Absent in the Spring (The Shakespeare Sisters 3)

‘So how was it your fault?’

‘We had an argument, I was screaming at her. Telling her she was the worst

mum in the world. She turned to look at me and jumped the lights, and the next thing I knew she was trying to swerve away from a van coming head-on towards us. She clipped the kerb and we span back into the road, smashing into a van parked on the side.’ Lucy reached up to wipe her eyes. ‘I don’t remember much else, not until I was in the ambulance. They told me she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. That wasn’t unusual for her. She always had her head in the clouds, she didn’t think about things like safety. She thought she was invincible.’

‘It wasn’t your fault she didn’t wear a seatbelt,’ he said, his voice low. ‘And you didn’t make her look at you. She should have known better than to take her eyes off the road.’

‘You’re wrong,’ she whispered. ‘It was all my fault. It was me who started the argument. Me who wouldn’t shut up even when she told me to. Me who threatened to tell my dad everything…’ She trailed off, shaking her head. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’

‘Threatened to tell your dad what?’

Nervously, she twisted the sheet between her fingers, rubbing the pads against the soft fabric. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s old history.’

‘You’re shaking,’ he said, his hands gentle as he held her. ‘It’s okay, babe. It’s okay.’

She knew it was. She’d made it all okay – by sheer force of will. She was still making it okay, as much as she could.

And yet this need to tell somebody – to confide the secret nobody else knew – was almost overwhelming. More than that, the need to tell him, the man who thought imperfection meant beauty, the man who thought scars were like cracks filled with gold, was nagging at her core.

‘I found out she was involved with another man,’ she told him. Her voice didn’t waver, not a bit. ‘I was screaming at her in the car, telling her she was a terrible mother, a terrible wife. I shouted some horrible things at her.’

Lachlan blinked, lifting his head up to look at her. ‘What? How serious was it?’

‘I don’t know how long it had been going on, I guess I’ll never know now. I’ve never told anybody about it.’

‘That must have been a shock.’

‘I was so angry at her. And then she died, and it felt as though my whole life was crumbling away. I only had minor injuries, a cut-up face and a broken wrist where I slammed into the dashboard. They released me the next day, and then when I got home it was as though everything had fallen apart.’ She closed her eyes, remembering that house in Hampstead, more mausoleum than family home. ‘My dad just couldn’t cope with the grief, he pulled away from us all. And my sisters were inconsolable. Seeing everybody so broken, and knowing I’d caused it…’ She shook her head. ‘I had to fix it.’

‘But your sisters know now, don’t they?’ Lachlan asked. ‘You told them about it?’

‘I didn’t… I couldn’t.’ She screwed her face up. ‘They idolised her, especially after she died. And when I tried to talk to dad about it, to tell him about her affair and our argument, he looked straight through me and refused to talk about it. By the time we were older, we were all doing so much better, there was no way I wanted to blow their worlds apart again.’

‘They’d understand.’ He frowned. ‘It’s not your responsibility to hide the facts from them. It’s not your responsibility to carry everything on your shoulders.’ He brushed a lock of hair from her brow. ‘You really should tell them the truth.’

‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ she said softly, her words muffled by his skin. Warm and soft against her lips. ‘It was years ago. What matters is now. We’re doing okay, all four of us.’

Lachlan looked down at her for a moment, brushing her cheek with a kiss. She could feel his lips against the dampness of her skin. ‘You’re amazing, you know that?’

Part of her wanted to sing at his words. The other part of her – the girl who screamed at her mother, the one who had to watch her family disintegrate in front of her – knew so much better than that.

He twisted in the bed, a smile on his lips. ‘You want to stop talking about this?’

‘Yes please.’ She gave him a watery grin.

‘Wanna tickle me instead?’

His offer was so out of left field, yet so perfectly right for the moment. ‘That’s a big sacrifice,’ she said. ‘But yeah, I’d love to tickle the hell out of you right now.’

Sighing in mock-resignation, Lachlan rolled on to his back, lifting his arms above his head. ‘I don’t do this for all the women, you know.’

‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Just for the ones that are as messed up as me.’

‘That’s rude.’ She clambered over him, the smile still playing around her lips. ‘True, but still rude.’

‘I can be ruder.’ He thrust his hips beneath her. ‘And it’s still my night, remember?’