Page 56 of Too Close To Home

She kept her eyes on the pastry. “Robyn’s too.”

Jake swallowed down his reaction to that.

Baking was his mum’s version of drumming. Repetitive. Instinctual. Necessary. It was the thing under her hands to stop her mind from wandering into places it had no business revisiting. It kept her upright. Functional.

He hated that she’d needed that for so long.

His mum had been strong because she’d had no choice. She’d been left with a grandson to raise while her husband retreated into himself like a house closing its shutters. It wasn’t fair to her. But it hadn’t been fair on any of them. Someone had to keep the house moving. And Jake had helped when he could. Until he’d gone inside and left her to handle that alone, too.

He hated that he’d done that to her.

So Jake leaned against the counter and watched her press the pastry into the pie dish, thinking how best to start the conversation he didn’t want to have. Then he noticed the laptop on the kitchen table. The familiar blue and white of Facebook filled the screen, and at the top sat the page Maggie had started years ago after the police searches stopped.

Find Robyn Whitton.

She still updated it every few weeks. Birthdays. Christmas. Anniversaries. New photographs of Teddy. Anything that might remind somebody, somewhere, that Robyn had once existed.

There was another post sitting in draft.

“Your dad’s in the front room.” Maggie glanced over her shoulder, snapping Jake from reading the unpublished post about Teddy’s battered rugby boots Maggie had started earlier that day. “Same as always.”

Jake nodded. Translation: he needs you more. His mum was, unfortunately, used to dealing with her pain alone. So Jake pushed off the counter and went into the front room. It was dim even in daylight. Curtains half drawn, television muttering out the questions of a mid-afternoon quiz show, and the clock above the mantel ticking too loudly in the pauses between contestants’ answers. His dad, Donnie, sat in the armchair by the window. The same one he’d occupied for years now. Shirt buttoned wrong at the cuff. Slippers worn flat at the heel. Thinning grey hair that had once been the mop of curls he and Robyn had inherited, now combed neatly back.

He looked up as Jake entered. “Y’alright, son?”

“Aye.” Jake bent to kiss his head, then dropped onto the sofa opposite as the quiz show host asked something about capital cities.

His dad didn’t answer. He never did. He stared at the screen as if waiting for it to give him something else. The answer he wished for: where was his daughter?

Then he suddenly peered over at Jake. “How’s the jobs going?”

“Busy enough.”

“Still got that place on Church Lane?”

“Finished it yesterday.”

“Good roof, that.” Donnie tapped his finger on the armrest. “Old slate. Proper stuff.”

“Aye.”

Silence again.

His dad had taught him everything he knew about roofing. How to test a tile with the edge of his boot. How to read a roofline from the ground. How to look at a stain spreading across a ceiling and know—flashing or membrane—without ever lifting a board. He’d built the business with his hands. Then his dad’s hands gave out. A rooftop injury meant he was now on disability benefits. So when Jake came out of HMP Wealstun and needed something solid to step into, he took the business from his Dad. Least his time inside hadn’t been a total waste. He’d done carpentry. Maintenance. Skills that translated. Work he could take back out into the world and make his own.

Because by then, he couldn’t rely on plan A anymore.

His dad glanced over again. “Van behaving?”

“Mostly.”

“Keep an eye on those brakes.” Donnie pointed at him. “Don’t trust ’em once they start squealing.”

“Aye. Right y’are.”

Another pause settled over the room. Donnie’s gaze drifted towards the hallway. To the front door. The way it always seemed to do. As if, somewhere deep down, he still expected it to open. As if Robyn might come charging through, frozen at nineteen, breathless and apologising for being late. She’d say she got caught talking to Marianne again. Then roll her eyes and tell Jake, again, that Marianne had a crush on him and he should try not to break her heart once he was a big rock star or when he decided it was time to come out the closet to everyone. Then she’d kiss Dad on the cheek, wrap Mum in a hug, and steal half the roast potatoes straight from the tray while dropping on the sofa and taking Teddy in her arms to feed him.

Jake leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, breaking the silence before it could seep in too deep. “Got a couple more quotes lined up. Mrs Cartwright’s chimney. And that new build out past roundabout.”