sick.”
“That’s probably why you feel ill, then. You need to have something in your stomach or you’re going to feel bad.”
“If I eat, I’m going to throw up,” she said miserably.
“When did all this start?” I asked her. “You were OK this morning.”
“I can’t see Mum. You’ll have to tell her I am ill.” She tried to pull the duvet back over her head but I caught the edge of it, and after a moment she let go.
“Is this about seeing your mother?” I asked her. She shook her head, but she couldn’t deny it. “Alex, you were keen to see her. What on earth could be the matter?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel bad. Tell her I’m not well. Tell her I’ll come next time.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to see her without you,” I said. “You’re the one she wants to see, not me.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
She pulled the quilt more tightly around her, hugging it to her.
I sighed. “I spoke to her yesterday. She was excited about you coming to see her and she’s made special arrangements. If you’re worried about being spotted, don’t be. Your glamour will take care of it. No one will know you were there except your mum and Barry, and they’re not going to tell anyone.”
“It’s not that,” she said quietly.
“Then what is it?” I asked her. My question was greeted with a long silence.
“Alex, your mum and me…” I sighed, and tried again. “Your mother and I both love you very much. When you disappeared, it was hard for both of us – harder than you realise. We thought… they lied to us, Alex, in the cruellest way imaginable. They told us we’d lost you, and it broke our hearts – both of our hearts. Your mum, she couldn’t cope with seeing your empty room every day. She didn’t know you were still alive.”
Alex sniffed and wiped her nose on the duvet. I pulled a tissue from the box on the chest next to the bed and gave it to her. She blew noisily.
“Maybe I did wrong. Maybe I should have told her that I’d found you, but I wasn’t even sure myself. I thought maybe I was cracking up – hearing your voice when it wasn’t there. And then, when I knew you’d been taken away, I didn’t know where you were or how to get you back.”
A hand crept out from under the duvet and I held it in mine.
“We cope with loss in different ways, and for your mum, having your things in the house with her every day was just too much. It reopened her wounds, and the only way she could cope was to clear it all out and try and move on. I know it was your stuff, but you have to understand – try and see it from her perspective. It wasn’t that she wanted to forget, it was that the memories were too fresh, and too painful to bear.”
“How can I go back?” said Alex. “How can I go back there when there’s nothing left for me?”
I squeezed her hand. “Things are not important. It’s all just stuff, Alex. You can replace it, or do without it. What’s there for you is your mum. I was wrong to keep you from her, and it’s time you re-connected with her. I’m not saying it will be easy. You’ve both been changed by what’s happened and you’ll have to work out where you are with her. You’ll both carry the scars for as long as you live, but she’s still your mum, Alex, and that’s what really matters.”
She sniffed, and then said, “OK.”
“Good,” I said. “Now, you have ten minutes to get up and dressed and be downstairs ready to go. I’ll wait for you at the Ways.”
She sat up in bed. “Ten minutes! I can’t get ready in ten minutes! What am I going to wear?”
I stood up and went to the door. “You have clothes on the bed. Your mother won’t care what you’re wearing. It’s you she wants to see, not your clothes.”
“But–”
“Ten minutes,” I repeated, and shut the door behind me.
Outside I took three deep breaths and went downstairs to wait for her.
The figure slipped into the open-sided