Page 8 of Good Bad Girl

Edith slowly climbs out of the bed, her bones creaking in protest. It feels like she is about to lose her balance—like it always does these days when she stands up too quickly—but there is no time to lose. She holds on tight to Dickens and carries him to thebathroom, noticing how old her hands look. Her freckled skin has a bluish tinge and appears almost translucent. The woman she glimpses in the bathroom mirror doesn’t just look old, she looks elderly. Frail. Smaller than the person she used to be and thought she still was. Age sneaks up on us all like an unwelcome thief.

“You stay in there and keep quiet,” she whispers, gently putting the dog down on the tiled floor and shutting him inside the bathroom.

Edith hobbles over to the bed, ignoring the pain in her hip, and tries to brush away any dog hairs on the sheets and on her flamingo print pajamas. Removing any and all evidence of the dog as fast as she is able. Her daughter had Dickens taken away from her once already, she’s not going to lose him a second time.

“Are you okay? You know you shouldn’t lock this door,” says the patronizing voice on the other side of it.

Edith turns the key, twists the handle and—with a little effort—pulls the door open. “I shouldn’t be here at all, but here we are,” she says.

The prodigal daughter stands in the doorway, eyes down, shoulders slumped like the sad and scared little girl she used to be. Except now she’s in her fifties.

“Can I come in?” she asks.

“If you must.”

Edith looks her up and down. Her daughter looks older than she remembers, but then it has been several months since they were in the same room, maybe even a year. Time is hard to tell these days. Edith wrinkles her nose at her choice of dress; too short, toored—it was never a good color on her—but she knows better than to criticize. Out loud. It’s clear that her advice is no longer listened to or wanted. Edith’s appraising eyes finally land at her daughter’s feet. She cannot understand why a grown woman would choose to wear trainers during the day, as though she has just been for a run or can’t afford proper shoes.

She stares at the flowers her surprise visitor is carrying—already wilting and looking past their best, on discount no doubt—then studies her daughter’s face. It looks a bit like hers used to. She notices that her daughter’s hair is parted at the side instead of in the middle—which has never suited her—and is in need of a trim. She takes it all in and wonders what happened to the child she used to know and try to love. Edith should never have left Scotland. Moving to London and raising a child in the city is one of her biggest regrets. Children in Scotland respect their parents; she should have stayed there. It’s as though this fiftysomething woman, this version of her daughter she barely recognizes, gobbled up the good one. Her good little girl grew up to be bad.

Edith can’t help noticing the details people try to hide about themselves. It’s one of the unwanted perks of being a detective for thirty years. Retired now, of course. And Edith was only astoredetective, but it’s almost the same as being a real one. Besides, in lots of ways her job was harder. She had to prevent crimes before they happened, not just solve them. And she was good at it. The best. Regional employee of the month on numerous occasions.

“To what do I owe the honor?” Edith asks, folding her arms and wishing she had bothered to get dressed today. The cotton pajamas feel like insufficient armor.

“It’s Mother’s Day.”

“Is it? I didn’t know,” Edith lies.

“I sent a card. And a gift.”

“The cuddly toy? Was that from you?”

“Don’t be like that, Mum. Please. We both know I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did someone force you to send me a stuffed bear?”

“You know what I mean.”

“People always have choices, they just pretend not to in order to feel better about making bad ones.”

And so it begins. Her daughter sighs, the same way she usedto when she was being difficult as a teenager. “There’s a bit of a problem with the care home fees.”

“What kind of problem?” Edith asks.

“I can’t pay them.”

“Then don’t. I can go back tomyhome, where I belong.”

“I’ve sold what I can to make ends meet but—”

“What have you sold?Mythings? You better not have soldmyhouse.”

“I’ve only sold the things you don’t need, to pay for things that you do.”

“If you think you can hornswoggle me again—”

“Nobody is trying to trick you, Mum. Least of all me. I wouldn’t dare. The care home manager has been very understanding until now but you might lose your place here if I can’t find a solution. And if you don’t like it here—”

“Don’t like it? I hate it. You may as well have put me in prison and left me there to rot.”

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