Page 61

Chapter 60

Liv

Margot and Anna stay with me for the best part of an hour before they sense I’m growing tired. They slip their jackets on and prepare to leave.

‘Thank you so much for coming,’ I say as Anna leans over the bed and hugs me. ‘And thanks to both of you for helping Brandon and his mum with the kids. You’ve been amazing.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ Anna replies. ‘You’d do the same for us.’

‘I’m lucky to have you as friends.’

Margot looks away when I say this. I always assumed she was one of those people who revelled in a compliment. Who actively fished for them. I guess I was wrong. Actually, I think I might be wrong about a few things when it comes to her. She has been there for my family when it really matters. She has her faults, but she has come through for us.

She picks up her handbag and checks her phone.

There’s so much about the day of my hit-and-run that I don’t remember. I don’t recall hearing or seeing the car that knocked me into the ditch or the driver who left me there. I don’t remember my husband finding my body or the paramedics who resuscitated me. I don’t recall hearing the hospital doctors and consultants discussing putting me into a coma to help alleviate my swelling brain. And I don’t remember them bringing me out of it.

There is, however, one tiny detail that I do recall. And it only comes to me as Margot is hugging me goodbye. And that’s a smell. A pungent, citrusy scent that’s out of place in the roadside ditch where I was left for dead. Yet I remember it as clear as day.

And I think I have just smelled it again.