I laugh as he folds me into his strong arms. Cora is asleep in her car seat but I know she won’t sleep for long, so I take a moment to enjoy the warmth of Ethan’s embrace. ‘Promise me, as soon as this project is finished, we are gone.’
He pulls away and looks deep into my eyes. ‘I promise.’
I take his hand and place it on my stomach. ‘This little one is our future and our kids mean everything. We’re doing this for them.’
‘Very soon, we’ll be moving out and you can choose the house. We can have four large bedrooms, an office, a garden room and something we didn’t have before – a utility.’
He knows exactly what I’m dreaming of. ‘I love you, Ethan Houghton.’
‘I love you too.’
I enjoy him kissing me again, and I giggle because we have so much to do and us stopping isn’t getting anything done. I hold him close and inhale the scent of his soap mixed with sweat. ‘I was so scared last night.’
‘Me too.’ He kisses me again.
Three loud knocks on the front door make me jump. ‘Are you expecting anything else?’ Ethan asks.
‘No.’
We walk through the house towards the front door and Ethan opens it. Quinn is standing there with a bright shrimp-coloured coat on this time. ‘Quinn.’
‘Hi, I thought I’d pop by, see how you are today.’
I open the door to let her in out of the rain. ‘Sorry about the mess.’ I laugh. There is so much clutter, it sounds silly saying that.
She raises her brows while smiling. ‘You have your work cut out for you. I was thinking, would you like to come over in a bit, maybe have a snack and a chat. We didn’t get to talk much on Saturday night with all what was going on and it would be lovely to do that… drinks, I mean.’
Ethan nods at me. ‘I got this. I was going to hammer down another wall anyway. One down another three to go. I don’t need you. I’ve got my trusty lump hammer.’ He gives me a cheeky wink. I used to call him lump hammer because he could almost push a flimsy wall through with his bare hands.
‘In that case, yes,’ I say to Quinn. I’m wearing fingerless gloves, an old bobbly grey jumper and my corduroy dungarees, the ones I tend to work in when it’s cold. I don’t even want to think of how I look in my thermals underneath. Ethan always tells me he finds this attire sexy. ‘I was going to venture out anyway. I thought I’d try to be the bigger person and take our accusers a box of chocolates, so I’ll do that then pop over.’
‘Great.’ Quinn glances around. ‘This place is amazing. It’s going to look brilliant when you’ve finished it. I’d love to see the rest of it. Your aunt’s DIY wasn’t the best.’ She walks around, nosing through the open doors.
I laugh. We both know Aunt Dorette was a trier but she never did a great job of anything on the house. I admired how she’d tackle the big jobs – slabbing, plasterboard walls, basic plumbing. Anything to save a few pennies. ‘Would you like a tour now?’
‘I’d love a tour. I’ve only ever been upstairs once. She asked me to carry a small bookshelf with her from the apartment to the hallway. After that she made me tea with that pretty china she kept on the dresser, in the old windowless snug room. She had a couple of couches and a reading chair in there. That was a couple of years ago.’
‘Oh, the room with the stone fireplace.’
I’m slightly jealous that my aunt shared her very private room with Quinn and not me, though maybe it was because I was a kid at the time. I know I still have to clear the clutter at the far end of that room. It’s piled up with cardboard boxes full of old writing magazines and children’s books. It saddens me that she was so good with kids and wrote books for small children, yet she chose never to have any. Then I feel sadder that I never really introduced my kids to her or her work. Quinn clears her throat. She’s waiting for me to lead the way. ‘In that case, follow me.’ I wipe my dusty hands on an old towel and lead her to the bottom of the huge staircase. I think I’ll give the snug a miss.
She follows me up, past the stained-glass window and up to the top of the stairs. My lower back twinges a little. It’s been twinging here and there for a while and it’s odd because I’ve never had backache before.
‘The glass is broken. The baby birds are missing.’
I shiver at what she says and I can tell she felt it too. Just using the word ‘missing’ does something to us both. We share a secret and neither of us seems to want to talk about it. Jasmine is someone’s baby bird and I wonder who misses her enough to get that article to me.
From the landing we don’t go left to the apartment – she’s already seen that. I lead the way along the floral wallpapered hallway with five doors coming off it. I push them open in turn. The end one was her office and I haven’t properly been in it since my teens. Since coming here, I haven’t been able to tidy it up or go into the balcony room. I stare at the office door. Maybe this isn’t a room I should show Quinn because of all the memories.
‘Can we go in here?’ It’s too late to answer, as Quinn has opened the door. Dust motes float in the air. She walks over to the huge oak desk and turns around to glance at the walls. ‘Your aunt was amazing.’
‘She was.’ Every one of her book covers is framed, and they fill her wall. Her main character, Chegwin, along with his magic kangaroo, Olive, had been the big mystery solvers on the island of Silver Birches, that was until she decided to suddenly stop. I read online that two years ago her publisher hadn’t renewed Chegwin. I wonder if that’s when she started getting depressed and letting her house fall to ruin. Chegwin was how she earned her small fortune and she lived for her work.
‘I don’t think I can go in the balcony room.’
‘I totally understand.’ Quinn looks away. ‘I don’t think I’d like to see it. After that day… when…’
I know Quinn found my aunt. I walk over to her and for the first time in years I hug her. It’s like we’re back in our teens. I helped her through her heartache when she lost her dad and then her grandmother. ‘We should get out of here. You should come and see it when we’ve finished.’
