LITMIR.BIZ

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to join in with the children’s bedtime routine – be the one to read their goodnight story.

      ‘Everything’s done, I’m just dishing up. But you can call the boys and Simon and tell the boys to wash their hands.’

      ‘Kevin. Liam. Simon,’ I shout as I walk across the room, directing my voice through the door on the far side.

      Simon leans his head around the door frame within a second, holding onto the frame on the far side. ‘No need to shout, we’re here.’ His words are punctuated with a grin.

      ‘The boys need to wash their hands.’

      ‘They’ve already gone to do it. They smelled the sausages.’

      An emotional urge that’s not a thought-out decision makes me walk towards him. He knows why without me speaking. He lifts his arms, waiting for me to wrap my arms around his middle and hold on. This is the black hole speaking.

      His arms fall onto my shoulders to embrace me and he presses a kiss on my temple. Then he lets go and moves on, talking to Mim as he walks around me.

      This is his life. His family. I want my own. That’s all I want to do with this new heart. I don’t want a job. I want a family.

      A cry, or something more like a wail, a scream of longing, rips through my head. It is the loudest sound that I have heard in Louise’s voice.

      The anger in her impatience is making her spirit stronger.

      My hands slide into the back pockets of my jeans, restraining the thoughts in my head, to stop them from slipping out of my mouth. I see Louise’s children in my mind, not her memories, but images of them from the pictures on Robert Dowling’s Facebook page.

      Simon would call my thoughts abnormal. He would say I shouldn’t let myself become emotionally attached to the children of the woman I think donated my heart. But I can’t help myself. I already am.

      It feels right.

      That I have her heart.

      That I know where her children are.

      That I know where her parents are.

      But without being able to understand what it feels like to have a sixth sense, to feel Louise’s emotions, Simon, like Chloe, will think I am going mad.

      Since I was sectioned and diagnosed at fourteen, Simon’s favourite phrase has been, ‘You do not have a sixth sense, you have bipolar.’ He’s never believed.

      It’s better that I don’t tell him or Chloe anything.

      It’s better to lie.

      I won’t be able to get closer to Louise’s family if I tell the truth.

      ‘Have you heard about that job today, Helen?’ Simon asks when we are sitting around the dinner table.

      ‘I didn’t get it.’ I accept a plate of sausages, mashed potatoes, peas and dark thick gravy from Mim.

      ‘Why?’ Simon says. ‘Not that I’m complaining about that.’ He takes his plate.

      ‘I didn’t ask why, but I think working with a class of primary school children might be too much for a little while anyway. I’m well enough to look after a couple of children so I think I’m going to look for a nanny job instead.’

      Simon’s lips purse as he picks up his knife and fork, his eyebrows quirking in that paternal expression.

      ‘What’s wrong with that?’

      ‘Simon,’ Mim protests, on my behalf. Or perhaps hers, if she wants me out of their house.

      ‘Nothing. Not really. I agree it’s a better idea to take that step first. I just don’t like the thought of you living with strangers …’

      ‘I didn’t say I would live in. Although it would be good if I could.’ My heart claps its hands and taps its heels at the idea of living in. Because I do not want to be anybody’s nanny, I want to be Alex Lovett’s nanny. I want to look after Louise’s children, and if I can live in the house …

      My heartbeat skips.

       Chapter 15

      7 weeks and 3 days after the fall.

      The coffee inside the takeaway cup resting on my knee is cold. I’ve been sitting on this old iron park bench for nearly two hours.

      I’ll have to go soon. Simon and Mim will be back from her parents’ in three hours. Simon will question me if I get home too long after them. He expects me to be there when they walk through the door.

      The only movement in the house on the far side of the park has been a single view of the nanny; she walked past a window on the right-hand side on the first floor. I haven’t seen anyone else. Sitting here has shown me nothing. But I’m closer to the children and my heart feels happier.

      I think there’s an entrance to the cellar of Alex Lovett’s house on the other side of the park. A door cuts through the wall beneath the iron railing that’s topped by the Fleur de Lys. The ground of the park drops into a ditch that is more than a metre below the street level, and there’s a row of short doors in the wall supporting the street; one for each house. Those doors were probably used for deliveries for things like coal, blocks of ice or bags of flour years ago. Today, though, they must still provide access, through a tunnel under the road, to the basement floor of the houses.

      I stand, only because my bottom and legs are numb from sitting here so long. I walk to the left, because when I turn at the corner I’ll be able to look at the house for the longest period of time.

      There’s so little activity in the house, I think Alex has taken the children out.

      It is Saturday.

      I throw the cup of cold coffee in a rubbish bin.

      Frustration grips as a pain in my stomach again – right in the middle of me. I want to see the children. The frustration starts to bubble, like fizz rising in lemonade, but it feels as if in a moment it is going to boil like water that tries to jump out of a saucepan.

      They are my children, a voice says – a voice that might be Louise’s.

      She’s frustrated too.

      I walk across the park in the direction of the house, listening again for Louise’s voice, but nothing else is said.

      A knocker rattles, announcing that a door is opening. Conversation tumbles into the street.

      It is Alex Lovett’s front door. Children’s voices carry on the air and they come out into the street.

      I walk down the slope, into the valley at the edge of the park, towards the wall, towards the house.

      ‘Granny,’ the boy says, looking at a woman I do not know. She’s past middle age. There’s an older man with the children too. I haven’t seen either adult in Facebook posts.

      I guess they’re Alex’s parents.

      The door closes without an appearance from Alex.

      It is less than two months since Louise died.

      They need their father.

      Their mother.

      He should be with the children.

      I walk up to the railing, and hold the bottom of the metal rails, watching from my rat’s-eye-view, as they walk off along the street.

       Chapter 16

       7 weeks and 6 days after the fall.

      The edge of the plastic lid scratches my lip, then the coffee burns

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