Prologue
Neither then nor now…
… but sometime in between
The farm is visible as soon as the taxi crests the brow of the hill.
‘There it is,’ I say to the driver.
‘Hard to miss,’ he responds good-naturedly.
When I left at five thirty this evening, it was still light, but now, at almost eight, the fields are blanketed in darkness, save for the occasional glowing window from neighbouring farmhouses – and our place, which is lit up like a giant Christmas tree.
Jamie really went all out with those fairy lights, I think with a mixture of guilt and envy.
I wish I’d done more to help him set up. This is my parents’ joint seventieth birthday/retirement bash and I haven’t even managed to stay for the duration of the celebrations. The party kicked off at three, but I had to take Emilie back to the Airbnb in Harrogate after only two and a half hours and she took ages to settle. Hopefully she’ll stay asleep until we return. The babysitter, Katy, seemed competent, but I wouldn’t wish our screaming fifteen-month-old on anyone.
‘Would you be able to come back for my husband and me later?’ I remember to ask the driver.
‘Afraid not, I’m clocking off after this. My mate could probably do it, though. What time are you thinking?’
‘Midnight? Could he also take our sitter home afterwards? She lives a few minutes away.’
I wait until the return journey is arranged before getting out of the car, wincing a split second before my black high heels connect with mud. But the soles of my shoes hit only grit because, as I now remember hearing, ‘Jamie was out here all morning, sweeping the whole courtyard and the length of the drive.’
Jamie, Jamie, Jamie…
My brother, more of a son to my parents than I am a daughter, it often seems, yet he is not my blood.
He has done an incredible job, I acknowledge, as I pay the driver and get out of the car. This place has never looked better.
Festoon lights criss-cross from one side of the courtyard to the other, reflecting in the darkened glass of upstairs windows and casting a warm glow onto the sandy stone walls of the farmhouse and barns. Tealights in lanterns sparkle atop brightly painted metal outdoor tables, and colourful bunting sways overhead, dispersing the ribboning smoke from cigarettes below.
A scan of the crowd confirms that my parents have retreated inside along with their friends. They never were ones to outstay their welcome where the younger generation was concerned.
My gaze comes to rest on Theo, who is sitting at a sky-blue table with Jamie and a girl I don’t recognise. His dark hair falls just shy of the collar of his black shirt and a lit cigarette is resting all-too-familiarly between his long slim fingers. He brings it to his lips and inhales deeply, his face flaring briefly to reveal a sharp jaw and a perfectly straight nose.
I’m snapped to attention by the taxi doing a U-turn. Moving out of the way, I track its headlights as they sweep across the field, illuminating the small wood in the lower paddock. The white trunk of a solitary silver birch tree shines back like a beacon before it’s enveloped once more by darkness.
Technicolour synths and drumbeats explode from the outdoor speakers as Cid Rim’s ‘Repeat’ featuring Samantha Urbani kicks into gear.
Jamie has hijacked the music.
I smile and set off towards the courtyard.
Jamie sees me first, bouncing to his feet and almost bumping his head on an outdoor heater. He’s fairly tall at five foot ten, but his hair – black, short at the sides and wild and curly on top – adds at least another three inches to his height.
Arms open wide, a huge smile lighting his face, he hollers at the top of his voice, ‘SNOW WHITE!’
It’s the nickname he gave me years ago in the dead of winter when my skin was, admittedly, as white as snow – especially compared to his warm brown complexion. That was as far as my resemblance to the fairy tale princess went: my hair back then was long and light brown, not ebony, and my eyes are hazel rather than brown. But at the time, before I could rustle up any sort of comeback, he warned, with a perfectly straight face, ‘Careful, don’t be racist.’
Theo shoots his head around to look at me – along with every other person in the courtyard, thanks to Jamie bellowing – and quickly stubs out his cigarette. He gives me a cheeky, guilty grin as I approach.
‘I quit! Absolutely-one-hundred-per-cent-for-good this time!’ I mimic his words of only a few months ago.
‘I only had one,’ he replies in a huskier voice than usual.
‘Sure,’ I say drily.
‘Okay, maybe this is my second.’ He smiles up at me with his best puppy-dog please-don’t-be-mad impression. ‘You’ve been gone ages!’
‘I know,’ I reply grumpily, indulging his change of subject.
The girl at the table freezes theatrically, her big bright eyes boggling up at me from behind a thick coppery fringe. ‘Leah?!’ she asks.
Out of the blue, I’m hit with a memory of a mousier, plumper, younger version of her.
‘Hello!’ I cry as she jumps up to give me a hug.
I rack my brain wildly for her name.
‘Danielle,’ Jamie mouths helpfully at me over her shoulder.
How could I forget?
‘Danielle!’ I exclaim, drawing back to study her as Theo grabs a pastel pink chair from nearby and swings it around to face the table. ‘I need a drink,’ I murmur meaningfully.
‘I’ll get you one,’ he replies.
‘What took you so long?’ Jamie demands as I sit down.
‘Emilie was wired. I swear someone fed her a bag of sugar.’
‘She did eat two pieces of birthday cake earlier, plus all your dad’s leftover icing,’ he tells me casually.
‘Bloody hell! Why didn’t he stop her?’
‘I don’t think he noticed.’
‘Why didn’t you stop her?’ I think to ask.
‘She looked happy,’ he replies laughingly, palms up.
I roll my eyes long-sufferingly at him and smile at Danielle. ‘How are you?’
Danielle, Jamie, and many of the other twenty- and thirty-somethings here tonight were fostered by my parents at some point in their lives. I left home for university in London when I was eighteen and made the city my home, so there are people here that I hadn’t met before today. Others are more familiar to me, like Shauna, who was with us for two years and who still lives locally.
Some flitted through briefly: Danielle stayed only a few months while her mum was in rehab. And then there’s George, who left a scar on my heart that still takes me by surprise, considering the relatively short time I knew him.
But Jamie hurtled into our lives at the age of thirteen and never left. He turned thirty recently and although he hasn’t lived at the farm in almost a decade, he turns up nearly every day to visit my parents. They’d be lost without him.
Mum and Dad have finally retired from fostering, but they will never retire from parenting, and that’s what they consider themselves to be to every young person who ever walked through their front door: parents. Those who came to them left knowing that this place would always be open. Fostering wasn’t a job to my parents, it was a vocation. It’s why they’ve stayed in touch with so many of their former charges, why so many of them have made the effort to travel here tonight.