After an abundance of apologies on her end, a bit of fuss lumping the bags inside, they stood there, the three of them, all crowded into the minuscule entryway, their feet various stages of on and off the shaggy unicorn rug Katie had given her this past Christmas.
It was all quite awkward.
Very awkward in fact. Sue hadn’t done a solitary thing to Gary’s office. It was difficult to tidy a room when you hadn’t yet got the courage to open the door.
She threw Flo a panicked look.
What on earth was she meant to do?
She was perfectly happy to give Raven her own room, but then what would she do? Sleep on the sofa? In the bath? Raven would think her very, very strange. Then again, she was a widow now. Perhaps there was a bit of license for peculiarity now that Gary had thrown his proverbial spanner into the works. His real spanners were, of course, in his office.
She and Raven shot each other shy looks. The type of looks children who’d been the last two picked for a netball team would share after having been told, actually, the teams were full now so would they mind serving water to the rest of the team and that even though they weren’t playing, they were being very, very useful. Maybe they would suit each other. Two wallflowers decorating the same interior to very different effect.
Sue looked back to Flo, muted by indecision as to how to proceed. Flo would know what to do. She seemed so capable. So sure of herself. A bit bossy, but not in the dismissive way her mother was, more … nurturing. As if she could see the emotional anguish twisting away in Sue’s heart and instinctively knew how to make a decision that would help Sue rather than override her as her mother’s decisions so often did.
Flo clapped her hands together. ‘Let’s get Raven’s bags up into the room and then I’ll make us all a nice cuppa, shall I?’ Her practical smile suddenly brightened. ‘What am I talking about?’ She hoisted up a clinking plastic shopping bag. ‘I’ve got fizz! C’mon girls. The sooner we get things sorted – the sooner we can get a few bubbles in us. There’s something I’d like to put to you, Sue. But not until we’re all sorted with Raven, here.’
Much to her astonishment, Sue turned, led the two women up the stairs, past the step where Gary’s feet had brushed her shoulder as she ran to close the doors against the scene and found herself turning the handle to her own bedroom door.
‘Ummm …’ Raven said after scanning the room. ‘This is an en suite.’
‘Yes, it’s …’ Sue lunged towards the bed where she’d left a jumper and clutched it to her chest with one hand as she held her other out in an awkward presentation style. ‘It’s my room actually, I thought you might prefer it to the other room.’ She felt Raven and Flo’s eyes train on her as if they were actual heat lamps. ‘I don’t mind going in the other room.’
Gary’s.
She wondered if it still smelt of him. All of the things in it had last been touched by him, if you didn’t count the gloved forensics team who’d come and gone within a couple of hours. Would she be able to tell? Sense the man who he’d really been instead of the one she thought she’d known?
‘You mean my room?’ Raven asked. ‘The one I was supposed to go into?’
‘Yes, umm, but I’m quite happy taking it.’ Her arm went into an air-traffic control position towards Gary’s door.
Raven shook her head. ‘I don’t feel right taking your room.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine!’ Sue squeaked. Against her better judgement she pitched back into the master bedroom and pulled open the wardrobe to grab an outfit for tomorrow, inadvertently showing Flo and Raven everything she hadn’t done. She hadn’t cleared out Gary’s clothes. She hadn’t moved any of her own, few remaining clothes (the clear out had been rather thorough). She hadn’t done anything at all, because in truth she hadn’t been able to face up to the fact that the minute Raven walked into her house she would have to accept the truth that her husband was never, ever coming home again.
Flo flew into action. ‘If that’s what you feel comfortable with, duck? Let’s make it happen. Here love,’ Flo pointed to Raven’s bags. ‘Why don’t we put these on the bed and help shift Sue’s clothes over to the other room?’
Before Sue could protest, throw herself in front of the door and scream No! I’m not ready! Flo had swept into the wardrobe, weighted herself with an armful of clothes, strode across the landing and opened the door. Just like that.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kath looked up from her quinoa, broccoli and salmon salad, trying to catch Kevin’s eye. It happened less and less frequently these days. Meeting one another’s eyes over a meal. Astonishing, considering how she used to long to gaze into them. Seek out her fortune in the myriad of blues that kaleidoscoped through his dark-lashed peepers. He’d been the answer to every one of her teenaged hopes and dreams. A performer determined to make it to the top. Now that they’d come true? Most days she couldn’t bear to meet her own reflection in them. ‘I was having a think,’ she finally said.
Kev swallowed noisily and said, ‘Were
