Chapter 16
ADDIE
‘You were quick. I thought you were going all the way around the island this time,’ said Addie when Susanna came through the door. Addie had been taking some time for herself, reading a book after baking a batch of oatmeal and raisin cookies.
‘Changed my mind.’ Susanna took off her shoes and left them in the hallway before following the aroma into the kitchen. ‘Something smells good.’
‘Help yourself.’
She reached for a cookie, still nice and gooey having not been out of the oven long and closed her eyes when she bit into it. ‘You, my girl, have talent.’
‘I haven’t done any more sorting.’
Susanna spoke carefully through her mouthful. ‘You deserve a break too.’
‘This is the first time I’ve had a decent chunk of time to read a book, and I couldn’t resist baking something too.
’ But she felt guilty. There was still a ridiculous number of boxes to go through.
They’d already got rid of so many bits and pieces, which she supposed had all been lumped into boxes because nobody had had the time or the inclination to sort through what should be thrown and what should be packed.
When Harry died everything had been so rushed with sorting the house and moving the girls so suddenly.
‘Aunt Gayle had all the ingredients?’
Addie nodded. ‘Fully stocked pantry.’
‘We’ll do more sorting after I’ve had another one of these yummy cookies,’ Susanna declared.
They were getting there with the boxes and she expected they’d be through the rest of them way before the eight days prior to the living funeral were up. She wondered how they’d fill their days then or whether Susanna would push more to leave.
After Susanna finished the final mouthful of her second cookie she licked her fingers. ‘I called Alex.’
Addie plucked a cookie for herself. ‘And how is he?’
‘He didn’t answer.’
‘I’m sure he’s busy. Don’t read too much into it.’ She led the way upstairs. ‘Just because he didn’t answer it doesn’t mean he’s up to anything untoward.’
‘Maybe.’
‘It doesn’t.’ She popped the rest of her cookie into her mouth.
They really did taste the best when they still held some of their warmth from the oven.
As she’d made them, she’d wondered whether Gayle would mind her baking; she hadn’t asked, after all.
Was she crossing a boundary when she shouldn’t be, perhaps?
They’d reached the upstairs when Susanna said, ‘He’s back on the island.’
Addie paused briefly in front of the attic door. ‘Who?’ But it took seconds to realise exactly who she meant. ‘I thought he might be. Mateo is as much a part of this island as the sand on the beach. So… did you talk to him?’
She grimaced, then explained how she’d fallen, and he’d been the one to catch her.
Addie burst out laughing. ‘Well, I suppose it beats being paranoid about when or if you’ll bump into him.
It’s over and done with now.’ She looked at her sister.
‘So… what’s he like after all this time?
How did you feel?’ Whenever her big sister had stayed out late Addie had come up to her own bedroom, but she’d kept a torch near her bed and always tried to stay awake until Susanna got home.
She didn’t always make it. Sometimes she fell asleep, but on the times she didn’t, in whispers Susanna would tell her all about what she’d been up to.
As she got older, though, Addie sensed the conversation had been somewhat filtered for an eleven-year-old’s ears.
‘It was odd. It was nice. It was like no time had passed.’
‘I used to love hearing about your love affair. I wasn’t even a teenager and boys were a long way off for me. So, will you see him again?’
‘I’m a married woman.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’ Addie knelt, ready to tackle the next box.
‘If I’m on the island, I might not be able to avoid him.’
‘Especially if you’re down by the marina.
’ But she stopped with the teasing. Things with Alex were a little rocky, apparently, although Susanna hadn’t gone into much detail about what was going on.
Addie only hoped that her brother-in-law and her sister would work things out, and that Susanna wouldn’t do anything stupid with Mateo around.
‘Come on, let’s get going with all this.’ Susanna dragged a box nearer.
So far, they’d found plenty – a doll’s house, some Lego Addie had put to one side to take back for Isaac, a collection of old books Susanna had read in high school.
The memories slowed down the sorting, but to Addie that wasn’t a bad thing.
They’d gone on to find their dad’s gold watch with the brown leather strap – Susanna had claimed it, and Addie took the cufflinks he’d worn when he got married.
She thought maybe she’d give them to Isaac someday to wear on his wedding day.
Addie pulled off the tape from the box. The seal and Gayle’s address, along with the removal company’s logo on the boxes, spoke to how neglected all of this stuff had been.
‘Look what I’ve found.’ From inside the box, Addie pulled out a leaflet.
It was the information the estate agent must have handed to prospective buyers, including their parents.
The typed sheet of A4 looked so different to estate agents’ listings these days, which were mostly trawled through online.
‘That’s our house,’ said Susanna, scooting closer and losing interest with the box she’d selected to go through.
They glanced over the leaflet, deducing that bedroom three would’ve been Addie’s – she could tell by the irregular measurements with its funny L-shape at one end, like it had its own entrance hall.
She’d stuck plastic hooks on the wall as if she would have many visitors who could hang their coats there.
In reality, she’d used the hooks for her thin dressing gown, scarves in the winter, sunhats in the summer.
They weren’t strong enough for much else.
The one time she’d hung her towelling robe on one it had fallen straight down.
‘Bedroom four was mine,’ said Susanna, pointing to the picture of the house. She sat back on her heels, adding wistfully, ‘I loved that house.’
‘Me too. I was so sad to leave. It felt like losing the only thing we had left of Mum and Dad.’ She felt Susanna’s arm snake around her shoulders briefly before she shuffled back over to the box she was going through.
‘What’s in yours?’ Addie nodded to Susanna’s box.
‘Boring stuff. Bank statements, old energy bills and a bag of old buttons. Random.’ She looked across at her sister. ‘We should’ve done this ages ago.’
‘In hindsight, yes, we should have.’
‘At least this takes our minds off the fact that Aunt Gayle pretended to be dead.’
‘She didn’t pretend to be dead…’ When Susanna cast a doubtful gaze her way she said, ‘Well, all right, she kind of did, but she wanted us here, and you know we wouldn’t have come for a party. We all seem to have been getting on well enough for the last few days. I thought you were less angry.’
‘I am… maybe. But I’m still not sure I’ll stay for the event.’
Addie sat back on her heels. ‘It’ll be weird going to it.’ But would it be even weirder to leave now?
She left the subject alone as they finished going through another half a dozen boxes and stacked them against the wall in her bedroom once they were done, with a pile to keep and another pile of things to be got rid of.
Susanna’s eyes misted as she pulled something from the ‘to keep’ pile. She held up a wooden frame painted blue, but a blue that allowed the grain of the wood to show through. ‘I still can’t believe he kept this.’
‘It looks very old.’ To be honest, she’d been surprised when Susanna didn’t drop it onto the discard pile.
‘I made it at school in our woodwork class when I was about eleven, I think.’
Addie realised it wasn’t just the frame, it had a picture inside and when she looked it was a lovely one of the girls together in the snow standing in their front garden. ‘That was on a snow day when school was closed.’
‘No wonder we look so happy.’ Susanna chuckled.
‘The frame and the picture have stood the test of time.’ Addie smiled. ‘So have we, I think.’
‘Of course we have,’ said Susanna.
They unearthed more of the relics their dad had kept at home or at work: the pen pot Addie had made out of half a washing up bottle before painting it bright yellow and sticking orange spots to it; the pottery Susanna had bought and painted for Father’s Day one year, making a raw-clay coloured bowl into a striped accessory that looked like an old-fashioned humbug sweet.
‘Didn’t he use that to put crisps in?’ Addie asked.
‘Yes, I’d forgotten that. He’d fill it with salt and vinegar flavour on a treat night.’
‘I don’t remember him eating any himself.’
‘I think they were more for us,’ said Susanna softly.
‘What’s this?’ Addie had pulled out a long piece of wire with a frog on the top.
Susanna gasped. ‘That was Mum’s.’
‘Mum liked frogs?’
‘She did.’ Susanna chuckled. ‘Dad didn’t. I think it was her little joke, putting a pretend one in the flower bed. I don’t remember the day he found it, but I do remember them talking about it, him admitting he’d thought it was real.’
‘Poor Dad.’
‘Keep it?’ Susanna checked.
‘Yes, keep.’ She put it into the appropriate pile, but when she looked up again Susanna’s face was pale. ‘What is it? What have you found?’
Susanna sat down on her haunches, a delicate bracelet with tiny blue flowers in the palm of her hand. ‘This was Mum’s.’
‘It’s gorgeous.’
Susanna paused. ‘Me and Dad argued about it.’
‘Argued?’
‘Oh, it was nothing, really.’
‘No, come on – if you argued, it must have been something.’
‘I just freaked out when I couldn’t find it in Mum’s things, that’s all.’ She found the little box it must have fallen from and put it inside before depositing it onto the keep pile. ‘It’s here now, that’s what matters.’