“And you’re wondering if it’s too soon and too late.”
“I wish I didn’t wonder at all. It’s ridiculous.”
“Love has a way of enduring. You know, it’s a full moon this weekend—a perfect time, if one were so inclined, to manifest a heart’s desire.”
“He might not even want me after all this time.”
“Or he might.”
“He loved Claire so much.”
“As he should, she was his wife. They had a wonderful life together. But a person can have more than one great love in a lifetime…” She left a beat. “Look at you, you’ve loved plenty!”
Bella snorted out a laugh.
Aunt Cam sighed. “I wish Fred knew what you gave up for her.”
Bella shook her head.
“That’s not her burden to carry. Besides, I was so young, I needed you and Aunt Aggie. I could never have managed without you. Fred deserved stability. I was a kid raising a kid, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”
“And you think we did? Aggie and I had resignedourselves to a life where children weren’t in the cards for us, and then suddenly we had a pregnant niece turn up at our door. We didn’t know which way was up. The only difference between you and us was that we were old enough to know how to fake it till you make it. Trust me, you did just fine.”
“Tell that to Fred.” Bella stretched out her back. “She still thinks I’m the worst mother in the world.”
“And yet it’s you she’s come running home to.”
“Only because she doesn’t have any other choices.”
“There is always a choice. The bottom line is, Fred’s coming home because she needs her mum. She just hasn’t admitted it to herself yet.”
—
Fred drove slowlyup to the gates of Hallow House and stopped. The house itself was virtually unchanged, aside from a new roof and the sensitively designed double-glazed windows replacing the originals, which had practically flopped out of their rotted frames. She’d been born and raised here, and had left as soon as she could, afraid that if she didn’t, she might be lassoed into staying by whatever force held the rest of the Hallow-Hart women in Pine Bluff. Maybe that would have been better.
Some of the generous front garden had been repurposed to make way for a gravel drive and a triple garage, but the largest part was still a wildflower meadow in the summer and planted up with shrubs and trees including holly,viburnum and dogwood to give color in the winter. The old wrought-iron railings around the boundary remained, but the new gates were electric and a black box on a pillar to one side required visitors to buzz in.
The engine idled. She opened the window but somehow couldn’t bring herself to extend a finger and press the intercom. Here was a resting space. Behind her was the life she’d had. Beyond those gates was acceptance that her old life was over. But all the while she remained in this place, neither here nor there, she wasn’t yet a failure. She could imagine that she was only visiting, that the back seat and boot of her Ford Fiesta weren’t stuffed full of her possessions, and that there wasn’t a man-with-a-van somewhere on the motorway who would deliver the remaining detritus of her city life within the next few hours.
“Hellooah!” Aunt Aggie’s voice crackled through the intercom, jolting her out of herself.
“H-hello. Sorry. I was just…” Fred stammered.
There was a loud click, and the huge black gates began to open. Fred revved the engine hard.What if I just turn around, drive away, keep on driving…?
“Spit spot!” came Aunt Aggie’s voice again. “Come along now, the kettle’s on.”
Taking a final, deep breath, Fred released the hand brake and crossed the boundary onto Hallow-Hart ground.
The front door was open, and Fred only made it as far as the entrance hall before a billowing cloud of flowing tangerine kaftan barreled up the hall toward her, shrieking hername. The low winter sun poured in from the kitchen window behind her aunt, illuminating her white-and-gray tightly coiled hair like a halo.
Fred’s left eye twitched as the voice rose up again. She was pulled into her aunt Cam’s pillowy bosom, engulfed by the scent of her patchouli oil perfume.
“Hello, Aunty,” she mumbled, trying not to breathe her aunt’s hair into her throat.
Aunt Cam released her, stepped back to assess her, then leaned back in and squinted into her face.
“Too thin,” she declared. Cam was the only person who would describe Fred as being too thin; her bottom filled her size 12 jeans like two space hoppers shoved into a pillowcase. “You’ll get wrinkles if you let yourself get scraggy. A bit of good home cooking is what you need. We’ll soon have you looking rosy again.”
