Love
Molly
xxx
She shuts the card and collapses against the edge of the kitchen counter.
A card from a child.
Molly.
Little Molly who still writes phonetically.
Little Molly who wants a bald fifty-year-old man to be her Valentine.
Little Molly who knows his home address.
She stuffs the card back into the envelope and tucks it inside the tea towels again, her heart racing lightly.
A couple of hours later Georgia appears, with Tilly.
‘Oh,’ says Cate, looking up from her work. ‘Hello, Tilly. Haven’t seen you for ages.’
It’s the first time Tilly’s been here since the night back in January when she claimed to have been sexually accosted.
‘How are you?’ asks Cate.
‘Good,’ says Tilly, eyeing her own feet awkwardly. ‘I’m good.’
Georgia is plundering the drawers and cupboards for food. She is starving, apparently, having not eaten breakfast and only having had ‘like, a few nuggets’ for lunch. She finds some sweet and salty popcorn and pours herself and Tilly each a large glass of juice, then they disappear.
‘Thanks for changing my bedding!’ Cate hears her daughter call back from down the hallway.
‘You’re welcome!’ she calls back.
Cate sits down again and tries to focus on her work but finds there are now too many other things needing to be put in order in her head: the card from a child (whose handwriting is that on the envelope? Who bought and licked the stamp? Who put it in a letterbox?); the lingering strangeness of Tilly lying about being accosted that night (something must have instigated it, surely?); the disappearance of Saffyre Maddox (somewhere between her own home and here); the figure outside the window on Valentine’s night (or was it a figment of her drunken imagination?); the weird guy across the road (every time she sees him, he gives her an odd look that chills her to the bone); the increasing number of daylight sexual assaults in the vicinity.
But they refuse to be put into any sort of order; they refuse to line up and make sense of themselves.
Tilly leaves a couple of hours later.
Georgia appears in the kitchen.
‘How’s Tilly?’ asks Cate.
‘She’s all right.’
‘Did you ever … Has she ever explained? About that night?’
‘Kind of. Not really.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, I think something did happen. But it wasn’t what she said it was.’
‘So, something like what?’
‘Don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.’
