The Child Between Us: A completely gripping and heartbreaking emotional page-turner by Alison Ragsdale

Author:Alison Ragsdale [Ragsdale, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803146898
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-09-27T16:00:00+00:00

Having agreed with Mhairi Sommerfield that it would be helpful for both Cassie and Marina to meet with the school counsellor, Cassie was feeling a little less adrift. But the image of Marina, her head on her arms, so isolated from the rest of the children, continued to haunt Cassie. Each day when she dropped Marina off at school, Cassie’s heart would race, anticipating that dreaded moment when she’d let Marina’s hand go, the wrench now as physically jarring as it was emotionally.

Despite the two gentle and constructive talks they’d had with the school counsellor, Marina had started having nightmares again, often waking in tears and clasping Cassie’s hand saying, ‘Mummy, you’re back.’ Cassie would carry the child into the master bedroom and tuck her up, sing or read to her, and stroke her hair until Marina’s sobs would ease and she’d fall back to sleep. Cassie would then lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling – wrestling with waves of crushing self-doubt over the magnitude of what she had taken on. The fact that she was rarely alone anymore but had never felt lonelier in her life was startling.

As she wondered where Stuart was, what he was doing, if he missed or even thought about her and their life together, more than once she questioned her decision to let him go. Each time she thought about him, she would press her eyes closed and see his face, the deep brown eyes, the long chin, the tangled curls, then she’d turn on her side, face Marina and let the little girl’s breathing guide her own until sleep would eventually win out.

As the days rolled into one another, each a clone of the one before, and with Marina seeming to struggle more than when they’d first arrived in Edinburgh, Cassie gradually felt herself slipping towards despair. It made her think about Isla, and how she had died, unsure whether her sister had indeed been pulled under by the current or had silently waded in until the water had closed above her head. Then, scared by her own thoughts, Cassie would force herself to go outside, immerse herself in the world, take long walks with Marina and watch the stream of humanity moving along the Royal Mile, or through Princes Street Gardens.

They’d climbed to the top of Arthur’s Seat, and she’d shown Marina the different facets of her new home: the scenic face of Old Town, the classic Georgian architecture of New Town, the zoo, the pretty enclosed gardens of Stockport – Cassie’s Edinburgh, and beyond its bounds, the beauty of the surrounding Highlands. Marina seemed to relish being outside and each time Cassie saw a light return to her niece’s eyes, Cassie questioned herself for having taken the child from her home, the peaceful cottage overlooking the scenic bay of Uig, and the drama of the Outer Hebrides, beyond.

Cassie had decided that they’d go back to Lewis for a few days at half-term, in mid-October, and Marina had been delighted, asking how many sleeps until she could go home.

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