Page 63 of Sisters

Kathleen gave Susanna a withering stare. ‘You had your warnings. We said that man was nothing but a cad and we were right. But you still ran off with him. You made your bed, you had to lie in it.’

It was as if it had happened only yesterday, the way her mother was speaking. Susanna was instantly transported back to the young woman she’d been all those years ago, quivering in front of her mother, buckling under the weight of her disapproval. She took a deep breath, tried to regain her composure, then forced herself to look at her.

Kathleen still dressed impeccably but her blonde hair was now all white. She wore it in a different way to what Susanna had been used to – a more age-appropriate bob that showed off her heart-shaped face. But there was something about her mother’s face that shocked Susanna. It was hard, entrenched in bitterness, and for a moment she couldn’t understand why. Then it hit her. Her mother was still angry. Her features had been chiselled over the years by a reaction to something that had happenedover three decades ago.

For the first time in her life, Susanna woke up to just how penetrating her mother’s sense of disappointment was. And for a brief second she felt an unexpected flicker of satisfaction, one that withered in fear almost as soon as it had appeared.

‘Why are you here?’ Susanna asked her.

‘Matteo rang me,’ said Kathleen, indicating the door, where Susanna saw him standing, leaning against the frame. On the other side of the room, Gabriella was listening, watching, poised.

‘I think you’d better leave now,’ said Susanna apologetically.

‘But we haven’t finished the interview,’ said Gabriella.

‘Get out of my house,’ said Matteo, holding the door open. Gabriella weighed up arguing it out but, recognizing defeat when she saw it, she gathered up her things and left the room without even a backwards glance, Paolo trailing behind her. Susanna heard Matteo close the front door after them before coming back in.

‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on here?’ asked Kathleen.

Susanna quivered but held it together. She mustn’t let her mother’s voice, that paralysing tone of disapproval, reduce her to a child again.

‘Well, Abby has spun a load of lies to Ellie and persuaded her to go on the ru—’

‘I know all that,’ snapped Kathleen. ‘I mean, what are you doing to bring my grandchildren back?’

Susanna stared. ‘They’re grown women. Not naughty children. Anyway, the police...They’re searching.’

‘And what areyoudoing?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Or rather, whathaveyou been doing? To drive them away? Because you have a habit of losing your children, don’t you, Susanna?’

Susanna felt a rush of blood to her head. She glanced up at Matteo, hoping he hadn’t clocked this comment, but he was frowning, looking between the two of them.

‘What did you get in contact with her for?’ Susanna said to him, as she flung her arm towards Kathleen. ‘You had no right bringing her here.’

‘I have every right—’ started Kathleen.

‘Oh, shut up, Mother!’ Susanna caught the look of condemnation on her mother’s face and she dropped her gaze.

‘I phoned Kathleen to try and make sense of everything that’s happened,’ said Matteo. ‘I’m worried about Abby. Kathleen offered to come over and I saw no reason to stop her.’

‘It was quite a shock, hearing Matteo talk about the children – what had happened to Ellie when she was young,’ said Kathleen. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘You’d cut me out of your life.’

‘I don’t mean for solidarity,’ said Kathleen coldly. ‘I mean, so I could have kept an eye on Abby when she and Ellie came to stay with me. If it was Abby we should have been keeping an eye on, of course.’

Susanna made an effort to stay composed. ‘I’m getting a bit tired of this,’ she said. ‘Abby is at fault here. She is the one who’s hurt Ellie before.’

‘So you say. But I’m inclined to think you’re lying.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You want to know why? This isn’t the first time, is it?’

Susanna felt herself grow hot. Her heart was trying to fight its way out of her chest. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’