The Sleeping Season by Kelly Creighton

Author:Kelly Creighton
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Crime Fiction
ISBN: 9781708710927
Publisher: Friday Press
Published: 2020-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Zara sighed hard. She poured a glass of milk and drank it.

‘Do you mind me having a glass of water?’ I asked.

‘You usually refuse.’ Zara opened the fridge where there was no sign of breast milk.

‘I haven’t restocked on water filters,’ she said fetching a clean glass from the rack, still soapy at the rim.

I troubled her for an ice cube, remembering a book about baby food and chapters on breastfeeding I had once read out of boredom when babysitting for Charlotte. I hadn’t wanted to turn on the TV in case it drowned out Timothy’s breathing on the monitor. And I vaguely remembered Coral saying that she froze her milk when she went back to work, but that could be a cartilage of memory twisting itself the way of my wanting it to.

Zara pulled open the freezer door; as discretely as I could I looked inside. There were four items, one thing per shelf: an ice-cube rack, fish fingers, Goodfellas pizzas and bags of veg and rice. It seemed that the cookbooks taking pride of place on the shelf were purely for show, not that I should judge Zara’s eating habits and the low nutritional value in the kitchen on the week her son had disappeared and her partner died. If they were, then maybe the parenting books were as well. There was no breastmilk in this freezer at any rate.

Zara slammed the ice-cube tray against the glass. A couple of blocks clanged on the island. She swept them into the sink.

‘You soon get out of your routine if you aren’t doing it every day,’ she said. ‘It was eight o’clock last night and I thought to myself, that’s two days I’ve missed out on saying prayers with River at bedtime. He’d say, “God bless my nanas and grandpas in heaven, God bless Mummy and Raymond, and God bless Daddy”.’

The front door opened; then the living room door. A man was walking towards us into the kitchen, his face a mess: a sirloin of a bruise on the left cheek, two old scars shortening the ends of his eyebrows.

‘Shane!’ Zara screamed.

She ran at him and he caught her in an embrace.

Linskey and I exchanged looks. Her eyes travelled over Shane. I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was: if anyone had a type, Zara did.

Shane was short with dark brown curly hair, younger than Raymond, bulky too, but more muscular. As far as I could tell, he had two good working legs, though he was broken in many other ways. Zara must have had a desire to love unlovable men.

They were still crushed together until Shane pulled away long enough to cough. It sent tremors through him.

‘Are you alright?’ he asked Zara several times, but she remained in a full-throated fuss in his arms. Shane turned towards us. ‘Are you here for the boy?’ he asked.

He looked hard at me with what seemed like recognition on his face.

Before I could reply Zara said, ‘Raymond died. It was only a few hours ago.

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