Where Secrets Lie by D S Butler

Author:D S Butler [Butler, D S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781503905016
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2019-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

Rick yanked on the handbrake, turned off the engine, jumped out of the car and strode to his front door. The spilled coffee was now cold, and the wet shirt clung to his skin. He checked his watch to see how he was doing for time. He didn’t want to keep Farzana waiting for too long. She was already giving up her lunch break, and he didn’t want to get her in trouble for being late back to her shift as well.

He opened the door and prepared to call out as he usually did when he got home, but something made him stop. There were two coats Rick didn’t recognise hanging on the rack by the front door. Then he heard voices.

He kicked off his shoes, a habit his mother had instilled in him when he was young. The carpet had seen better days, but he always took his shoes off when he came inside.

He walked down the hallway slowly, feeling awkward. Did Priya have friends visiting? He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. She was supposed to be working, concentrating on looking after his mother. That’s what she was being paid for.

He wondered whether he was going to find out that she kept his mother locked in her room all day while she used the house as her own to entertain her friends.

But Priya wasn’t like that, was she? She seemed a genuinely kind person. Rick didn’t like to think he was having the wool pulled over his eyes.

The voices were coming from the living room. Rick paused by the door, feeling oddly out of place in his own home.

It was ridiculous.

When he stepped into the living room, he stopped and looked at the visitors with surprise. They weren’t Priya’s friends, after all. They were old friends of his mother’s.

Mrs Mackintosh, who used to be the office manager where his mother had worked, and Jenny Limer, whom his mother had known since her schooldays. He hadn’t seen them in donkey’s years, and neither had his mother. Aware he looked gormless, but unable to stop himself, Rick just stood there gawping at them.

His mother’s friends sat side by side on the sofa. His mother was in her wheelchair, and Priya was kneeling in front of the coffee table pouring tea.

They’d all turned to look up at him, smiling and saying hello, and were waiting for him to say something in return.

But he was finding it hard to process the situation. Early on, after his mother’s diagnosis, she’d continued to see her friends and even stayed at work for a time, but as she got worse, she’d taken Rick to one side and made him promise something.

‘Whatever happens, Ricky, I don’t want people to see me like this. Not people I’ve known all my life. It’s bad enough you and your sister have to see me changing into someone I’m not. I want to keep my problems private.’

His mother was a very proud woman. The diagnosis had terrified her, but the thing she hated more than anything was changing and losing her identity.

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