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Rose turned to her. “Can I go with Lucie?”

“No, Mum,” Frances gently corrected. “Lucie will be busy with her new job, and anyway, I need your help here. We’ll have lots to sort out.”

She smiled at that. “Then I should definitely stay here. I’ll need to make sure that everything is in place for the hall before we leave.”

Frances had meant she needed help with sorting the house but didn’t correct her.

“So,” Lucie said, “you’re okay with Frances and me being a couple, Rose?”

“Of course!” Rose blustered. “I can’t think of anyone better to keep my daughter in line.”

Lucie laughed, and Frances nudged her.

“Can she stay at the house with us, like before?”

“If you’re happy with that, then that’s what we would like, too,” Frances replied.

Her mum leaned forward, taking both their hands.

“I would,” she said, still smiling. “Very much.”

CHAPTER 23

ONE MONTH LATER

Lucie sat in Rose’s chair. It really did afford the best view over the square, becoming her favourite place to relax. She would have to give it up when Rose arrived, but the sofa was perfect for curling up with Frances in front of the fire.

She checked her phone, glancing at how long ago Frances had said they’d left home. They wouldn’t be long — she hoped.

Her phone vibrated.

A WhatsApp from Mandy.

I gave Frances a USB stick with those old photographs on. A couple were taken up at the hall. I also found this video and thought you might want to look at it alone. XXX

Lucie clicked on it.

“Happy birthday! Two today!” a woman’s voice called out.

Her breath caught as her mum appeared on the screen. She had a few photographs of her, but this... this was movement and sound. A real person.

Her mum crouched down, arms open, laughing as her toddler self wobbled towards her in the pub garden. She scooped little Lucie up, kissing her cheek as she squealed, clutching at her necklace.

“Careful, she’ll have that off you,” her dad’s voice came.

Lucie watched her younger self tug insistently at the necklace again. Her mum laughed and let her.

She pulled the same necklace out from under her T-shirt and rolled it between her fingers.

Her mum turned slightly, speaking to someone off camera, and Lucie caught the shape of her face — the same one she saw in the mirror every morning.

The video shifted to a cake with uneven pink icing, two small candles melting into the surface. Voices sang “Happy Birthday” as her mum set her down in front of the cake, crouching beside her to help blow out the candles.

Lucie’s throat tightened as tears rolled down her face. The way her mum watched her, she was entirely focused on her, as though nothing else in the world existed in that moment. It made her heart ache.

The video ended abruptly.

She stared at the screen before tapping it and watching the video all over again. She studied her mum’s movements, her smile, the way she was with her. It was difficult to believe that underneath the surface all was not well. That only two years later, she would be gone.