Page 47 of His Angel

I smile too, happy that she’s enjoying this. More than anything, I’m just glad to remove the frown from her face.

“If you say so.” I shrug. “She follows me around with hideous dolls and a bag of stuff almost as big as she is. And she’s bossy. So bossy.”

“I guess that’s what sisters are for though, following you around and keeping you safe.” She doesn’t look up from the sand, watching it cascade like a waterfall. “Where is she now?”

“Don’t know.” I shrug. “She’ll be around here somewhere.”

“You should look after her too, you know? That’s what family does.”

“Sure.”

I have no idea what that would look like, but I guess I could try. I’m not sure how much she’d like it though.

“Let me show you something else, it’s my favourite,” I say as she looks up from the sand, cocking her head as if she’d already forgotten I was standing there. “We can come back to the sandpit after, it’s only over there.”

She follows the direction of my finger, her eyes lighting up when she sees the climbing wall. I head straight there, expecting her to grab her shoes, but she’s step by step beside me, clearly as excited as I am for a challenge.

“The pegs are coded,” I begin to explain. “Green for easy, orange for medium, and red for hard.”

“And the black ones?”

“They’re daredevil level,” I reply with pride. “Those were done especially for me.”

Not straight away, obviously, I had to master the other ones first, but having to get someone back out to make a more challenging course just for me was pretty amazing.

“Cool.” She nods and heads straight there.

Impressively, she manoeuvres her tiny body from one peg to another with ease, starting with the orange course and finishing with a flourish. She goes straight back to the start, reaching for the first red one before stopping to ask if I wanted a turn. So polite.

“I’m good, you go for it.”

I kind of want to sit and enjoy her working out each move, but I’m rooted to the spot in awe. I’m also sure she’s done this before, she knows where each peg should be, moving fluidly from left to right, hand to foot; she’s good.

She jumps off again, and I can’t help the little clap I do. It’s just great. She’s just great.

She heads back to the start with a smile, placing a foot and reaching for the top black peg. I’m holding my breath as I watch her lithe movements, smooth and graceful. The fact that she never went and got her shoes isn’t even an issue, until she gets to the point I always struggle with, it’s too far, reaching is too hard for me, and she’s even smaller than I am. There’s no way she’ll make it.

Even so, I’m practically on tenterhooks as she gets to it, a nervous excitement coursing through me. What if shecando it?

She reaches, and misses, holding back before trying again, losing her footing and landing on the ground. It’s as if whatever tether was holding me in place snaps and I rush over to where she curls up, holding her knee as tears silently track down her cheeks.

“You were so close,” I say, sitting down beside her.

“Not close enough,” she grumbles, glaring at the wall whilst swiping angrily at the tears.

“Your knee is bleeding,” I comment.

It’s only a graze, nothing in the grand scheme of things, and I’m not sure whether the tears are from the knee, the shock of falling, of landing on the ground, or of failing. I get it, I’ve been there. We’ve all failed at something, right?

“Let’s get you back to the house,” I say. “It probably needs cleaning.”

She grits her teeth, turning her glare on me. “I want another go. I can do this.”

And it’s not that I don’t believe her, I do. The determination glowering at me right now is enough to take that wall and mould it into anything she wants it to be, but it’s going to be sore if she doesn’t get that knee cleaned up and covered.

“You can come back another day, this needs taking care of,” I explain carefully.

This was the girl huddling up in tears because she couldn’t find her way back, and now I’m offering her the very thing she was searching for and she doesn’t want it.

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