‘What about this one? I remember watching it all the time when I was younger.’
Dylan groaned and buried his head under a cushion. ‘Do we have to?’
Thea looked at the screen as the beautiful, slightly gangling form of Jennifer Garner peered out of the place card for the movie 13 Going on 30. Along with Wild Child, it had been one of Thea’s go-to films of her teenage years, and Cora had loved watching and rewatching it when she’d been younger, too. Thea felt a frisson of nostalgia when she pressed play, and the opening scenes unfolded.
‘We’ll watch your film straight afterwards, I promise, munchkin.’
Still grumbling, but mollified slightly, Dylan relented and snuggled onto the sofa with them. The familiar plot line unfolded, and Thea found herself wondering what she’d do if she got the chance to go back to being her younger self, as the leading character does at the end of the film. Would she have done anything differently? As ever, she knew she wouldn’t be without her children, who were the centre of her life, but there were some things she wished she could change.
A long-forgotten memory drifted into her mind when she began to drowse on the sofa. A house party at Saints’ Farm, a few too many shots of flavoured vodka and a clumsy, cherry-infused kiss with Nick at the top of the stairs. It had been the only kiss they’d ever shared, and she wasn’t even sure if, twenty-odd years on, it had actually happened, but buried deep within her memory, she seemed to think it had. Certainly, neither of them had mentioned it afterwards, which had always made her wonder if she’d imagined it. Maybe, if they’d both been less drunk, maybe if they’d both been braver, things might have worked out differently…
Thea jerked up as her head started to nod. She’d been dimly aware that Cora had shifted away from her and was surreptitiously scrolling on her phone.
‘Film not holding your attention?’ she said softly, giving her daughter a playful nudge. She didn’t miss the guilty look that passed over Cora’s face before she hurriedly locked her phone again.
‘Says you,’ Cora shot back. ‘You were dribbling on the cushion just now!’
‘Was not!’
‘Was too!’
‘Shut uuuuuuup!’ Dylan grumbled as the two of them continued in this vein for a few more seconds. Surprisingly, he’d become invested in the outcome of the film, and he hated to be disturbed once he’d got into something.
Thea duly did, as did Cora, and as Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Garner completed their cosy romantic journey, Thea felt a combination of warmth and envy. You couldn’t turn back time, but maybe there was still a way to make the future better.
Later on, when the kids had got themselves organised for school the next day, and she’d made sure both of their phones were charging in the kitchen, she noticed that Cora had put a new passcode on her phone. She’d never changed it before, and Thea had made it clear that a condition of having a phone was that Cora had to allow Thea access to check the phone’s contents from time to time. She hadn’t mentioned changing it, but perhaps one of her friends had found out the original code. Making a note to mention it to her daughter in the morning, she was just about to switch the lights off and go to bed herself when a notification buzzed from the Snapchat app on Cora’s phone.
She knew she should just go to bed, but curiosity got the better of her. Walking back to where both children’s phones were lying on the kitchen counter, she looked down at the screen before it went black.
What she saw there made her blood run cold and her hands start to shake.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
Not after all this time?
She didn’t dare touch the phone in case she accidentally opened the message, so Thea just stared at the screen until it went dark of its own accord.
24
Breakfast in the Ashcombe household was never a great time to hold a discussion, as Thea spent most of it chivvying Dylan out of bed and encouraging Cora to eat something before they both left the house to catch the bus that stopped at the entrance to the estate. So, swallowing her disquiet about the Snapchat notification as well as a few mouthfuls of porridge, Thea tried to put it out of her mind until she’d have more time at the end of the day.
‘Don’t forget to switch everything off and lock the door!’ she called up the stairs as she prepared to get to school. She’d initially been concerned about leaving Cora and Dylan to secure the house, but they’d proven to be reliable and responsible, and now she didn’t think anything of leaving them to it in the morning. There had been the odd mishap where the ‘Grandparent Taxi’ had been called upon, after one or other of them had missed the bus, but Lorelai never minded, and these were few and far between.
At school, everyone was gearing up for the nativity plays, which were happening the next day. Thea was swept up in last minute coaching of lines, encouragement of the less confident members of her class and at least one reminder to go for a wee before the play started, to avoid accidents onstage. All in all, though, it was a hectic but rewarding day, and just what she needed to take her mind off the potential issues with Cora.
Driving home after a long afternoon, eyes nearly crossing from an abundance of end-of-term marking, she at last had time to think about what she was going to say to her daughter. It wasn’t as if she’d been snooping on her phone, after all – the notification had appeared just as she’d been going to bed, and she hadn’t opened the message. But the name on the notification had sent a shock through her she kept reliving, and every time she did, the what ifs and why-on-earths kept stacking up like the world’s most sinister house of cards.
She thought about popping into the farm shop on the way home to get some biscuits to soften the impact of the conversation, but she stopped herself. She still didn’t quite know what to say to Nick after the nearly-kiss on the doorstep yesterday, and she didn’t feel as though she had the bandwidth to think more deeply about that while the potential issue with Cora was still playing on her mind. Her daughter had to come first.
Pulling into the driveway, she was relieved to hear the familiar thump-thump-thump of her daughter’s current favourite song emanating from the slightly open window. Hopefully, they could sit and chat before dinner.
‘Cora,’ she called up the stairs as she closed the front door. ‘Can you come down here a minute?’
Cora didn’t respond verbally, but the music stopped and a few seconds later there were socked feet on the stairs. Thea nervously filled the kettle and set it to boil.
‘Good day?’ she asked as Cora sat herself at the kitchen table.