‘Why on earth was I on the beach?’
That was a very good question and one that none of us could answer.
‘I’m sure the doctors will figure it all out very soon.’
Mum’s faith in the wisdom of anyone with a medical degree had always been unshakeable, but her daughters were a little more sceptical. Amelia’s eye caught mine and in that single moment she was back; she was one hundred per cent my capable older sister, with her quick wit and MENSA-level IQ. She reached out her hand and I stupidly thought it was to grasp mine, only she flapped me away and pointed at the carrier bag. ‘Did you get me the drawing stuff? I’m going to do a sketch of Sam,’ she explained to Mum.
‘From memory?’ I couldn’t resist asking.
Amelia gave me a glare that should probably be accompanied by aDuh!speech bubble.
‘Well, obviously, seeing as he’s still in New York. There’s been no word yet, has there?’
I shook my head sadly, but not for the reasons she might think. It felt like we’d taken one step forward and two back. Amelia’s journey to recovery still felt impossibly long.
She upended the contents of the plastic bag on to the bed and was studying the selection of pencils I’d bought, looking for all the world as though she actually knew what she was doing. I drew my chair closer to the bed as she began covering the top sheet of paper in the pad with long sweeping strokes.
It took less than two minutes for me to realise that Amelia wasn’t just a competent artist… she was actually very good. Better than me, in fact, although there was a marked similarity in our drawing styles.
Before my eyes, a horizon appeared and then sand dunes and a coastline. She glanced up a couple of times, as though visualising something none of us could see, before returning her attention to the sketch pad balanced on her knees. Mum was keeping up a constant flow of chatter, talking about people I didn’t know, but I doubt Amelia even heard her. Her concentration sharpened as she abandoned the beach and slowly the outline of a figure appeared on the sand. The person was crouched down low, his weight on one knee. Amelia took her time with the sketch, filling in hundreds of tiny details before turning her attention to the man’s features. I watched in silence as the face of the brother-in-law I didn’t have finally emerged.
Amelia had been right, hewashandsome. His jaw was strong, and his features were clearly defined – chiselled was probably how they’d be described in the pages of a novel. I’d never used the term before to describe anyone in real life, but it seemed to perfectly fit the image on the page.
Amelia had bent low over the sketch pad to fill in his features with painstaking care. I saw a network of tiny lines that crinkled at the edges of his eyes, the hint of a cleft in his chin and the warmth of his smile. It was a smile that was mirrored on my sister’s face as she filled in every detail. With gut-wrenching shock, I saw the love in her eyes for the man her pencil had created. This figment of her subconscious was clearly as real to her as her own family.
‘That’s how he looked on the day we met,’ she said, turning her pencil to the man’s thick shock of dark hair that was caught in the breeze. She held the pad at arm’s length, turning it towards the light. ‘That’s pretty much exactly how he looks in the locket photo,’ she said with a satisfied nod at her own handiwork. ‘You’ll see that when you bring it in tomorrow.’
I swallowed nervously and pasted what I hoped was a natural smile on to my lips. Desperately, I sought to change the subject. ‘Since when have you been able to draw like this?’ I asked, taking the pad from her hands and studying the expertly sketched illustration. Up close, her style looked even more like mine… except I hadn’t picked up a sketch book in years.
‘I’m not sure, a while I guess,’ she said, flopping back against her pillows as though the artwork had drained something out of her. ‘I’d always wanted to give it a go, so I found an online course and…’ – she gave a small shrug – ‘I discovered I had a hidden talent.’
‘But you never even mentioned it to me.’
Amelia’s head darted towards the doorway, where a nurse had just appeared with a trolley of medication. Did she do that every single time she heard someone approach, I wondered sadly?
‘I’m sure I told you,’ Amelia said, holding out her hand for the beaker the nurse had prepared. It was filled with an assortment of coloured pills, which she swallowed all together.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’d have remembered if you’d mentioned it.’
‘Would you? What makes you so sure? You managed to forget I had a husband.’
Touché.
The moment the nurse left the room, Amelia reached once again for the sketch pad. Over the next two hours, she filled page after page with sketches. Every drawing was of the man on the beach. Sometimes they were close-up portraits, so detailed I could practically see the sweep of his individual eyelashes. In others he was striding along the wet sand, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, his thick chunky jumper keeping out the winter chill. The man in the sketch pad was tall and broadly built and seemed to grow in substance in my head with every new drawing and turn of the page. The tide and elongated shadows on the sand seemed to indicate the time was early on a winter’s morning.
Strangely, it was Amelia’s final drawing that was the most surprising.
‘How could I have forgotten to include Barney?’ she exclaimed, rapidly pencilling in a new shape beside the man who I now felt certain I could pick out from a line-up.
‘Who’s Barney?’ I asked, trying to peer over the top of the pad, which she’d now angled away from me.
‘Barney,’ Amelia said, shaking her head at my apparent amnesia. ‘Barney is Sam’s dog.’ I took hold of the edge of the pad and tilted it towards me. Barney was indeed a dog. A very large and shaggy Old English Sheepdog. In the sketch he was standing up on his hind legs, his two enormous front paws placed squarely in the middle of Sam’s chest.
‘I… I forgot Sam had a dog,’ murmured Mum, trying so hard to say the right thing, if only someone could tell her what that might be.
‘Well, we could never bring him over to yours. He doesn’t travel well in the car.’
‘And is Barney in New York with Sam right now?’ I asked carefully, hoping out of all the questions I could have posed, I’d chosen one that would cause the least distress. Unfortunately, I hadn’t.
