Page 39 of The Beach Holiday

NOW

I take myself off to the bench for one final time. Jane is sitting in the usual place. She has the coffee and pours it out for both of us.

‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ I say. I can feel Jane nodding.

‘We’ve had some good chats these last few weeks, haven’t we?’ I say and I am smiling.

‘We have,’ Jane says. ‘And you know, we can carry on the chats, if you like.’ She smiles.

‘I feel as if there is a lot more you want to talk to me about. Even though they say you don’t need to be here anymore, I think you and I should carry on, see if we can work it all out between us.

You’ll be right, Sadie?’ She looked down at her lap. ‘You always are.’

I began to analyse her face a little closer. There was some sadness there for sure; maybe it was the amount of time we had spent together recently, and she was the only person I had been speaking to on a regular basis beside Dr Bhaduri.

An image sliced through my mind, gone before I had time to hold on to it for long enough to properly see it, but it was an image of two young girls sitting by water, perhaps a pond, or a lake.

I looked more closely at Jane, and she looked at me and smiled.

‘You know who I am, don’t you, Sadie?’ she said softly. She delivered the line in such a way that I knew she didn’t just mean from the last few weeks.

Jane’s hand was on mine again; her face was brighter.

‘I know you and you know me. Very well.’ She was almost giggling now. I felt as if she wanted to stand up and dance around me. I could sense her excitement. ‘It’s me, Sadie. I’ve been here all this time. I’m your big sister Jane.’