Louisa looked down into her lap. ‘I’m sorry this has all been so secretive.’
‘It’s not your fault. We can get to know each other now.’
She lifted her gaze. ‘Do you mean that?’
Amusedly, Susanna said, ‘Don’t tell me – Aunt Gayle said I’d be the hardest one to convince.’
‘She didn’t say that exactly…’
‘It’s all right. I know I’m headstrong but being here… Well, let’s just say I’m slowly beginning to realise that it wasn’t always Gayle who was the problem.’ And it was a sobering thing to come to terms with. She’d known for a while, but coming here and confronting it head-on was quite different.
‘Louisa, I have to ask – was it really a mistake, putting the wordfuneralon the invites rather than pre-funeral or living funeral?’
‘It really was a genuine mistake. Gayle was so annoyed at herself, but you know, I think it might have been fate playing a hand. She didn’t think you’d come for anything other than something so final.’ She paused. ‘It might not be my place to ask, but was she right?’
‘Honestly? Yes, probably – at least in my case. Addie might have come, but with me being thedifficult one…’
They shared a smile.
‘Wherever Addie and I landed after losing Mum and then Dad, whoever we were with, we would’ve pushed against it,’ Susanna confided. ‘Our whole world had changed. Everything was daunting, hard, different.’
‘Maybe you should tell Gayle that.’ But Louisa’s expression immediately changed. ‘Oh God, now I really am speaking out of turn.’
She looked across at the entrance to the kitchen to make sure Gayle wasn’t about to emerge. ‘Please, go on, I want to hear what you think.’
‘Gayle blames herself for you and for Addie, for the fact she couldn’t make either of you happy enough to stay here on the island. She says she failed you both, and I don’t think she ever made peace with the fact.’
Guilt washed up on her like the tide coming in on the shingle beach nearest the marina. ‘Maybe we should have come back before now.’ She shook her head, almost talking to herself. ‘I fought so hard to get away from this beautiful island. Spending time here again, I can’t work out why.’
‘It sounds like you had a lot of grief back then, and you were only young.’
She smiled at her half-sister. ‘I appreciate the sympathy. I feel like you understand me, even though you don’t know me.’
‘I hope that can change.’
And when she said, ‘So do I,’ she really meant it.
Louisa gathered up the cups and put them all onto the tray she’d carried them in on. ‘I’ll go and see where those puddings are, shall I?’
Susanna stayed in her seat as Louisa left. But seconds later she leapt up at a scream coming from the direction of the kitchen.
She tore out the back.
Gayle was lying on the floor, with Louisa kneeling beside her.
Susanna took her phone from her back pocket and called the emergency services.
26
ADDIE
Addie was almost back at the Sweet Life Café where her sister, her aunt and her half-sister, Louisa, would be waiting for her.
Louisa. With her blonde hair and her curls. Louisa who had never known her dad. Harry Rafferty’s other daughter, taking Addie’s place as the youngest of his children. It was a weird feeling, like she was being dislodged in a way.
She stopped when she reached the tree where Susanna had told her everything. She looked up at the sky, the stars prickling against the darkness. ‘Oh, Dad,’ she murmured. She’d started talking to the sky as if he could hear her after she and Isaac once had a candid conversation about death – seven-year-olds had an endless list of questions on the topic, it seemed. Isaac was adamant that when someone died, they ‘went to the stars’. It turned out that Isaac had heard someone in his class say that his granny had gone to the stars, and he’d latched on to it and lodged it as a fact in his head. And Addie had never wanted to contradict him, because it was a nice way to think of those who were no longer with them.
She closed her eyes. She thought about her wonderful dad, all those summers he’d carried her on his shoulders, the times he’d read her bedtime stories, the cuddles, the laughter. She’d thought of him as perfect and today, she’d found out his faults. She wasn’t silly, she knew he’d have them; what she hadn’t thought was that they would be quite so significant.
