when we get up there,” Sandra said. She hitched Ellie into a more comfortable position and held out her hand to Maddie. “Come on, sweetie. Up we go.”
“I want you,” Ellie said doggedly as Sandra began to climb the stairs, me trailing after her. Sandra gave me a little eye roll and a smile over her shoulder.
“I tell you what,” she whispered to Ellie, though deliberately loud enough for me to hear. “Maybe you’ll get a story from me and a story from Rowan. How does that sound?”
Ellie made no reply to this, only dug her face further into Sandra’s shoulder.
Upstairs the curtains on the landing were drawn, and I could see the dim pink light of Petra’s night-light filtering across the carpet. Sandra supervised tooth brushing and the loo while I made my way down the softly carpeted hallway to Maddie and Ellie’s doorway.
There they were—two little beds, each bathed in the soft glow of a bedside light—one pink, the other a kind of dusky peach. Above each one was a collection of framed prints—a baby footprint, a scribble just recognizable as a cat, a butterfly made out of two chubby handprints—and tangled around the frames were strings of fairy lights, giving off their gentle illumination.
It was picture-perfect—like an illustration from a nursery catalog.
I sat gingerly on the foot of one of the little beds, and at last I heard feet and whining voices, swiftly hushed by Sandra.
“Shh, Maddie, you’ll wake Petra. Come on now, dressing gowns off and into bed.”
Ellie jumped into hers, but Maddie stood stonily for a moment, regarding me, and I realized it must be her bed I was sitting on.
“Do you want me to move?” I asked, but she said nothing, only folded her arms mutinously, got into bed, and turned her face towards the wall, as if pretending I wasn’t there.
“Shall I sit on the bean bag?” I asked Sandra, who gave a laugh and shook her head.
“You’re fine. Stay there. Maddie takes a bit of time to warm up to people sometimes, don’t you, sweetie?”
Maddie said nothing, and I wasn’t sure I blamed her. It must be uncomfortable hearing herself discussed with a stranger like this.
Sandra began to read a Winnie the Pooh story, her voice low and soporific, and when at last she finished the final sentence, she leaned over, checking Ellie’s face. Her eyes were closed, and she was snoring very gently. Sandra kissed her cheek, clicked off the lights, and then stood and came across to me.
“Maddie,” she said very quietly, “Maddie, do you want a story from Rowan?”
Maddie said nothing, and Sandra leaned over and peered at her face, still turned to the wall. Her eyes were shut tight.
“Out like a light!” Sandra whispered, a touch of triumph in her voice. “Oh well, your rendition will have to wait until tomorrow. I’m sorry I didn’t hear it.”
She kissed Maddie’s cheek too, drew her covers up a little, and tucked some kind of soft toy under her chin—I couldn’t see what exactly—and then clicked off her light as well, leaving just the glow of the night-light. Then she gave a last glance at her sleeping daughters and made her way to the door, with me following behind.
“Can you close the door after you?” she said, and I turned, ready to do so, glancing back at the little white beds and their occupants, both in shadow now.
The night-light was very soft and too close to the floor to show much except for shadows around the girls’ beds, but for a moment, deep in the blackness, I thought I saw the glint of two little eyes, glaring at me.
Then they snapped shut, and I pulled the door closed behind me.
I couldn’t sleep that night. It wasn’t the bed, which was as sumptuously comfortable as before. It wasn’t the heat. The room had been oppressively warm when I first entered, but I had managed to persuade the system to switch to cooling mode, and now the air was pleasantly temperate. It wasn’t even my worries over being left alone with the children the next day. If anything I was feeling relieved at the thought of getting rid of Bill and Sandra. Well . . . not Sandra . . . mostly Bill, if truth were told.
The uncomfortable end to the evening flashed though my head once more. We had been sitting in the kitchen, talking and chatting, and then at last Sandra had stretched and yawned and announced her intention to make