‘It’s understandable. I’m a bit all over the place myself.’
‘You handle it better than I do.’
‘Finally, something I can do better than my big sister.’ Addie grinned.
Susanna turned to face her. ‘You can do a lot that I can’t do – be a mother, for a start. You’re wonderful at that. My nephew is living proof.’
Addie took a deep breath. ‘How desperate must Aunt Gayle have been to not call us and let us know of the mistake?’
Susanna turned back to the mirror to do the other eye. ‘She should have done though, that wasn’t fair.’
‘She seems lonely.’
‘Lonely?’ Susanna wasn’t convinced. ‘She was never lonely. She had her business, her staff and friends… She was always so busy.’
‘It’s not the same, though, is it? We both know that.’ Just like living with Aunt Gayle wasn’t the same as being with their mum and dad. ‘She’s our family, Susanna. And we don’t have much of that left.’
Susanna put the top back on the make-up remover and came to sit down next to her sister on the bed. ‘I’m not sure where we go from here.’
‘I say we sleep on it and tomorrow is another day.’
‘Part of me wants to walk out of here and never come back,’ Susanna told her.
‘Usually, you know exactly what to do.’
‘Are you implying that I’m bossy?’
‘Yes, and I’m happy for you to be – takes the pressure off me.’
Susanna adjusted the headband that was holding her dark hair away from her face. ‘Mind if I do my teeth now?’
‘Go for it.’ The main bathroom was downstairs but up here there was another one with a toilet and a sink. ‘Mind if I steal some cleanser?’
‘I brought extra, I knew you’d want to use it.’
Addie hugged her sister tightly. ‘Things will be all right, you know.’
‘Yeah.’
But Susanna didn’t seem all that convinced as Addie left her to it.
11
GAYLE
Gayle was up early, the habit of a lifetime. She’d already called Nancy to ask if she could cover for her for a while, and Nancy hadn’t asked questions. Maybe she already knew it was because of the Rafferty girls.
She made a cup of tea and sat at the table. She hadn’t expected the girls to stay the night, even though she’d told them their rooms were ready. She’d spent the first couple of hours after she left them in the kitchen lying in bed looking at the clock, waiting for the slam of the front door. Eventually, she’d fallen asleep and when she surfaced – much later than she’d intended – she could hear someone in the bedroom upstairs and the toilet flush on the upper floor.
She couldn’t believe they were both under her roof once again and she wondered whether today the tension would be as palpable as it was when they arrived last night, or even when they first stepped over the threshold thirty years ago.
As Gayle stirred her tea, she thought about her life then and her life now. There were things she would change if she got her time all over again, but she wouldn’t change everything.
Gayle had worked at her parents’ café in Oxford on weekends and during the school holidays when she was a teenager. Harry already worked there full time and sometimes they would talk about taking on the Cuppas and Treats Café together when their parents retired. Harry raved about having a family business, proud as punch that their parents had started the café and made it into such a success. Having no idea of what she wanted to do once she finished school, Gayle had gone along with the idea, which sounded like it could work.
Gayle started to take charge of introducing puddings to the menu at the café – she’d suggested it to her parents, given they mainly made soups, sandwiches and other quick snacks, and they’d been happy for her to experiment for a while. The experiment turned into so much more when customers returned over and over again to see what the pudding of the day was. Gayle was in her element. She’d only ever baked at home for herself and her family, never for strangers, and slowly an idea began to form. What if she stepped out on her own? What if she could do what she loved for a living?
It was the first time she’d ever felt a flush of ambition and suddenly, she could see nothing else in her future other than starting her own pudding business. When she was alone in her bedroom, she’d sketch out rough pictures of what a pudding business could look like: she’d make up menu choices, think about customers’ faces when they got to eat what she baked. She had no idea of the details, how or evenifit would work, but that was the thing with ambition – it rarely stopped in its tracks once it gained momentum.
