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‘Zadie, no one is cross with you,’ DI Travis says, ‘but things like this … You can’t fix them, OK? The only people who can fix big things like this are the adults. In future, if you’re worried about something you must always, always speak to an adult. Erin is going to be all right, but things could have been very different.’
‘Zadie, everything is going to be all right.’ Natalie grasps her hand tightly, and glances at Pete.
‘We promise you,’ Pete says. ‘All grown-ups fight sometimes and sometimes we say things we don’t mean, but it never ever means Mummy and I don’t love all of you girls.’ He pauses, holding Natalie’s gaze. ‘Or each other. We are a family, and we’re going to stay that way.’
‘It’s all going to go back to the way things were,’ Natalie says.
Later, DI Travis has left, Jake and Emily are holed up in her room, with Zadie as a chaperone on the bed between them as they watch cartoons on Netflix, and Natalie and Pete are back at the hospital with Erin.
‘I meant it,’ Pete says as they stand over a sleeping Erin, laid peacefully in her hospital cot. ‘What I said to Zadie. I love all of you, so much. I can’t believe we nearly lost it all.’
Natalie pauses, then comes round to his side of the cot, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘I meant it, too,’ she says. ‘Everything is going back to the way it used to be.’
They stand there for a moment, motionless, not caring about the people who seemed so eager to watch them crash and burn, or whether they are the subject of village gossip, an unspoken vow rising on the air between them.Nothing like this can ever happen again.
Epilogue
Four months later
Natalie gasps with laughter as the wind whips her hair across her face.
‘Mum, your hat!’ Emily snatches it out of the air as the wind carries towards the ocean, her own joy written all over her face. If you had told Natalie on that dreadful night four months ago that she would be celebrating Erin’s birthday a few days after Christmas on the beach, with her family all around her, shewould never have believed you. She would never have believed it wouldbe possible to come back from what happened that night, but here they all are.
‘No, don’t eat that!’ Zadie laughs as Erin digs her hand into the sand, raising a fistful towards her mouth.
‘Pete, put the camera down and sort your baby out, will you?’ Natalie hurls a packet of baby wipes at him and Pete grins, snapping one more picture of her before he moves to wipe Erin’s hands clean. ‘Zadie, you need more sunscreen. Come here.’
Zadie squirms as Natalie slathers sunscreen over her nose and cheeks.Some things haven’t changed, Natalie thinks with a grin as she finishes rubbing it in and pecks Zadie’s greasy cheek with a kiss. Zadie is still a pest for having enough sunscreen on her and Pete still can’t do a good job at wiping Erin clean. She leans over and takes the wipes from him, gently brushing at Erin’s chubbycheeks.
Erin has made an almost full recovery after her ordeal, the suspicion of pneumonia coming to nothing. She has been left with a weak chest and Natalie and Pete have been warned thatshe may need to use an inhaler in the future, hence their idea to come away for Christmas and to celebrate Erin’s first birthday. Natalie wasn’t sure she could have stood the thought of hosting another party at home – not after the way things went at Emily’s party that night – and at least here there’s no chance of them running into Eve.
At the thought of Eve, Natalie’s heart twists in her chest. She hasn’t seen or spoken to Eve since a few days after Zadie’s confession. While Eve had nothing to do with Erin’s abduction, what transpired between them in the months leading up to it had been too big for either of them to come back from. Natalie thinks she might have been able to forgive Eve’s insistence on being so involved in their lives, but she couldn’t forgive Eve for not telling her about Pete and Vanessa.
‘Penny for them?’ Pete appears, standing over and blocking the sun.
‘Just thinking,’ she says, ‘about how everything turned out OK in the end.’
‘I wish we could have figured things out in a less traumatic way.’ He stoops down and brushes her lips with a kiss.
‘Peter! Put that girl down for one minute!’ His mother’s voice filters across the sand, and Pete groans. ‘I’ve got a special birthday cake for a special girl.’ Pete’s mother makes her way across the beach, his father not far behind her, carrying a huge elaborate cake with a single sparkler in the top. Erin will never remember this birthday, and Pete told his mum so when she confessed to spending a hundred and fifty dollars on the cake, but she said that as this is the first birthday in years the entire family have been together, she’s entitled to go all out.
Natalie helps Erin blow the candle out, and then Pete taps on the side of his beer bottle. ‘Guys, I just want to make a quick speech.’
Emily groans, and Pete hears Jake’s laughter coming from her phone speaker, where she is facetiming him into the celebrations.
‘It’s a quick one!’ Pete protests, as his brother punches him on the arm. ‘I know my speeches are shit, but I just want to say … it’s been a roller coaster of a year. Past couple of years, actually, but I want to tell you all how grateful I am to have you. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that family is everything, so with that in mind …’ Pete reaches down and pulls Natalie to her feet, as she stumbles, spilling her sparkling water into the sand. ‘Nat and I have got something we want to tell you.’
Natalie looks up at him, her heart bursting. Everything feels so different, in a good way. What happened might have almost broken them, but Natalie has grown, and she thinks Pete has too. Now, she waits up for him on the rare occasion he’s late home, so they can share a glass of wine and talk about their day. Pete makes sure to take the younger girls out on a Saturday morning, so Natalie can lie in and get some time to herself. If he pisses her off, she tells him. The bond that existed between them is slowly repairing itself, the filaments twisting back together, stronger than ever. It doesn’t matter how tough things get for them going forward – because they will, that’s the way life is; neither of them will ever again think this precious family they’ve created is a mistake.
Pete squeezes Natalie’s hand before dipping into his pocket and pulling out a sheet of paper. ‘We wanted to tell you all that that parcel of land just behind Mum and Dad’s house? Well, the original offer fell through and … we’ve had our offer on it accepted. We’re going to build a house.’
Pete’s mum lets out a squeak of joy, her hand going to her mouth as her eyes fill with tears. Pete’s dad wraps Natalie in a hug, as Emily lifts Erin and she and Zadie come and join them. In the midst of the joy, both of them surrounded by the family they love, Natalie and Pete catch each other’s eyes and share a private smile.Everything really is going to be all right.
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