The Summer Seekers

She’d found someone to cover the rest of her classes and driven the short distance home with a racing heart and clammy hands. Her mother had been attacked in the early hours of the morning, and she was only hearing about it now? She was part frantic, part furious.

Her mother was so cavalier. According to the police she’d left the back door open. It wouldn’t have surprised Liza to learn she’d invited the man in and made him tea.

r />

Knock me over the head, why don’t you?

Sean leaned in through the window. He’d come straight from a meeting and was wearing a blue shirt the same color as his eyes. “Is there time for me to change?”

“I packed a bag for you.”

“Thanks.” He undid another button. “Why don’t you let me drive?”

“I’ve got this.” Tension rose up inside her and mingled with the worry about her mother. “I’m anxious, that’s all. And frustrated. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve told her the house is too big, too isolated, that she should move into some sort of sheltered accommodation or residential care. But did she listen?”

Sean threw his jacket onto the back seat. “She’s independent. That’s a good thing, Liza.”

Was it? When did independence morph into irresponsibility?

“She left the back door open.”

“For the cat?”

“Who knows. I should have tried harder to persuade her to move.”

The truth was, she hadn’t really wanted her mother to move. Oakwood Cottage had played a central part in her life. The house was gorgeous, surrounded by acres of fields and farmland that stretched down to the sea. In the spring you could hear the bleating of new lambs, and in the summer the air was filled with blossom, birdsong and the faint sounds of the ocean.

It was hard to imagine her mother living anywhere else, even though the house was too large for one person and thoroughly impractical—particularly for someone who tended to believe that a leaking roof was a delightful feature of owning an older property and not something that needed fixing.

“You are not responsible for everything that happens to people, Liza.”

“I love her, Sean!”

“I know.” Sean settled himself in the passenger seat as if he had all the time in the world. Liza, who raced through life as if she was being chased by the police for a serious crime, found his relaxed demeanor and unshakeable calm occasionally maddening.

She thought about the magazine article folded into the bottom of her bag. “Eight Signs That Your Marriage Might Be in Trouble.”

She’d been flicking through the magazine in the dentist’s waiting room the week before and that feature had jumped out at her. She’d started to read it, searching for reassurance.

It wasn’t as if she and Sean argued. There was nothing specifically wrong. Just a vague discomfort inside her that reminded her constantly that the settled life she valued so much might not be as settled as she thought. That just as a million tiny things could pull a couple together, so a million tiny things could nudge them apart.

She’d read through the article, feeling sicker and sicker. By the time she’d reached the sixth sign she’d been so freaked out that she’d torn the pages from the magazine, coughing violently to cover the sound. It wasn’t done to steal magazines from waiting rooms.

And now those torn pages lay in her bag, a constant reminder that she was ignoring something deep and important. She knew it needed to be addressed, but she was afraid to touch the fabric of her marriage in case the whole thing fell apart—like her mother’s house.

Sean fastened his seat belt. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

She felt a moment of panic, and then realized he was talking about her mother. What sort of person was she that she could forget her injured mother so easily?

A person who was worried about her marriage.

“I should have tried harder to make her see sense,” she said.

They would have to sell the house—there was no doubt about that. Liza hoped it could wait until later in the summer. It was only a few weeks until school ended, and then the girls had various commitments until they all went on their annual family holiday to the South of France.

France.

A wave of calm flowed over her.