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‘Aye.’
‘You’re hoping Evie might forgive you and plead for leniency on your behalf?’
‘No, no, nothing like that. Ah deserve what’s coming to me.’
‘Why then?’
‘Somebody will need to look after Addie when I’m gone. Evie is her only family.’
‘What does Addie say about that?’
Murdoch glances out of the window. ‘They seem to like each other.’
A part of me wants to push back and argue that Evie isn’t ready for that sort of responsibility, but I stop myself because this isn’t my decision. I’m the only person in the world who believes that Evie is going to be all right, even though she’s not there yet. Maybe Addie can help her.
Evie is not the same damaged teenager that I first met at the secure children’s home in Nottingham, sitting in a circle with other teenagers looking completely alone and separate from the others. Back then, she was all surliness and sass, her face hidden behind hanging locks of hair, her feet drawn up, as though frightened of touching the floor. Not quite a woman, not quite a girl, yet there was something ageless and changeless about her.
I knew immediately there was something different about Evie. She was mercurial, nihilistic, infuriating, abusive and self-destructive, yet desperate for love. And while she is not the same person that I met four years ago, she is more than the sum of her parts.
As I watch her in the garden, sitting next to Addie, knee to knee, head to head, laughing like best friends, I realise something else about Evie. She has been like a little sister to me – filling a hole in my life that once belonged to the twins. Life is not colourful without her. Life is not interesting without her. Life is not life without her.
I will never stop caring. I will never stop worrying. I will never stop loving her.
35
Three months later
Evie
Cyrus has brought home a Christmas tree which is so fat that we can’t get it through the front door without breaking any branches. He’s carrying the base, while Addie and I have the top end. There is lots of shouting and laughing.
‘Lift it higher.’
‘Tilt it to the right.’
‘Go back.’
‘Not that way.’
Addie keeps yelling the word ‘pivot’, which she finds hilarious. And when Cyrus gets annoyed, it’s even funnier.
‘You’re both impossible,’ he says, dropping the tree, which completely blocks the entrance. Addie is now lying on her back on the hallway rug, crying with laughter. Poppy licks her face and they wrestle.
‘We could just leave it here,’ I say, picking pine needles out of my hair.
‘We’re not having a tree in the doorway,’ he says.
We take a breather, before trying again, wrestling the tree into the front room, and then debating the merits of the corner versus the bay window. We choose the window and set up the stand, filling the base with water.
‘My job here is done,’ says Cyrus.
‘Aren’t you going to help us decorate?’ asks Addie.
‘No. I brought it home. The rest is up to you.’
‘What about the star on the top?’
‘Use the stepladder.’
