Standing a safe distance off from the snorting beast, in case lethal hooves should fly, Sherry eyed him with frustration. ‘Do you think I don’t want to?’ she retorted. ‘Do you imagine for one second that I want to keep going over and over this? That I don’t want to bury the past and all the despicable things that went on?’
Grant didn’t react. He never did. ‘How can you be so indifferent?’ she asked him. ‘So uncaring?’
He looked at her at last, his expression one of astonished amusement. ‘Me uncaring?’
By which he meant she was. As if this cold person she’d become was who she wanted to be. As if she didn’t lie in bed night after night, riddled with guilt, haunted by what had happened. ‘I hope your fucking horse throws you,’ she hissed tearfully.
Grant sighed heavily as she walked away. ‘Sherry,’ he called after her, ‘come back.’
She kept walking.
‘Sherry … look, I’m sorry,’ he went on, his tone contrite. ‘I know you’re worried. I am too. I just think you need to stop trying to live Laura’s life for her and get on with your own.’
Sherry swiped at the tears on her cheeks. She couldn’t get on with her own life. She didn’t have one. It was all a front, a sham. A shallow existence. Better this, though, or so she’d thought, than to live a lonely existence in poverty. She’d been there once, living hand to mouth. She couldn’t go there again.
She only hoped he was right, that Laura didn’t remember and never would. She’d seen that look in her eyes again after that idiot man’s unfortunate accident, one of confused disbelief. Sherry hadn’t flinched in the face of it, though her heart had been breaking for her daughter. She couldn’t. There was simply too much for them to lose, for Laura to lose, if only she knew it. She’d hoped that in the fullness of time, her daughter would see that she’d only ever tried to do the right thing for her, that she did love and care for her, to the detriment of herself. She wasn’t getting any younger, though. No amount of Botox or beauty treatment could erase the passage of time on the inside.
She had to stop this once and for all, she realised, her heart heavy with regret. Her only way of doing that was to prove that her daughter was unstable. She would be continuing to protect Laura, too, in a way. She reassured herself with that thought. Her daughter couldn’t go on as she was, living a delusional life. That was no kind of existence either.
Forty-Seven
Sarah
Laura hadn’t expanded on what she’d told her. Saying she needed to go, stuttering the words out, she’d scrambled out of the car and run to her own vehicle. Sarah had felt terrible. She’d tried to call her on her way to pick Ollie up. Laura hadn’t answered. Sarah couldn’t blame her. She’d been tempted to try and contact Sherry, but guessed that might only make matters worse, for which Laura wouldn’t thank her. She’d decided to ring Steve, then wondered what she would say to him. Then there was the little matter of why she’d been talking to Laura in the first place – to more or less accuse her of desecrating her home. Steve would probably tell her in no uncertain terms to stay out of their lives. She wouldn’t blame him, either.
Sighing at her complete mishandling of the situation, she pushed her worries to one side. Ollie would need all her attention after what had happened. He wouldn’t get that if her mind was on Laura and the problems surrounding her.
Ringing Becky’s doorbell, she was surprised to hear Ollie laughing inside. Becky’s husband, Adam, pulled the door open, sweeping a still giggling Ollie up as he did. ‘I bet him a cookie I could reach the door before he did. Ollie won,’ he said with a wink and a theatrical sigh. ‘Becky’s in the kitchen.’ He nodded her that way. ‘Ollie and I are doing something very important in the lounge, aren’t we, Ollie?’
‘Playing Twist,’ Ollie provided delightedly.
‘Twister,’ Adam corrected him. ‘I think he’s winning at that too. He’s tying me in knots. Say hello to your mummy, Ollie.’ He leaned him towards her, enabling Ollie to fling his arms around her neck and slap a wet kiss on her cheek.
‘Hello, Mummy,’ he said, his cheeks flushed, his eyes excited, clearly keen to get back to his game.
‘Hello, little man,’ Sarah said, laughing. And then, more seriously, ‘Just ten minutes more, Ollie. Becky and Adam will be wanting to have their dinner.’
‘She wants a quick word with you first,’ Adam said, glancing warily at her as he carried Ollie back to the lounge.
Puzzled at his expression, Sarah headed straight to the kitchen.
‘Hi.’ Becky smiled from where she was putting a tray in the oven. ‘Good day?’
‘Reasonable,’ Sarah said. ‘You?’
‘Not bad.’ Becky straightened up and went to the kettle to flick it on. ‘If you don’t count the bit where one of my pupils was sick in the sandpit.’
‘Ugh.’ Sarah screwed up her nose, imagining the mess that would have made.
‘Luckily one of the other teachers offered to clear it up while I took him to the office,’ Becky went on. ‘Thank goodness, or it might have been two of us who were sick in the sandpit. Coffee?’
Sarah smiled. That was one of the things she loved about Becky. The fact that she was down to earth and always managed to see the bright side of things. ‘I’d love a quick one, thanks.’ She sighed gratefully and headed over to the kitchen island to take the weight off her feet for five minutes. It had been a long day at the rescue centre – and that was without the emotionally exhausting conversation with Laura. ‘Has Ollie been all right?’
‘Fine,’ Becky assured her, fishing two mugs out of the cupboard. ‘Adam’s keeping him entertained,’ she said with a tolerant smile. ‘I think he’s gone back to his childhood.’
Seeing a flash of longing in her friend’s eyes as she walked across with the coffee, Sarah felt for her. She and Adam had been trying for a baby for over a year, but she hadn’t managed to get pregnant yet. ‘Adam said you wanted to have a word with me about something,’ she said, eyeing Becky curiously.
‘I did.’ Becky pushed the biscuit barrel in her direction. ‘It’s to do with Laura.’
‘Oh.’ About to help herself to a biscuit, Sarah stopped.
‘You said she was dismissed from her job as a teaching assistant, so I did a bit more digging around,’ Becky went on hesitantly. ‘I thought you would want to know why.’
Sarah did, but from the guarded look on Becky’s face, she wasn’t sure any more.
‘Joe said a child wandered off in her care on a school trip …’
Sarah nodded, her imagination already running riot.
‘They’d been on a nature trail and then they were going to be spending the afternoon in the children’s pool at the water park,’ Becky went on, her expression causing goosebumps to rise over Sarah’s skin. ‘The boy was rescued from the adult pool. The deep end.’
‘Oh God, no.’ Sarah’s heart turned over. ‘How old was he?’ she asked, her throat tightening.