“Yes,” Laurel agreed cautiously, “but doesn’t that make it more magical, in a way? More precious?”
Abby shook her head, seeming unwilling to say anything more. They walked in silence for a few moments, their boots squelching in the damp sand, and then Laurel finally risked another question.
“Abby, what made you go into rehab?”
Her sister let out a harsh laugh. “Why does anyone go into rehab?”
“Yes, but…”
“I was addicted to painkillers,” Abby said flatly. She was staring straight ahead, her hands dug deep into the pockets of her parka. “I hurt my back a couple of years ago, and was prescribed Oxycodone. I kept taking the pills after I needed them, and then I started to buy them online.”
“Painkillers,” Laurel repeated faintly, her mind whirling.
“They took the edge off, softened everything that little bit. It was what I needed. But it got so one pill didn’t do what I needed it to do, and so I started taking two, and then three with a glass of wine. It used to only be in evenings, but then I started at work. And you’re not your sharpest, when the world is all beautifully blurry because you’ve taken so many drugs.”
“So what happened?” Laurel whispered.
“The inevitable. A warning at work, and then an offer to take redundancy. They didn’t want the embarrassment of having to fire me, and I had a nice boss who told me to get some help.” She pressed her lips together, her expression turning hard, recriminating. “But it was Zac who made me go into rehab, not that he even knows it. After I took the redundancy, I went home and took three pills, washed down with a bottle of wine. Then I stopped breathing.”
Laurel’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, Abby…” Oh, Zac.
“He called 999, and fortunately I was okay. But I knew I couldn’t let that happen again, ever, and so I checked myself into rehab the next morning. And told them to call you.”
Laurel had so many more questions—why Abby needed to “take the edge off”, as she said, and how could she help her sister now. How Zac was doing, and why things had gone wrong between them so long ago. So many, and yet she didn’t know how to verbalise a single one.
“I’m so sorry that happened,” she said at last. “So sorry.”
Abby just nodded, grim-faced, and they kept walking, the silence between them not quite as tense, yet filled with so much they hadn’t shared or said.
*
In the end, three days wasn’t very long at all. Zac continued to work at the farm, and Abby slept, read, or occasionally went on walks with Laurel, although neither of them said very much.
Laurel felt the weight of all the things they hadn’t yet said, things she knew they needed to talk about, but neither of them seemed willing or ready to begin. And she reminded herself not to force the issue—a bit of wisdom from Archie she was grateful to have—but to give Abby time, as well as herself.
And then the three days were gone, and Laurel was packing up their things, tidying the cottage back to its former emptiness, the life she’d lived here for ten short days as if it had never been.
&n
bsp; She hadn’t seen Archie once since she’d agreed with him that all they’d shared was a kiss—and yet what a kiss! But as she zipped up her suitcase, she felt the need to say goodbye, to have some sort of closure, if such a thing were even possible.
And so, the morning they were due to catch the ferry, she walked across the muddy paddock for the last time. Zac had already said goodbye, and was waiting morosely in the passenger seat of Abby’s Rover, ready to go. Everything felt over.
The dogs set to barking as she reached the yard, and then Archie was at the door, a look of surprise flashing across his face before he gave her a cautious smile.
“I didn’t expect you.”
“I’m leaving this morning.”
“I know. Zac told me.”
“Of course.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, and once again Laurel felt the weight of so much unspoken. It was too late to say any of it now, and yet she wanted to. She wanted him to know how much she cared.
“I’m going to London with Abby,” she said. “Help her get back on her feet.”
Archie nodded. “That’s good.”