were normal. Now nothing would ever be normal again.
‘Daddy’s had an accident,’ Alice had said, slowly and deliberately. She didn’t want to get it wrong because Sophia would remember this moment for the rest of her life.
‘Is he okay?’ she’d asked.
‘He was skiing, and he got lost on the mountain.’
‘So when will he be coming home?’
‘They’ve been looking for him for the past three days and nights, but they can’t find him. They think he might have fallen down somewhere.’
Sophia had pulled a face. ‘Ouch. Is he hurt?’
Alice had felt she wasn’t doing a very good job and hated herself for delaying the truth, but she just wanted her daughter to have a few more moments of innocence. She’d felt her mum’s hand on her back, the presence and reassurance of one mother to another. Her lips had quivered, and her voice wobbled.
‘He’s dead,’ she’d managed.
She’ll never forget the look on Sophia’s face as the realization dawned.
‘So . . . so Daddy’s not coming back?’ she’d stuttered. ‘Ever?’
Alice had shaken her head. ‘No, but he will always be here with us – he will always be with you wherever you are. Looking down on you, watching over you. Whenever you’re sad, he’ll be by your side, holding your hand.’
A big tear had dropped from Sophia’s cheek. ‘Will I feel him?’ she’d asked, looking up at her mum pitifully. ‘Will I feel his hand in mine?’
‘Y-yes, of course,’ Alice had choked. ‘You’ll know he’s there.’
Sophia’s mind, no doubt, had flashed through a million memories – of her and Daddy in the park, looking for conkers; of him tickling her until she could hardly breathe; of watching You’ve Been Framed on TV together and laughing mercilessly at other people’s misfortunes.
‘We’ll be okay,’ Alice had lied.
She’d lain awake that night, holding Sophia close to her, her little body taking up not even half the space in their bed that Tom’s had just a few nights before. How could he be gone? How could someone so loved, so needed, wake up one morning, walk out the front door and never come back? How was that even possible?
‘Perhaps we don’t give her the credit she deserves,’ says Linda, snapping Alice back into the present. ‘For getting to where she is today, knowing what she’s been through – what you’ve both been through.’
Alice nods numbly and fights the clenching in her throat that tells her that tears are imminent.
‘Oh darling, what’s wrong?’ asks Linda as she pulls Alice towards her and kisses the top of her head.
Should she tell her mother what’s been going on? She so desperately wants to offload everything in her head, hear her mother say that she’s got it all wrong about Tom. Linda loved him like her own son and wouldn’t have a bad word said about him. But as much as Alice wants to share her newfound knowledge, she knows that it would be a selfish act. It might make her feel better for a moment, but it would crush her mother, and then she’d question whether Sophia should be told. No, there is nothing to be gained from saying anything.
‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ she lies. ‘I just missed the girls.’
‘Well, you should do it more often,’ Linda says. ‘It does you good to get away from it all every now and again.’
Alice doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’d taken half the problem away with her.
‘So, anyway, come on, tell me, how was Japan?’ asks Linda, as she fills the kettle and clicks it on.
‘It’s a beautiful place, so much culture, and the people are just lovely.’
‘And the project? Is that all going ahead?’
Alice smiles, hoping that it reaches her eyes, as her mother will be the first to notice if it doesn’t.
‘Yes, it’s an amazing opportunity,’ she says, sounding like she’s reading from a textbook. ‘Really exciting.’
‘I’m so proud of you, Alice,’ says Linda. ‘Of everything you’ve achieved.’
Alice smiles. ‘I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew with this one.’
‘Nonsense,’ says Linda. ‘You will rise to the challenge, as you always do.’
‘Thanks Mum. It means a lot.’
‘And I assume Nathan is fully supportive?’ she asks without looking at Alice, as if she’s been waiting for the right time to broach the subject.
Alice marvels at her mother’s knack of always hitting the nail on the head. ‘It’s all his idea,’ she says. ‘He’s fully behind it.’
‘But is he fully behind you?’ her mother asks.
Alice smiles tightly in answer and Linda looks away pensively.
Her mother