‘Dear God. You must have been in pieces.’
‘I didn’t know. I only found out a few days ago.’
She looks at me carefully. My throat is so dry my voice is cracking. The condensation on the glass jug is beautiful; sparkling, slow-moving crystals rolling down its fattened sides. I lick my lips. I am so thirsty. My head pounds.
‘You think you know your children,’ I say, trying to hold her gaze with my own slippery one. ‘You grow their bones inside you, you think you know who they are, but you don’t. Not really. Not ever. They keep their secrets close because it would cost you too much to look at them.’
Mimi’s eyes slide towards the door, to where Alex is standing. He has jammed his jittery hands into his pockets.
‘Alex,’ she says, and although she is smiling I hear the frost on that word, the way it sounds so brittle it might crack. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
‘Secrets,’ she says, and tilts her head to one side. ‘Forgiveness. The things we keep to ourselves.’
‘I don’t know th—’
‘It’s funny,’ Mimi says, turning back towards me. I am not looking at her. I am only looking at that water. I have to have a drink. My tongue is as cracked and swollen as a blister. ‘When I think of my two boys it was always William I thought I’d have trouble with. When he started courting your Edie, I didn’t know what to make of it. What did he see in this girl, all lipstick and ripped tights and snarling? It was a match made in hell. Then, after his father died, I thought he would go off the rails entirely. I could imagine him winding up in one of those detention centres, doing community service in the parks in Brighton. I was so afraid for him and I watched him so closely I almost missed what was happening right under my nose. Didn’t I, Alex?’
He stares at her, his jaw tense. A sweat has sprung out on his brow and beneath the armpits of his grey T-shirt. A small gold chain, wire-thin, hangs around his neck. He looks at his mother with such acute discomfort I wish I could turn my back.
‘Mum, please.’
‘Forgiveness. That’s what we’re talking about. But I can’t expect Samantha to forgive herself if we can’t demonstrate the same. So we’ll start with you. We’ll start with the night you pushed me down the stairs.’
The silence is as thick and heavy as velvet. I want to scream but the inside of my mouth is rustling sandpaper.
‘Mimi. Please, can I have some of that water?’ I manage.
‘I’ll do it,’ Alex says automatically. He lifts the jug with a shaking hand, making the ice cubes chatter against the glass. Mimi watches him, smiling that tight, mean little smile. He brings it over to me, using his other hand to steady it, which is trembling so violently now I’m worried the water will spill into my lap. I open my mouth, feeling as vulnerable and helpless as a baby bird. As he pours a dribble on to my tongue I can smell the outside on him; the warmth of the sun like baked clay, green shoots, damp earth like a hole dug deep. His gaze is as cold and dark as Neptune.
‘You think I don’t know these things, Alex, but I do,’ Mimi is continuing. ‘I felt your hands in the small of my back in the empty house. I heard your breath behind me on the stairs. In the dark.’
Alex says nothing. He stands, water jug in one hand, the other hanging limply by his side. He’s cowed, like a scolded dog. Mimi switches her attention suddenly back to me, a sea change so abrupt I feel the room sway.
‘What did you use, Samantha? Did you use the knife? Did you push her down the stairs, like Alex here, so you could tell yourself it was a misstep in the dark?’
‘No, no—’
‘Was it about her boyfriends? Her behaviour? Her outbursts? What was it that finally tipped you over the edge, Samantha?’
I stare at a mark on the floor, say nothing. No comment, I think, and that voice again, unsure now, almost whispering, speaks up in my head. Are you sure you didn’t do it, Sam? Are you positive?
‘Memory is a funny thing,’ Mimi says calmly, ‘because we create it ourselves. We can bend it to our whims, sometimes without even realising. Your memory can trick you.’
‘I would remember hurting Edie. I know I would.’
‘Would you? Are you sure? Are you remembering right?’
‘Yes!’
‘So what’s your memory of the last time you saw her?’
A single bright light like a flashbulb in my head. I can almost taste the electricity, the hum of the static.
‘You had an argument, didn’t you?’ she prompts. ‘Said some terrible things to each other, maybe?’
‘Yes. It was just – it was just a stupid necklace.’
‘That’s right. The one with the dragonfly. Did you shout at her? Did you hit her, Sam?’
‘No, no,’ I say, shaking my head despite the bright pops of pain it causes. People talk about the ‘glimmer of doubt’ but it isn’t like that, it’s not a fleck of gold on a riverbed. Doubt, real doubt, has teeth, long and needle-sharp, and they sink into the soft matter of your brain slowly, inch by delicious inch. Did you hit her, Sam?
‘I loved her,’ I say, simply. I look up at Mimi, who has tears in her eyes. I’m just trying to help you, she is saying; you’ve suffered for so long.
‘I know you did. We love our children despite seeing the worst of them sometimes.’ Her eyes slide over to Alex, who stiffens. ‘When she left that morning, did you say goodbye to her?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say miserably. Doubt, the predator. The carnivore. I feel my stomach rise and fall like seasickness. ‘I must have done, I suppose.’
‘She never made it to school, did she, Sam?’
I shake my head.
‘Did she even leave the
