Dad’s decision to leave Felicity the house cruelly ensured that Aria’s magic bean was just a bean, leaving her stranded on the ground while her stepmother free-wheeled into the clouds.
She looked down at the envelope she’d taken back from Tiger.
She’d need to contest the will but wouldn’t give Felicity the heads-up until she’d taken advice.
Determined not to let the woman see any weakness from her, she ran her fingers through her hair and whispered three words to herself. Get. A. Grip.
‘What are your plans going forward?’ Felicity asked, placing a hot drink in front of Aria that she hadn’t asked for. ‘Where are you staying?’ Her questions were tentative, as if she wasn’t sure of the direction the conversation would take. ‘You know you could always…’
‘Time to go!’ Aria jumped up, grabbed a bin bag and started throwing Tiger’s stuff inside.
‘Oh! But your dad wanted us to chat about that letter. He had specific reasons for—’