in the time continuum when they had briefly stepped out of their own lives and become different, other people. Rationally, she knew that. It was just a one-night stand. A hook-up. She couldn’t make this into more than it was.
She watched as Hanna came out of the cabin, clasping a coffee between her hands, her gaze on the horizon. She was wearing her white linen shorts and favourite blue blouse, her hair drawn back in a sleek ponytail – a vision of composed femininity, impossible to link to the drunken wreck who had stumbled in, dishevelled, on Thursday night.
She had left a posy of wildflowers in a glass beside the bed and a box of Bell’s favourite biscuits from the bakery on the table, along with a yellow post-it on the top with ‘so sorry’ written in neat script and a sad-face emoji drawn beside it. Bell had sighed at the sight of the apology. It was something, she supposed, to make their reunion less awkward; but there still needed to be an explanation, some reason that ‘justified’ Hanna abandoning her children in their beds. It couldn’t be left unexplained.
Hanna turned and went back into the house again and Bell, knowing she couldn’t hide out forever, stepped out of the trees with a sigh and onto the gentle curve of the tiny beach. The girls were as bare as babies and digging a trench with long-handled spades. Their high-note chatter carried like burbling water, and she found herself smiling as she approached. Their fine blonde hair was worn in matching French plaits, but the gentle fuzz around their heads suggested those styles had been put in one, or even two days before. The same ones she had done before she’d left?
‘And what do we have here?’ she asked them, her shoes in her hands as she kicked through the sand.
They looked up at her with excited gasps. ‘We’re digging for treasure!’
‘Treasure! Oh well, please continue – I could definitely do with some of that,’ she ribbed. ‘Can you find me some gold, please? I really do need to get rich.’
‘Okay. But Mamma lost her ring, so we’ve got to find that for her first!’
Bell felt her own smile fade. Were they joking? Was Hanna? Perhaps it was a ploy to amuse them for several hours. ‘Well . . . keep looking, then. Be Mamma’s heroes. I’ll come back in just a minute. Have you got suncream on?’ She reached down and tapped their little shoulders; they were tacky to the touch. ‘Okay, good girls. I’ll be right back.’
She walked up the sand with a frown, and – dropping her shoes in the basket on the deck – stepped through the fully slid-back glass doors and into the cabin. The coffee cup Hanna had been drinking from was on the counter and she was juicing oranges, her back to the room.
‘Hey!’ Bell said brightly. Too brightly. It sounded forced.
Her employer turned. ‘Bell, hi!’ She gave an equally fake smile, but up close Bell could see that her complexion was pale beneath the tanned, puffy pillows under her eyes.
There was a half-moment of tension as they looked at one another for the first time since they had met here on Thursday night. Bell instinctively understood that now wasn’t the best time for accusations. Her boss, though no longer drunk, though outwardly composed, seemed hardly more held together than she had been then. ‘Good weekend?’
Hanna pushed her immaculate hair back from her face. ‘Great! Oh my God, the weather! I mean . . .’ She shook her head in disbelieving gratitude, but her hand was shaking a little.
‘I know, right?’ Bell agreed, walking in and automatically scooping up the girls’ discarded pyjamas from the floor, eager for the distraction. ‘Did you enjoy Midsommar?’
‘Oh yes. Absolutely.’
‘I didn’t see you there. I thought I’d catch you all dancing. It’s the girls’ favourite bit.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Hanna grabbed the coffee cup again. ‘Well, we decided just to keep it small this year, so we stayed here.’
Bell was shocked. ‘You mean you didn’t go to Sandhamn at all?’
‘No. Max is under the weather, and the girls were just overtired. You know what they’re like – it always takes them a while to sleep well out here. Tilde complains the silence is too loud.’
Bell smiled, but it hadn’t been a problem last year.
‘Did we miss much?’ Hanna asked.
Well, my life changed, Bell didn’t reply. ‘Oh, you know, the usual. Floral crowns, frog dances, too much strawberry cake.’