Adrian took a ladle and distributed the soup between two bowls. “Good for the soul, this. Beethoven said that only the pure of heart can make good soup.”
Fran tapped salt into hers and he tutted.
“Is my heart not pure?” He feigned a chest injury and then added, “Without even tasting it first. I’m terribly offended.” He used a jokey voice, but she knew he meant it at least a little bit.
“Sorry, but I like my soup how I like my men.”
He shook his head but laughed.
As they took the bowls to the living room Fran casually brought up the gossip again. “Do you think there’s anything in these rumours? The ones about Elijah hurting Esther?”
Adrian settled onto the sofa and balanced the bowl on his lap. “What do you think?”
“It’d give Esther a reason to run away,” Fran said. “But he seemed broken up when Esther was found. He didn’t fake that. It’s not possible.” Fran took a spoonful of her salty soup and continued to think about the Whitakers.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“He’s lost his job.”
It was Wednesday afternoon and Fran was barely a toe into the village hall before Emily made her way over, shopping bag of goodies in her tight grip. She immediately noticed a sparkle in Emily’s eyes that she resented, perhaps hated.
“Who?” Fran asked, giving the room a quick scan. There was a school-gym scent about the place. That combined with the huddles of gossipy women made Fran think about her old secondary school.
“Elijah Whitaker. He lost his job with the stone mason. Now he’s just a delivery driver.”
Emily followed Fran as she found a free chair to dump her stuff.
“Why did he lose his job?” Fran asked.
Emily shrugged. “I was hoping you might know. Have you heard owt?”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Fran said. A niggling sense of guilt worked its way through her. Obsession aside, should she have checked on Mary to make sure she was all right? She hadn’t seen her since Esther ran away.
Fran found herself out of key during the entire practice. They were supposed to be spearheading a charity performance in two months and yet they sounded terrible. She sounded the worst of all. For once, the group dispersed without much chat. Fran hurried out before Emily could approach for a second time.
The next day, she spent most of her day on the bereavement forum answering questions, deleting trolls, checking for obvious spam. It was comforting busy work. She tried not to think about the Whitakers, Elijah one job down, their income obviously taking a hit. She tried not to think about what impact that might have on a family already going through stress. But then, in the afternoon, while Adrian was gardening, she closed her laptop, put on an apron, and started to bake.
She barely had enough eggs and had to substitute some of the flour, but somehow, she ended up with slightly burnt but reasonably edible chocolate chip cookies. Once they were cooled, she scooped them into a tin, grabbed her bag and told Adrian she was going out for a while. He shouted his farewell from the garden.
By this point, it’d been over two weeks since Esther was found in the woods, and it would mark the first time she’d reached out to the Whitaker’s house since that day. They hadn’t contacted her, either, but perhaps that was because they were busy taking care of Esther after what happened. Fran’s fingertips felt sweaty against the tin. She was more certain about going to them now, because listening to Emily had hit her with how much stress poor Mary must be under. Esther running away was enough, but the gossip around the village and Elijah losing his job had to take a toll.
She steadied her breath as she reached their street, pushing away the memories of that morning. The fear she’d felt, the terrible sense of unease that’d clawed at her insides. Fran could admit it now. She’d believed with every particle of her body that Esther was going to turn up dead.
She knocked on the window of the porch and waited. It was another warm, spring day, and she could only imagine the heat inside that suntrap. There was no answer. She tried the doorbell. Still nothing. Fran considered peering in through the bay window on the front of the house.
When Mary finally came to the door, Fran’s taut smile diminished immediately. She felt the blood drain from her face.
Mary moved slowly. Her eyes were glazed, her hair had not been washed for several days. Fran swallowed uncomfortably as the young woman came to open the porch door. She was thinner than the last time she’d seen her, and her handmade clothes were looser. She walked with her arms holding her upper body. However, she did smile when she saw Fran, and quickened her pace slightly as though pleased to see her.
“I brought you both some cookies,” Fran said as she stepped into the house. “I made them myself, so they aren’t very good. How’s Esther—” Fran stopped talking as she walked into their living room. Unlike the last time she’d visited, the place was a mess. The curtains were drawn, there were some of Esther’s dolls lying around. Food wrappers had been tossed onto the dusty carpet. She even saw a fresh stain on a sofa cushion. If it’d been anyone else, she might not have noticed, but Mary was a proud homesteader who kept a tidy house. Now it wasn’t even clean. “Oh, Mary. What’s happened?”
Behind her, Fran heard Mary begin to cry.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After comforting Mary for a while, she took the cookies into the kitchen, put them on the counter, rolled up her sleeves and got to work. She worked alone for the first twenty minutes, putting rubbish in bin bags, opening the drapes to let in light, spraying cleaner onto the surfaces that needed it the most. It seemed to her that Mary had stopped doing any housework at all since the incident with Esther. A lump formed in her throat. She should’ve come sooner.
Mary joined in at last and the two women worked in relative silence. Fran noticed that the cleaner the house became, the more colour flushed her pale cheeks. Finally, once the cleaning was over, Fran put the kettle on and made them both a strong cup of tea.
“Where’s Esther, is she upstairs?”
Mary nodded. “That’s where she likes to be now.”
“Shall I take her some cookies, or will she come down?”
Mary just shrugged.
Fran took a side plate out of a cupboard and placed two cookies on it. Mary gave her directions to Esther’s room and Fran went up there alone. She knocked brightly and waited.
“Mommy?”
“No, sweetie. It’s Fran. I came to visit your mum and I brought you cookies.” Her hand hesitated on the doorknob. “Can I come in?”
The moment stretched. Then Esther replied, “Yes.”
Fran pushed open the door, expecting another messy room, but to her surprise, the girl’s bedroom was spotless. There were no toys on the floor, no dirty dishes or items of clothing strewn around. It seemed that Mary had at least been making sure Esther had a tidy space, unless Esther had done it herself.
Esther was sitting on her bed wearing a linen dress and pink frilly socks. Her hair was loose, which led Fran to believe that Mary hadn’t been braiding her hair as she normally did. It had been brushed out nicely, though. It was a relief to see the little girl still being cared for despite the obvious stress Mary was going through. She took the cookies and placed them on the bed, before noticing the colouring book on her lap.
“Such pretty colours. What is that? A mermaid?”
“Yes,” Esther said.
“Is it Ariel?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s a movie about a mermaid. If your mum doesn’t mind, I could lend it to you. How would you like that?”
“Okay I guess,” she said. Then she added, “Mermaids don’t exist.”
“No, I suppose not. But it’s fun to imagine that they do sometimes.”
Esther stared down at the cookies but didn’t pick either of them up. Her light, ash-coloured eyelashes touched the delicate skin beneath her eyes. When she angled her chin down like that, Fran saw a melancholia in her expres
sion far too sad for a girl of Esther’s age. It frightened her.
“Are you feeling better now?”
She bobbed her head up and down.
“Has your mummy been looking after you okay?”
“Guess so.”
“What about daddy?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Fran leaned in. “What do you mean by that?”
“Father is in Arizona.”
Fran opened her mouth to speak, but hesitated. She remembered how Mary told her about God being Esther’s imaginary friend, and at first, she’d thought that was why Esther said what she said. But why would Esther think God lived in Arizona? Because it was where they used to live?
“How do you like those cookies, Esther?”
Fran hadn’t noticed Mary standing at the door. A flush of heat spread over her neck. Had she heard everything? It’d be obvious to an adult’s ears that Fran was checking in to make sure Esther wasn’t being mistreated.
“I don’t like cookies,” Esther said, but her eyes lingered on the plate a moment too long for that to be true.
“God doesn’t mind if you eat cookies,” Fran said in a gentle voice. “He wants you to be happy.”
The girl’s eyes met hers once more. There was confusion in them.
“She’s right, baby.” Mary walked into the room and sat down on the bed next to her daughter. She placed her arm over her shoulder, and rested her head against her Esther’s. “Children deserve treats. You’ve been a good girl.”
To Fran’s surprise, Esther started to cry.
“I’m not a good girl.”
Fran turned away for a moment. She couldn’t stand it, the pain in the girl’s face. Mary was soothing her with a soft voice, brushing the side of her cheek. Fran felt sick. What was happening in this house? Why was this child in such emotional pain that she felt she didn’t deserve a cookie?
“Shh, honey,” Mary said. “My good girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fran took Mary back downstairs where she called Adrian. By this point she’d been gone for a few hours and she didn’t want him to worry. As she told him where she was, she tapped the phone with a nervous finger. She’d kept it from him on purpose, lying by omitting the truth because she knew he wouldn’t approve. However, he didn’t react, just made a quiet, “ah” sound.
Fran made two more cups of tea and they sat around the Whitaker’s tiny kitchen table, knees almost touching. She smiled at Esther’s artwork on the fridge. A rainbow filled an A4 sheet of paper. It seemed hopeful and innocent. The product of a happy child. Then next to it, Fran noticed Esther’s portrait of the family. In it, Elijah was taller than them all and drawn in nothing but red crayon. The red made her frown. Everything else was multi-coloured, but Elijah was in red.
As Fran noted the artwork, Mary ate a cookie in two bites before leaning back in her chair and letting out a long, much-needed sigh. Finally, she seemed to relax. Fran considered not saying anything more and letting her be, but she had to say something.
“You need to tell me what’s going on,” Fran said, not unkindly. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing because I have eyes and I’m not stupid. You’re not a lazy person. I know you, and I know you work hard at keeping the house tidy. I know you care enough to homeschool Esther properly, and yet she’s sitting upstairs on the bed not being taught anything. Mary, please tell me what’s going on. Are you depressed? Is it Elijah? Has he hurt you? Has he hurt Esther?” She reached out and took Mary’s hands in her own. “Talk to me.”
Mary shook her head two or three times. Her breathing was unsteady. “Please don’t. It’s not what you think.”
“What does that mean?”
She pulled her hands away from Fran’s, wrapping them both around her mug of hot tea. “I don’t want to sound rude, Fran, but I don’t think you have any idea what it’s been like for us since Elijah lost his job. I’ve been… I’ve just been feeling low. But I’ll be better now.”
“Are you struggling financially?”
Mary sighed, turned her head away.
“I’m sorry to pry like this,” Fran said, unperturbed by the fact that she was being intrusive. She’d rather push too far than not enough. Not when there was a child’s welfare to think about. “But if you open up, I can help you.”
“What makes you think that it’s your job to help me.”
Fran retracted slightly. “I thought we were friends.”
“Then where have you been?” Mary asked. “I thought… I thought you were like them. Those people always talking about us, saying horrible things about Elijah. You believe the lies, don’t you? You think he’s been hurting us.” Her face screwed up in disgust. “The things they say about him. About Esther. They make me sick. But it’s what you all think, isn’t it? Just because we believe in things that you don’t. Because we have traditions and values you don’t. You think we’re freaks to be gawped at.” She wiped at her face with her wrists, gathering up the tears that had begun to wet her cheeks.
“No. No, you have it all wrong. I’m here—”
“Because your child died, and you want a replacement.” Two glassy, hard eyes held Fran’s gaze.
It was the end. They both knew it. There was no coming back from words like that. Fran was frozen in place for a few moments, so shocked that she forgot how to stand. When she rose, the wooden chair legs scraped across the tiles. She picked up her biscuit tin and walked silently to the front door. All the while, Mary’s face was turned down to the table surface, her dark hair covering any glimpse of her expression. Fran hurried out of the house.
It was a beautiful, clear day outside. Her fingertips turned white against the edge of the tin and she accidentally forgot to say hello to one of the other women from the choir as she passed them on the street. She walked briskly, without care or conscious attention to her journey home. In fact, she didn’t even remember the walk as her hand reached the front door to her house. Adrian glanced up from the kitchen counter, placing the knife he’d been holding back onto the chopping board. The room smelled like lemon and parsley. He was making them a fish pie.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
He poured her a glass of wine as she choked out the details of what she’d seen: the dirty house, the child on her own in bed, the things Esther had said, the things Mary had said. She sipped the wine, but it did nothing to remove the bitter taste from her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said, pulling Fran to his chest. She sunk into him, grateful for the softness of his shirt, the cooling sensation of cotton on her cheek, the warmth of him below the fabric, and the familiar scent of an aftershave he’d worn on their wedding day. “What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know what to do. Was Mary right?”
“No,” Adrian said. “No, you’re not deluded, Franny. You never thought Esther was going to be your child, did you? There’s a chance you became a little more attached than usual because of what we’ve been through, but that’s normal. I swear anyone would feel the same. Come on. Let’s sit down, have supper, and we’ll think about it tomorrow. Okay?”
She agreed, but in her mind, something was forming. An unwanted thought that she’d pushed away for a long while now: it was time to alert the authorities about Esther’s parents and their inability to cope.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Fran’s thoughts swung like a pendulum. Every time she thought she was doing the right thing, her mind took a different turn and she was convinced she’d made a huge mistake. The morning after her visit to the Whitakers, Fran had called the police via their information line and told them everything she knew about Esther Whitaker. From finding her in the park, to the bruise on her leg, to the second disappearance and the recent state of the house. She told them about Mary’s inexperience as a mother, the way it felt as though Elijah controlled her. She held back from telling them about the rumours circulating around the village, focussing on the facts. At the beginning of the ca
ll she’d been shaking. By the end, she felt so exhausted that she crawled back into bed and clung to her husband for warmth.
Nothing happened at first. Fran stayed at home for a few days, not even bothering with her morning run. The time taken for her ankle to heal had thrown her out of balance and now she slept in, waking up with a headache from restless but deep sleeps, the echo of a nightmare radiating from the back of her skull. The first thing she did each morning was check her phone for messages, either from Mary or someone at the choir, probably Emily, spreading rumours about the police turning up at the Whitakers.
She drank too much coffee every day and ended up with jittery nerves, spilling compost on the lawn as she potted their new plants. Adrian cooked for her while she paced around the house, pretending to listen to podcasts about mindfulness. In reality, her thoughts were churning. She bit her fingernails down to the quick. She’d done the right thing. She’d done the wrong thing.
Finally, at choir practice, she heard the news.
“I didn’t see it first-hand, but Maureen did. They were police all right. Elijah opened the door, she said. He let them in. Don’t know what was said, like.” Noreen whispered snippets to Fran in between their songs. “Two in uniform apparently.”
They were singing songs from Mamma Mia the musical. Far too upbeat for the fluttering of nerves in Fran’s stomach.
“Did the police arrest Elijah?” Fran asked.
“No, nothing like that. They went in and came back out looking relaxed.”
After the practice, a small crowd gathered around while Emily and Noreen gossiped about the Whitakers. Fran heard further snippets from the other members.
“Our Derek can’t stand him. Says he’s a freak. Into all that Bible bashing.”
“Sally won’t deliver milk to them anymore. She reckons he’s a kiddy-diddler.”
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