Page 76 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter fifty-nine

T he blonde sandstone of the house looked as though a giant had smeared his grubby fingerprints all over it.

Years of limescale, moss, and other biological detritus clung to the facade, dulling its once-warm glow.

Nell would have to call in one of those specialist cleaning companies, request a quote for how much they’d charge to restore the stonework without stripping half the building away in the process.

Bloody loads, no doubt.

The garden—her domain far more than Danny’s—had also surrendered to neglect. The grass sprawled in uneven tufts, flowering shrubs in their green-blue glazed pots drooped, their petals curled and brittle. Weeds speared through the cracks in the red-brick driveway, tenacious as ever.

In the neighbouring garden, Sandra Greenberg—whom Cate had stubbornly referred to as Marlene throughout her last visit—stood with shears in hand, poised to do battle with the unruly hedge dividing their properties. She glanced up as Nell approached the gate leading to the back garden.

“Hello, there! You alright? Off to do some gardening?”

Nell, clad in old jeans, welly boots, and a holey green jumper that had seen better decades, nodded. “By the way, Sandra, an estate agent’s coming round this afternoon. We’re… putting the house on the market.”

Damn and blast it. Saying it out loud made it real. That warm, stinging pressure built behind her eyes again, and she blinked rapidly, hoping Sandra would blame any telltale dampness on the wind gusting around them.

Sandra, however, didn’t look surprised. Danny had never been much of a neighbourly presence—offering only a brief morning or evening on the rare occasions he encountered her outside.

But she must have noticed his absence, put two and two together.

The Murrays were no longer a unit. Soon, they would need two houses instead of one.

“The McCartneys got ￡397,000 for theirs last year.”

Everyone on the street had known about the McCartneys’ sale and gasped at it. Nell had been just as astonished at the time, never imagining she’d be in the same position so soon after. Would ￡200,000 stretch to a small house with a garden?

She said her goodbyes to Sandra and pushed open the gate.

The afternoon’s task was to finish tidying the garden—an endless list of autumn jobs that suddenly felt heavier, weighted with finality.

Knowing this was the last time she would do them here made it twice as hard, though not nearly as difficult as the job she was avoiding inside the house.

Earlier, she’d hauled all the garden furniture onto the patio, scrubbing down the tables and chairs with warm, soapy water to strip away months of algae and lichen.

The dirty water had pooled in the grooves of the paving stones before trickling, with cruel precision, through the tiny hole in her left welly boot, soaking her foot in the process.

She’d gone inside to change her socks and attempt a haphazard patch-up job on the wellies using duct tape. Then, out of habit, she’d checked her emails.

The usual junk. Salesy newsletters from places she’d never got round to unsubscribing from. Notifications from Instagram and LinkedIn.

And one from an unknown address. No subject line.

Ordinarily, she would have deleted it without a second thought. But instead, she clicked. Anything to delay stepping back into the cold.

Dear Ms Murray, I’m sorry to contact you out of the blue like this. My name’s…

Her heartbeat thudded—loud in her ears, tight in her forehead. Fingers trembling, she clicked out of the email. Then, just as quickly, clicked back in. The words leapt at her, sharp and impossible to ignore.

And then she saw them—the attachments at the bottom.

A photograph.

She hesitated, then downloaded it. Opened it. Zoomed in. Zoomed out.

Put her head in her hands and wept.

And wept.

And wept.

When the sobs finally ebbed, she had returned to the garden. Spoken to Sandra. Brushed dark, nutty-smelling linseed oil over the furniture, sealing it for winter. Pretended, for a little while, that she hadn’t seen what she’d seen.

But she had.

Later, when her hands had stopped shaking, she opened the email once more.

And typed out a response.

Yes.