to kill her, Laurel, I promise you that. It was an accident. I went for her, I wanted to scare her, I wanted to hurt her. I mean, you can imagine, can’t you, how I was feeling, with that woman, that evil woman, in my kitchen, ripping my heart out of my chest. If you had been there, you’d have wanted to hurt her, too; I know you would. But I did not intend to kill her. Her chair went flying and her head hit the floor and . . .
Anyway . . . I’ll let you decide if you want to tell the police. If you want to tell Poppy. But I couldn’t go without telling someone and I know whatever you decide to do, it will be the right thing.
Please, Laurel, forgive me. Forgive me for everything. Forgive me for meeting Noelle, for allowing her into my life; forgive me for not questioning her more when she was pregnant, for not asking more questions about the basement in her house, for not going to the police when I suspected who Poppy’s mother was, for allowing myself to fall in love with you, and for taking these last few weeks with you that were not mine to be taken. Please forgive me.
The horizon is right in front of you, Laurel. March to it right now, with Poppy by your side.
63
The film stops. Silence subsumes the house once more. A quick glance through the front window tells Laurel that Floyd’s car is gone, and that so, by extension, is he. She returns to Floyd’s office and stares at the ceiling. A choking noise comes from somewhere deep inside her. Her baby. Her baby girl. Not tramping the back roads of England with a rucksack on her back, but locked in Noelle Donnelly’s basement growing a baby for her. How long was she there for her? How was she treated? How did she die? And how could Laurel not have known? How many times had she walked those streets in the years after Ellie’s disappearance? How many times had she passed that house, her eye caught by the puff of pink cherry blossom outside Noelle’s basement window? How many times had she been but meters from her own daughter without somehow, through some powerful umbilical connection, feeling that she was there?
Tears of rage explode from her and she thumps Floyd’s desk until her fists feel bruised. She’s about to yell out again when she hears a sound behind her, the creak of the door to Floyd’s study. It opens a crack and there is Poppy. She’s wearing the little jersey and chiffon dress that Laurel bought her in H&M during their shopping expedition. Her hair is bunched inside her fist and she has a hairband and a hairbrush in her other hand.
“I’ve been trying to do a ponytail,” Poppy says, moving toward her, “a high, swingy one. But I can’t get it high enough. And it keeps going all bumpy on the top.”
Laurel smiles and gets up from her chair. “Here,” she says, turning it toward Poppy. “You sit here. I’ll see what I can do. Though it’s been a very long time since I did a high ponytail.”
Poppy sits and passes Laurel the hairband and the hairbrush. Laurel takes the bunched hair from her other hand and starts to brush it. She finds that the act is embedded in her muscle memory. How many mornings, how many times, how many ponytails has she brushed into place? And now it seems her hair-brushing days are not behind her after all. Now it seems that she is a mother again. Something warm and delicate inside her chest opens up like an unfurling flower.
“Where’s Dad?” says Poppy.
“Dad’s not here,” says Laurel carefully. “He’s had to go somewhere.”
Poppy nods. “Is it to do with what he told me last night?”
“What did he tell you last night?”
“He told me that Noelle wasn’t my mum. He told me that your daughter was.” She turns, suddenly, and Laurel can see that her eyes are red and swollen, that she has been crying silently in her bedroom. “Is it true? Is it true that you’re my grandma?”
Laurel pauses. She swallows. “Would you like it to be true?”
Poppy nods again.
“Well. It is. Your mother was called Ellie. She was my daughter. And she was the most wonderful, golden, perfect girl in the world. And you, Poppy, are exactly like her.”
Poppy says nothing for a moment and then she turns