wake soon and tell all. Maybe if you guys talk to the kids, they might confess. If we know the whole picture, we can get ahead of the game before Patrick says something.’
As she said that, she realised how awful it sounded, the implication that they should try to convince Patrick to lie. There had been a voice deep inside her, building and building lately. A voice that said if one of the kids had hurt their own dad, then surely they needed to be punished. Or, more importantly, surely they needed to be looked after by professionals? But that voice was trampled down by her maternal instinct to protect . . . and also by her trust in her children. For them to do something like this, they must have had a reason, a bloody good one too.
‘Patrick will protect those kids, no matter what,’ Rosemary said.
‘Just like you’ve been doing,’ Bill added, taking Melissa’s hands in his large ones as he smiled sadly at her. ‘You’ve done the right thing, exactly what Patrick would do too, I’m sure of it. He’d want to deal with it within the family, get whoever did this the help they need. I’m proud of you, Melissa. Maybe you have some of that Byatt spirit in you, after all. Right, Rosemary?’
Rosemary nodded, reluctantly so it seemed to Melissa. ‘It must have been such a burden for you the past week.’
Melissa felt tears prick at her eyes. ‘It’s been awful.’
‘Well, you’re not alone now, sweetheart,’ Rosemary said, stroking her arm. ‘You have us. You’re right, I can talk to the kids, maybe get the truth out of them?’
‘No,’ Bill said, shaking his head. ‘They’ve been through enough. No more grilling the kids, understand?’
The two women nodded.
‘You can trust us to get this sorted,’ Bill said to Melissa. ‘Just like we did before.’
Melissa thought back to that time, how they’d found her hiding in the cavity of the big oak tree, shaking and terrified, waiting for her mum to come and find her. And then an hour later, when Bill and the other man returned from going back out to confront her father.
‘Your father’s not going to hurt you or your mother any more,’ Bill said to Melissa, eyes deep in hers.
‘Why? Is he okay?’ Melissa had asked. Despite all Melissa had seen her father do to her mother, despite how he’d treated her, he was still her father.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Tommy said, stroking the bruises on his knuckles. ‘He just got a piece of his own medicine, that’s all. Like Bill said, he won’t be bothering you again.’
‘You’re not to mention any of this, you hear me?’ Bill said to Melissa. ‘We’ve sorted it.’
As he said that, she’d seen a face watching from outside.
Ryan.
‘Melissa?’ Bill had said firmly. She turned back towards him. ‘Do you understand?’
She looked towards the window again, but Ryan was gone.
The next time she saw her father was two weeks later at the shopping courtyard. His face was heavily bruised and he was walking on crutches. He’d clearly taken a beating, and Melissa was conflicted. Half of her saw the justice of it. But she also felt a pinch of sadness. She’d seen glimpses of some good in her dad, like the way he’d orchestrate complicated games in the woods for her. Or at Christmas, when he’d come home dressed as Santa, bringing a mountain of presents. When she compared him to Ryan’s dad, he really didn’t seem so bad sometimes.
When she heard he’d left Forest Grove for good, she barely noticed. Life at Rosemary and Bill’s seemed like a breeze compared to her old life. No more arguments in the night, no more enduring her mum’s screams. No more rotting floorboards and freezing-cold bathroom; no more thin stews for dinner and holes in her shoes. Everything was better at Rosemary and Bill’s. Even now Melissa knew they’d just been using her as a way to gain popularity in the village, it was still the best home Melissa had ever known and they were kind to her, if a little cold sometimes. Fact was, Melissa was a teenager with a new bedroom that had a TV and a wardrobe full of clothes, and there was Patrick too, gorgeous, charming Patrick, who seemed just as delighted with her presence in his house as she was.
Then her mum died and the honeymoon period came to an abrupt end.