Page 39 of Unforgivable

Is itall my fault?

I swing my legs out of the bed and grab my phone out of my bag, quickly send a text to Summer.

Wanna come to an 8-year-old’s bday party tomorrow? I could use your help again. Like you did before. wink emoji. Two pm.

Then I think about it, gnawing on a fingernail, and add:

Only if you’re free.

Seconds later comes the reply:

To do what?

Flirt with Jack, please.

Then I add:

I’ll pay. A hundred bucks.

Deal.

Great. I’ll tell Jack you’ve come to help me entertain the children.

Whatever you say, boss.

NINETEEN

Two hours later, I can’t get to sleep. I’m thinking of Charlie. I desperately want her to have the most wonderful birthday party ever. So I get up again, wrap my robe around me and pad downstairs to my studio.

It used to be Bronwyn’s studio when she started working professionally as an interior designer. She’d lay out her samples on her big drafting table, pin bits of fabric to corkboards on the walls.

When I moved in, Jack said I could have it as a painting studio, but I never got that far. I use it as storage mostly, it’s where all my supplies are, and for the next few hours, I sit in there and make things. And it’s nice. It reminds me of the hours in the middle of the night I used to spend in my own small apartment making art, making things. I’d paint portraits of women and they always had the same round face, round shoulders and no one would know this, but they all looked a little like my mother. You didn’t need to be a brain surgeon to figure out I was trying to conjure her up during those years, so I wouldn’t forget what she looked like.

But it’s my years as an art teacher that I draw on as I make flowers, lots of flowers, because Charlie loves flowers. I make them out of tissue paper and card stock, and I make them in every shape and size, and I build garlands with them that I hang around the living room. I dress up the porch with fairy lights, make little air balloons with lanterns and strings and card stock which I hang around the house so that they look like they’re floating below the ceiling, then I make garlands out of shiny paper, and I blow balloons, lots of them, and use the white ones to make more air balloons, which I hang over the dining room table. Then I make tiaras for the girls out of cardstock and wire and beads, and I make shiny swords with jewels stuck on the handles for the boys. I make pinatas shaped like big fat stars and hang them in the backyard, and I write up HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE in big letters using confetti that I glue on the living room wall.

Then I make food. I make mini pizzas that I’ll bake later and pop on paddle pop sticks, and fairy bread truffle balls, and jelly custard tarts and little blueberry cupcakes, and finally the birthday cake, and that one I made easy for myself. It’s basically mashed up ice cream in three flavors stacked up in a bowl which I pop in the freezer.

By the time I fall back into bed, the sun is coming up.

* * *

It’s a glorious day, sunny and crisp and bright blue. Just warm enough for the kids to run around outside if they want to. Not that we have a huge garden, but we’re lucky, we have more space than most.

Summer comes early. I laugh at the sight of her. She is dressed in full fairy godmother regalia: in a pink dress with bouffant sleeves that surely must be flammable, white wings on her back, white lacy gloves, a silver crown and a silver wand. I laugh so much I’m bent over in two, but maybe I’m just delirious because I’m so tired. My head had only just hit the pillow when Charlie got up and ran squealing around the house. So I got up again and made pancakes with Nutella for breakfast while Jack and Bronwyn were asleep, and together Charlie and I made more decorations, blew more balloons, cut up more flowers, and it was just like before, before Bronwyn, just Charlie and I together, chatting, making things, her talking at a million words a minute. I felt our bond in my bones, warm and golden like liquid caramel, and then Katie arrived and Gavin arrived with the trestle tables I’d borrowed from work, and the four of us set up the chairs and tables and games outside, and guests arrived, big and small and suddenly it was mayhem.

“Thank you for coming,” I whisper to Summer. Then I hug her awkwardly.

“You kidding? I love birthday parties!” I hook my arm into hers and walk around the front yard, pretending to show her around. I launch right into it. “Fabulous job yesterday, but we’re not out of the woods yet, so if you could strike a fatal blow, somehow, make Jack do something that Bronwyn would find intolerable, unforgivable, I would be eternally grateful.”

She tips at her forehead with her fingers. “Fatal blow. Got it.”

“Great, thank you. But maybe entertain the kids also, so it doesn’t look strange…”

“I brought supplies.” She opens her bag to show me. “Face painting, dress ups, roleplay. These kids won’t know what hit them.”

“Okay, great, thanks.”

I had completely underestimated how difficult it would be to keep twenty or so children happy for the afternoon, so Summer is literally a godsend. She paints their faces, teaches them line-dancing, tells them scary fairy tales that sends them squealing with terror around the yard.

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