I didn’t get to give her a sensible, realistic answer, because I saw Mia sitting on her doorstep, her head down on her knees and her shoulders shaking with sobs.
“Heidi, what exactly did Mia say about her mum?” I slowed our walk down, anxious to get to Mia, but keen to get as much information as I could.
Heidi was quiet, something that was really unusual for her at the best of times.
“Neither of you are in any trouble. I know Mia might have told you a secret, and you should always try to keep secrets, but there are some secrets you need to tell me if we can help someone else.” We’d have another chat about this later.
Heidi looked at me with big, wide eyes that were just like her father’s. “She said her mum was having a holiday so she’d be sleeping on her own, but I couldn’t tell anyone because her mum said.”
My heart was racing far too fast. I drilled up the parenting manual I’d once read in my head and found zero on this situation. We were winging it. “Thank you for telling me. Let’s see if Mia wants to have tea with us at the Puffin Inn, and she can stay for a sleepover.” We were almost at Mia’s house. “Mia! Mia, sweetie, Heidi said you might want to have tea with us,bach?”
Mia shook her head, still keeping it down on her knees.
I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay, Mia. I told Heidi that there were some secrets that she could tell me because then I can help, so I know your mum’s gone for a break. How about I send her a message and let her know you’re staying with us?”
Mia nodded, still not looking at me. I smiled at my daughter, who looked worried. “Heidi, why don’t you tell Mia all the things you have planned to do tomorrow?”
That opened the floodgates. Sandcastles, rock pools, a boat trip, Amelie’s cakery, baking a cake, making a den, going to the library – a dozen more ideas spilled out, all with the same enthusiasm, and which was enough to have Mia lift her head and smile at Heidi.
“So do you want fish and chips with us?” Heidi finally stopped for breath. “You can even have tomato sauce.”
Mia’s sad eyes landed on me.
“Would you like to come with us, Mia? I’m sure your mum won’t mind.”
Mia nodded rapidly.
“Do you want to get changed first? Shall we go in and get you some clothes for tomorrow?”
There were more tears. “There’s no key. Mummy said she’d leave the key under the mat, but it isn’t there.” Her words were almost lisped.
Shit. We really did have an abandoned child. I knew Cara’s aunt sometimes helped out, but I didn’t have her contact details. “Did your mum take a bag with her?”
Mia nodded, still not looking at me.
“Okay. How about we go to mine and Heidi’s house, and you can share Heidi’s clothes for today and tomorrow? I can put your uniform in the wash with Heidi’s too and then it’ll be one less job for your mum. That sound okay?”
Mia nodded again, not saying anything, but she did stand up and take hold of the hand I offered her, the three of us ending up walking along the coastal path, holding hands and skipping, pretending that everything was normal.
We headed straight to my house, the little fisherman’s cottage that Joel had bought before he’d turned twenty. It had low ceilings and thick walls, built to keep out the worst of the winter storms. The plaster was the old sort, uneven and chunky in places, the windows small with big windowsills, big enough for a small girl to sit on and stare out at the pebbled shoreline.
There were four bedrooms, the largest one mine, the middle sized one belonging to Heidi, another that had been used for storage, and the smallest my office, although it wasn’t much more than my office, so I probably shouldn’t call it a bedroom. I had wondered recently whether we should move to one of the new builds, where we’d have a bigger garden and a building that was easier to upkeep, but I didn’t have the heart to move away from Joel’s house. Not yet.
I wasn’t ready for that yet.
Mia had squashed in with Heidi on the windowsill and the two of them were looking through colouring books, trying to choose which they wanted to do.
They were firm friends, Heidi the more outgoing of the two. Mia was quiet, shy, maybe worryingly so, but when she spoke my daughter tended to listen and I had a feeling that Mia stopped Heidi from getting into trouble on the occasions when her creative ideas were unwise.
They’d both changed and the washer was on, the uniforms would be fresh for Monday so Cara wouldn’t have to worry about that, if indeed she was worried by that, and they were now wearing Heidi’s clothes, that fit Mia just fine. Mia was smilingnow, even laughing at something silly that Heidi had said, and she didn’t look as pale.
I was pretty sure that the colour I’d lost when I saw her sitting on her doorstep hadn’t returned to my face. I didn’t understand what’d happened. I couldn’t imagine letting Heidi come home to an empty house, expecting a key to be under the mat. She was five years old. Just a bit more than a baby, and while Puffin Bay was as safe a place to grow up as anywhere, I wouldn’t even let her walk home on her own, not until she was nine, as per our current agreement, and only if we didn’t move because the school was only a five-minute walk away. I knew that Mia would walk home with one of the other children from school, who passed Mia’s house with her mum and siblings – there was every chance that parent hadn’t checked if Mia had actually got inside her home,
It wasn’t up to me to judge another parent though. I didn’t travel in Cara’s shoes and I didn’t know what else was going on in her life. I knew she loved Mia – she lit up when her daughter was around – but I couldn’t understand how she’d left her unattended and unsafe. What would’ve happened if I hadn’t gone to her house? Would Mia have been out there all night? It was almost summer – this was the last school half term before the big summer holidays – but the nights were cool and breezy, sea frets common.
A wave of panic washed over me. What if we hadn’t gone to Mia’s house? What it Heidi hadn’t wanted to have tea with her friend? I put the what ifs to one side and debated whether I’d be a bad parent if I had a glass of wine.
Maybe later.
