Beneath these Stars (Lucy Mitchell Book 2)

by Hannah Ellis

  “She likes to be involved, that’s all. It’s good for her.”

  “She is involved!” I said irritably. “She’s here all the time, undermining me and telling the girls they can have coco pops for breakfast when I’ve already said they can’t.”

  “What is the big deal with the coco pops?” His eyes flashed with anger as he moved to the dresser and picked up his wallet.

  “They’re full of sugar, and I want the girls to have a healthy breakfast. Why does that make me the bad guy? And it’s not the bloody coco pops! It’s the fact they are allowed to ignore anything I say to them.”

  “They’ve been through a lot. Who cares if they have coco pops for breakfast? If that’s what makes them happy, let them.”

  “It’s been over a year,” I reminded him. Sixteen excruciating months had passed. In that time we’d moved into his parents’ house while Ruth took over our lovely little house. Life had been dominated by loss and grief and trying to figure out how to look after Adam’s nieces. It had been a time of falling apart, muddling through and just barely getting by, taking one day at a time. “And I know exactly what they’ve been through,” I snapped. “But I don’t think being made to adhere to a few rules is going to damage them. They’re kids; they need rules.”

  “Adam!” Ruth’s voice drifted up. “You need to get going or you’ll be late.”

  I sighed as Adam replied that he was coming. I hated her intruding in our lives. It was relentless: she was round every day, checking up on us and pointing out every mistake I made and everything she would do differently.

  “Lucy!” Ruth’s voice came again. “Can you pick Hailey up today and take her to her appointment?”

  “Yes!” I shouted before turning to Adam. “I take her every Friday! Why does she always have to ask me as though I’m going to forget?”

  Every Friday I pick Hailey up from school to sit outside an ugly grey government building for an hour while she has grief counselling.

  “Why do you let her get to you so much?” Adam asked. I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to his mother or Hailey, but it didn’t really matter, I didn’t have an answer for either. I stood up to get ready, and when Adam moved to kiss me, I reflexively withdrew.

  “Hey!” His eyes softened and he snaked his arms around my waist. “I know it’s hard, but we’ll get through it. I love you.”

  I buried my head in his neck, savouring his scent. “I love you too.”

  I only wished I could turn back time to when it was just the two of us and the future seemed bright and happy.

  Back downstairs, Emily hugged me and I kissed the top of her head, feeling slightly better for the huge grin she gave me before she skipped out of the door, her grandmother close behind.

  The twenty-five-minute drive to work was my favourite part of the day. St Jude’s Primary School in Kingstown had become my refuge. Kingstown was a small town halfway between our little village of Havendon and my old place in Manchester.

  When I met him, Adam already lived in Havendon, and we’d been talking about me moving there with him, so when the teaching assistant job came up I’d jumped at the chance to leave the bustle of the city. Moving in together had seemed so natural.

  I was supposed to spend a year at St Jude’s as a teaching assistant and then do my teacher training there the following year.

  Things didn’t quite go to plan. Everything was great at first. We had four months of living together as a couple, and when I looked back it seemed we didn’t have a care in the world. We were so blissfully happy. Then came that awful day, the unforgettable week. Everything changed overnight and, before I knew it, work had become a place where I could switch off from my problems for a while.

  I’d put off the teacher training and arranged to work fewer hours so I could be home for the kids in the afternoon. Adam took Hailey to school in the morning and I picked her up on my way home. It was the worst part of my day, those twenty minutes in the car with Hailey, who seemed to hate me unconditionally.

  My working day flew by too fast, as always. I pulled up outside Hailey’s school and saw her chatting to another girl, which was something of a miracle in itself. She’d not settled well and didn’t have any close friends. The teachers said it would probably take her some time to settle in. She kept herself to herself, but they weren’t concerned. They seemed to think that was just her personality.

  It was Ruth who had decided that private school would be a better fit for Hailey, since it could offer intensive language tutoring for Hailey to keep up with her French. It was a big school, catering for children from three to eighteen years, and even I found the place daunting. In Havendon the schools were divided into Infants, Juniors and Secondary. Nice cosy schools where everyone knew each other. It was a shame, I thought, that Ruth had set her sights on Cromwell School for Hailey, but she had been adamant it was for the best.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound cheerful when Hailey climbed into the back seat of the car. I turned to drive back the way I’d come. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” she mumbled. This was a good day; a lot of the time she refused to say a word to me.

  “What did you do?”

  I was honoured with a glance in the rear-view mirror, an eyebrow raised. “School stuff,” she muttered, turning away to gaze out of the window, dismissing me.

  “A kid threw up in my class today,” I said. “Right before lunch. The smell was so bad, it put me off eating. If someone threw up every day, I’d be skinny in no time!” I looked back, but she was staring out of the window, ignoring me.

  “I’ll wait here,” I said needlessly when I pulled up at her counselling session. The vibrations shook through the car when the door slammed.

  I listened to the radio for a while, turning it off when I couldn’t take the noise any more. When I started to feel claustrophobic sitting in the car, I walked up and down the road. Hailey climbed back into the car precisely an hour later.

  “How long do I have to do that for?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “We can ask Adam.”

  “She’s an idiot,” Hailey stated. She’d never had anything good to say about Mrs Miller. “And it’s a load of crap. How come Emily doesn’t have to go any more?”

  Emily had seen the grief counsellor for a while, until it was decided she was coping with everything well and it was no longer necessary. Hailey was a different matter.

  “I’m not really sure. We can talk to Adam about it later.”

  This was my usual tactic when I didn’t know how to reply or lacked the energy for discussion: defer to Adam or Ruth or some vague time in the future. Settling back into silence, I drove the familiar roads home almost on autopilot.

  “I’ve done a casserole for dinner,” Ruth said when I walked into the kitchen of what was supposed to be my house, but still felt like hers. It had seemed logical for Adam and me to move into his parents’ house with the kids. For a start, it was bigger than Adam’s house, and the girls were familiar with their grandparents’ house, having stayed there many times. It was the house their mother and Adam had grown up in. It should’ve been comforting for them to be somewhere they knew.

  However, even a year later, I felt as though I was intruding in someone else’s house.

  “Great, thanks,” I replied. “It smells delicious.” Again, I had the feeling Ruth thought me utterly incompetent; as though none of us would eat if it weren’t for her. I kissed Emily on the top of her head while she coloured happily at the kitchen table.

  “I spoke to Adam,” Ruth told me from her place at the stove. “I said I’d babysit tonight so you two can go out for a drink.”

  “That’ll be nice.” I took a seat opposite Emily, smiling when she held up her picture, showing me the row of flowers she’d drawn. It was hard to always come home and find Ruth there, to have my nights out planned and dictated by her. I would’ve preferred to stay at home and watch a film, but it was easier to do what I was told. Adam
should have rung and told me about the evening plan. It was irritating to hear it from Ruth.

  “It’s the quiz tonight,” Ruth said. “You could win a meal in the pub!”

  “I doubt it; we’ve never been very good at the pub quiz.”

  Emily looked up at me and I poked my tongue out at her, making her laugh.

  “You should be good at it,” Ruth continued. “You’ve got more brains than most in this little village.”

  “We always struggle with sport and celebrity gossip,” I said. Ruth turned and smiled at me just as Hailey walked into the room.

  “I thought you were a celebrity?” Hailey said.

  “Once upon a time,” I said, ignoring her mocking tone. “And only for about five minutes.”

  Thankfully, the attention created by my appearance on a reality TV show had been short-lived. It was almost three years ago and had been a strange part of my life, but something I looked back on fondly. I’d remained friends with the others on the show, and even though the media attention had been overwhelming at the time, on the whole the experience had been positive.

  “What’s for dinner?” Hailey asked, moving to look over Ruth’s shoulder at the pot on the stove.

  “Chicken casserole,” Ruth said. “How was your day?”

  “Fine.”

  I was happy that Ruth got the same curt reply as I had.

  “How was your appointment?” Ruth asked quietly, unable to refer to it as anything other than an appointment, as though Hailey might just have been at the dentist and not at counselling to help her deal with the loss of her parents.

  “Fine.”

  Hailey shot me a look and I smiled discreetly. There were occasional moments when we were united in our thoughts about Ruth.

  “Mrs Miller is still telling me it’s okay to be sad that both my parents are dead. I think I’ve got it. I hope you’re not paying her a lot.”

  Ruth’s ability to skirt subjects often brought out the blunt crassness in Hailey. The awkward silences that fell after Hailey’s shock statements usually made me want to laugh inappropriately.

  Emily looked up with wide eyes, waiting for someone to react.

  “We’ll wait for your Uncle Adam to get home before we eat,” Ruth said. “Unless you’re really hungry?” She looked around at us and I shook my head, suppressing a laugh and avoiding looking at Hailey who would no doubt be thoroughly amused by how uncomfortable she’d made her grandmother.

  Chapter 3

  I walked hand in hand with Adam into the village that evening. The sun had long since set and the air was crisp, my breath fogging in front of my face. I focused on the feel of Adam’s hand in mine, trying not to dwell on the fact that the past year had turned physical contact into something rare, something to treasure. I missed our intimacy, which had got lost somewhere along the way.

  “I hope Hailey behaves for Mum,” Adam said. “She seemed determined to wind her up over dinner.”

  “She’s been like that since we arrived home.” I was secretly happy it wasn’t me bearing the brunt of Hailey’s moods for once.

  Adam’s hand tightened around mine as we approached our old place. I should’ve known better than to look. I usually kept my head down and didn’t allow the memories to surface. The blue curtains were like a ghost of the past, drawing me back to that awful winter day.

  It was a Sunday. We’d been enjoying a late breakfast after spending the morning tangled together in bed. The smell of bacon permeated the air as we chatted and laughed. We were so caught up in ourselves that we’d ignored the phone when it rang, which I felt guilty about with hindsight.

  There was snow on the ground but, the way I remember it, the sun was shining in the window so brightly that everything glowed. I don’t know how true the memory is but we were smiling and laughing, glowing right up until Adam opened the door. The knocking was so insistent that it couldn’t be ignored, and I wondered later when we had realised something was wrong. Certainly by the time we saw the look on Ruth’s face as she stood in the doorway, but in my memories the awful knocking sound was an indicator too. Grey clouds hung behind Ruth, proving my memories weren’t entirely accurate. A crisp sunny day had turned grey and overcast in a moment.

  Adam asked her what was wrong. His brow furrowed, knowing something had happened. I could see him age in front of my eyes, even before Ruth spoke. I immediately thought of his dad, Tom, who’d already had one heart attack.

  “It’s your sister,” Ruth managed. “It’s Becky.” The words were forced. Her voice, an echo of a whisper, didn’t belong to her. “There was a car accident.”

  “Is … is she …?”

  The sentence went unfinished. What was he going to say? Okay? Alive? Dead?

  Ruth shook her head, her eyes wild with horror and disbelief. “We need to get to France. The girls are all alone.” Her ragged voice cracked and she turned, stumbling back down the path.

  “Go with her,” I prompted Adam, rooted to the spot. “I’ll find your passport and pack your things.”

  “I think those curtains are the only thing she hasn’t changed,” Adam commented, pulling me back to the present.

  “It’s annoying,” I said without thinking. “She changed everything about our home to make it hers, but she won’t let me touch anything in her house. Everything has to stay the same. It’s still her house.” Her ornaments and pictures were still scattered around and it annoyed me daily. I couldn’t bring myself to ask her to move them.

  He flicked his head to look at me, and I knew I’d said the wrong thing. “You can change things. You’ve never seemed interested in changing anything. It’s our home; we can do what we want with it.”

  “It doesn’t really feel that way.” It wasn’t just the house that didn’t feel my own, but my life too. I decided to keep that to myself.

  “You don’t think of it as home?” The mixture of surprise and concern in his voice unnerved me. I should be more careful what I say.

  “I don’t know.” I paused, not wanting to talk about it. All I wanted was a nice quiet evening. “I think of you as home.”

  He draped an arm around my shoulder, drawing me to him and kissing the side of my head. My heart raced and I realised the romantic words I’d surprised myself with were probably a lie. They had been true once – but now I wasn’t sure at all.

  Adam greeted Mike in the bar and I said a quick hello while avoiding eye contact, letting my gaze roam around the pub. Mike chatted to Adam, only addressing me to ask what I wanted to drink. I wondered if anyone else felt the awkwardness between us, or if it was just me. For a while I’d tried to avoid him completely, but it wasn’t easy given the size of the village and the fact he was the landlord of the only pub in a six-mile radius. I’d settled for politely ignoring him and was thankful he paid me the same courtesy.

  He’d never mentioned the incident, apparently as happy as I was to pretend it had never happened. The village was a minefield of memories for me.

  I went to grab a table while Adam waited for Mike to pour the drinks.

  “Do you want to do the quiz?” Adam asked, placing a glass of white wine in front of me.

  “Not really,” I said. I had a flashback to the first time I’d visited the pub, on my first date with Adam. It was so clear in my mind – a happy memory that made me so sad. “Go on then, let’s do the quiz,” I said quickly, changing my mind. I needed something to focus on, to stop my mind wandering and to make sure we didn’t spend the evening drinking in an awkward silence.

  As expected, we didn’t do very well in the quiz and, as usual, Mike dropped in two extra questions for our benefit: ‘Name a participant on the reality TV show, A Trip to Remember’, to which everyone would write my name. Then ‘Name a cameraman on the same show’. It always caused much amusement around the pub, and I found the attention embarrassing.

  Although we knew most of the people in the pub, we didn’t speak to anyone.

  “I wish you’d sell your photos,” I told Adam wist
fully, glancing at one of his pictures which graced the wall over our table. The pub had his pictures hanging all around and we had a garage full of his framed photos – masterpieces which, in my opinion, shouldn’t be hidden away.

  “I’m tired. Let’s go,” he said, finishing his pint. Before the girls came to live with us, I would nag him all the time about giving up his work at the TV studios to pursue his dream of still photography. I’d finally managed to convince him, and he’d been in the middle of setting up a website and had found a restaurant keen to display his work. Then his sister died and his plans were put on hold. He didn’t take photos any more; he had packed his beloved Nikon at the back of a cupboard, along with so many more of our dreams.

  I finished my wine and we walked home in silence. I checked on the girls before I climbed into bed, leaving Adam on the couch, flicking through the TV channels, a beer in his hand.

  Chapter 4

  The best thing about Saturdays was the absence of Ruth in the morning. I woke with Emily’s arm across my chest and no sign of Adam in our bed. Carefully, I peeled Emily off me and crept downstairs. Adam slept quietly on the couch. I picked up three empty beer bottles from the table beside him. His arm dangled limply off the couch and I bit my lip too hard before leaving him and heading to the kitchen. The back door was unlocked when I went to put the bottles out in the recycling bin.

  I glanced at the garage. The key was in the door. Adam kept it locked and the kids weren’t supposed to go in there, but Hailey sneaked in sometimes when she thought no one was looking. Adam hadn’t noticed and I kept quiet about it. I didn’t blame her; it was a nice place to hide away, surrounded by stacks of Adam’s photos.

  I made coffee and when I looked again, Hailey was sitting on the swing at the top of the garden, staring in my direction. She looked away when I forced a smile.

  “Uncle Adam’s sleeping on the couch,” Emily told me, padding into the kitchen in her pyjamas.

  “He stayed up too late watching telly,” I said.