Grey clouds bunch in the darkening sky. The drizzle now a deluge, freezing rain slapping against my face. I’m frustrated as I crouch next to the footprints by the fence, trying to shield them with my open coat as the last traces of them disappear into sludge. They were the only proof I had that anyone had broken into our garden while Kieron and I were snuggled on the sofa in the lounge, unaware.
Unprepared.
‘Lucy?’ Aidan sticks his head out of the back door. ‘What on earth are you doing?’
I head back indoors.
‘And what’s happened to the car?’ He’s spooning coffee into a mug.
I must look blank as I slip off my sodden shoes because he adds, ‘The scratch down the side.’
‘That was while I was parked at the supermarket. I think it might have been deliberate—’
‘Deliberate? Somebody targeting you? Why? You assumed those birds were left by someone rather than an animal, didn’t you?’
My resolution waivers. ‘Well, yes and you were right. The birds were actually left by a cat, Felix. Our new neighbour came around today and apologized.’
He doesn’t say ‘I told you so’, instead he holds my gaze for a fraction longer than he needs to before he offers to cook dinner and this small kindness is worse than any shouting. He thinks I’m losing it in the way I had before.
I grapple to get my emotions under control, to get the situation under control. I’m fine. I am. I smile a little too brightly. ‘It’s okay, I made a lasagne this afternoon. It should be ready in a minute.’
‘I don’t smell anything?’ He cracks open the oven. ‘Lucy, you haven’t switched it on.’
A hot scald of humiliation rushes through me. ‘Sorry, I’ve been distracted because I thought somebody was in the garden and…’
‘Lucy. Go and get changed. You’re soaked through.’ He sounds so weary.
Upstairs, when I open my drawer I immediately spot my blue ‘Chicago Bulls’ sweatshirt I like to lounge around the house in. I was convinced this was taken from the washing line earlier, and now I’m not so sure anything is missing. Had I imagined it? Is the stress of caring for a sick child, the guilt of everything that came before, causing me to lose my grip on reality? Or am I just so tired I’ve begun to see things that aren’t there? I shed my clothes and my earlier certainty that someone is tormenting me.
It’s so gloomy. I’m about to draw the curtains when I see it outside. The white car. The sight of it is a short, sharp shock bringing back into focus all of the things I had believed. I take a step backwards, my hands over my mouth.
The footprints in the mud.
The missing clothes.
The sense of being watched.
It’s real. All of it.
‘Aidan?’ I shout.
I step forward again, back to the window. To let the person know that I know they are outside.
That I’m not scared.
Even though I am.
But the car has gone now and I doubt myself again. Had it really been there at all?
‘Did you call me?’ Aidan asks from the doorway, a creep of impatience in his voice.
‘No. Sorry. It’s okay.’
He heads back downstairs.
Full of a sense of foreboding, I put my hand across my chest and press against it, trying to slow the frantic pounding of my heart.
Is the car connected to what happened before the summer? With what happened years ago?
It’s all getting mixed up in my mind but there’s one common dominator in all of the tragedy that has occurred.
Me.
I am to blame and someone is coming for me.
I know it.