Salt Sisters
Page 28
I’d resisted therapy, but the trauma had left its scars and it had been a long time before I could finally sleep in my own bed again. Mum and I had spent weeks cleansing the energy at Puffin Cottage. It had taken a complete crystal purification and multiple smudging ceremonies before I’d felt at home again in the cottage.
Instead of using booze to numb my pain, I’d taken up long-distance running. It turned out there was nothing like almost being killed by a deranged maniac to put you off the taste of vodka, and I now had some of my best creative ideas while pounding out miles along the sand. I still avoided Southend Rock, even long after the police divers had recovered Phil’s body, choosing instead the stretch of golden sand in the direction of Bamburgh.
Auntie Sue beamed at me excitedly from her seat on the small sofa next to Emily. After that night with Rachel, she’d decided that life was too short to live with regrets. It hadn’t taken her long to track Emily down, and it had been an emotional reunion.
Emily was beautiful, with skin like porcelain and hazel eyes, and she hung on Auntie Sue’s every word. They went for long beach walks and I would often watch them making their way back up the dune path, hand in hand, their faces gleaming with exhilaration and the salty air. The only time they weren’t laughing was when they did the crossword together – that was serious business.
Auntie Sue was almost unrecognisable. The way she walked and the way she laughed – I had never seen this side of her before. She was younger, lighter, freer. I saw now that all the years she had spent with us – ever since she came back to Seahouses – she had been a tightly-coiled spring. Solid, sturdy, but tense – and now she had been released. She and Emily had missed out on so much time and they were determined to make the most of their second chance.
Now that Mum was much more ‘steady on her feet’, as we all liked to say, Auntie Sue felt that she could finally leave her for a couple of weeks. She and Emily were flying to Santorini on Saturday, a place that they had planned on visiting before Dad had died. It would be Auntie Sue’s first holiday in twenty-five years.
Mum no longer seemed to have her bad days. At Diana Wheeler’s suggestion, she had joined the RNLI committee and become involved in some of Amy’s community groups. She had even started hosting meditation, yoga and mindfulness sessions at the village hall. It had taken a while for the classes to take off – meditation just wasn’t a thing in Seahouses yet – but people were gradually warming to the idea.
After Rachel was killed, we were worried that Mum could face charges. The police had been talking about whether her use of force had been necessary and proportionate for self-defence. I wanted to ask what level of force was appropriate for a psycho killer who had murdered one of your daughters and was trying to kill the other, but Mum was very zen about it. DCI Bell wasn’t assigned to the case at first, but as soon as she got involved, Mum was given the all-clear.
Izzy Morton Interiors was hard work, but it was slowly taking off – we were even considering taking on another member of staff. Most of it came through word-of-mouth – guests at The Stables frequently commented on the wonderful ambience of the hotel, and Jennifer never hesitated to recommend us. We had just wrapped up a project on a luxury hotel in Newcastle and were about to land a second contract with the same chain.
Although I put our success down to good fortune, Mum had other ideas – citing everything from karma, positive intention-setting, and the spirits of Amy and Dad watching over us. I didn’t argue with her, just in case Dad and Amy were listening.
Smiling at the thought of this, I padded into the kitchen to check up on Lucas. He was still working on perfecting Amy’s recipes and putting them together in a book. Each of us was dealing with the loss in our own way, and this was how Lucas wanted to honour his mother’s memory. It meant that we often ate the same dish three nights a week, but only Betsy complained.
Jake was watching him cook. It hadn’t taken much for Jake to go from solicitor to friend to boyfriend. He came to see me in hospital the night that Rachel tried to kill me and officially asked me out. I joked that he’d taken advantage when I was vulnerable and had a possible concussion, but ten months later, we were still going strong. He’d even asked me to move in with him, but I’d told him it was too soon. I was still finding the right balance in my new life, and I didn’t want to put the kids through more upheaval. But he’d wait. Jake was a keeper.
I still talked about Amy all the time with the kids. They had so many questions about her, and I often spent the hours when I wasn’t with them trying to remember stories or morsels of information that I could pass on.
Mike and I had to tell the children the full story of how she died. They would have found out sooner or later, and it was better that they heard it from us. We told them everything in one painful session, and it was cathartic to lay all our misjudgements and misgivings and mistakes out in the open. There were no more secrets.
The children grieved for Rachel, too. The memory of the Rachel they’d thought they knew. I suppose we all grieved for her, in a strange way. I found I couldn’t be angry with her – it would require more emotional energy than I possessed.
Grief was like the sea. It was always there. Some days it was still, reflecting a bright blue sky punctuated by clouds of happy memories. Other times it was grey, deep, endless. And on the worst days, it raged, dark and angry. It could change at a moment’s notice, catching even the most seasoned sailor off-guard. All I could do was stay afloat, waiting for the storm to pass and the blue sky to return.
I saw Amy every day.
In the kids’ acts of kindness – the big gestures, but also the small things that they did for me, for their grandmother and great-aunt, and for each other. In their mannerisms and their expressions.
Betsy’s laughter was like having Amy in the room – it still occasionally startled me. I heard Amy in her sarcasm and sass. When Hannah was reading, I couldn’t take my eyes off her – sometimes she looked up and caught me staring, and I was afraid to tell her that it was as if her mum was just there. The way Lucas sat at the window and watched the birds in the garden, how he poked his tongue out of the side of his mouth when he was concentrating, and the delight he got from nourishing the people he loved – he was Amy, through and through.
I saw her in me, too. She was always with me, and we’ll never truly be apart.
Acknowledgements
Sincere and profound thanks to you, dear reader, for accompanying me on this journey (and making it to the end). I hope you enjoyed reading Salt Sisters as much as I enjoyed writing it. Please join the other readers who have left ratings and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads, and help more people discover it. Reviews make a huge difference to new authors, and it’s the best way you can support the book.
Writing a novel is something I have wanted to do for a very long time. Thank you to everyone who said I should, and those of you who convinced me I could.
And above all thanks to Igor, for helping me finally believe that I would. You were there from the start and kept me going until the end – and beyond. Thank you for giving me the support, encouragement, and the time I needed to achieve this, and for your endless patience, generosity, and love. Every day, I thank the universe that our stars collided.
Writing a book is not a solo effort – it takes an entire village. To my early readers, I give a heartfelt thank you. My dear friends Paul Johnson, Helen Seymour, and Bernadette McGee showed great enthusiasm for an early draft that was just the boost I needed to get me to the finishing line. It’s not easy to cast a critical eye and it takes a true friend to be honest. Thank you to my wonderful mum Brenda Clelland, who read not one but TWO drafts of Salt Sisters, and my incredible aunt Anne Simms (I don’t have an Auntie Sue - I have an Auntie Anne, and she happens to be a literary genius). Without all of your ideas and support, Salt Sisters would not be as good as it is. To give your time and energy to this, particularly when you were each navigating the nightmare of a pandemic and everything that 2020 entail
ed, is a generosity I cherish.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my editors, Nicole Frail and Gabrielle Chant. Thanks for all the advice, for keeping my fragile writer’s ego intact, and for polishing a rough diamond. I also wish to thank Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn podcast, and all the other authors who have taken the time and energy to share wisdom and experience with budding writers. Particularly the authors I’m privileged to know personally – Howard Mutti-Mewse and Syd Goldsmith – thank you both for your advice and encouragement, and Yvonne Iwaniuk, who I’m fortunate to count as a mentor and friend.
A shout-out to my sister, Beth Edwards, with whom I share more than a lifetime’s worth of memories. A sister truly is a best friend forever, and I’m so grateful that I got such a good one. That’s what this story is about, really – it’s a love letter to sisters everywhere, and our unique, unbreakable bonds.
I also want to thank Beth for her contribution to my roster of seven nieces and nephews; Tammy, Nieve, Jasmine, Dylan, Isabelle, Grace, and Jack, who have collectively taught me that being an auntie is the most important job I will ever have. I love you all.
Thank you to Johanna Harston, Terri Rae, Cathy Dowse, and my Taipei bookclub girls (Best F*ckin Book Club Ever), who lent moral support and enthusiasm throughout this process. Huge thanks too to Brenda Smyth for showing me around Hong Kong, to Ahmet Sammali for his advice on cars, and to the many other friends who gave perspectives and ideas for Salt Sisters, even if you didn’t know you were doing so at the time.
There were many days when reaching ‘the end’ felt like an impossible mountain to climb. Thanks to all of you who gave me the encouragement to keep going - you made the difference.
Seahouses is a real village in Northumberland, and I was lucky to spend many weekends there as a child. However, I used some artistic license in my descriptions of the village in this book, which I hope you will forgive me for. It is a beautiful part of the world, with kind and friendly people, and I urge you to visit. Have a pint and stay overnight in The Olde Ship Inn, when you do.
The idea for Salt Sisters came following a conversation one night with my friend Richard Forster and his wife Beckee. Over dinner in Singapore, we started discussing the moral (and lifestyle) implications of ‘inheriting’ custody of children after the death of a sibling - one of those crazy ‘what if’ conversations, and it got me thinking. It is not based on real-life experience - neither mine, nor that of anybody I know. It is a work of fiction.
Will there be a follow-up to Salt Sisters? I hope so.
Visit my website KatherineGraham-author.com and sign up to be the first to hear any news.
Thank you for reading. And before you go, please don’t forget that review.
About the Author
Katherine Graham
I’m never not reading. Growing up, we had a rule in our house that my mother frequently had to enforce: no books at the dinner table. What can I say – stories are simply delicious.
I built a career as a professional storyteller without even realising it. I started out as a trainee journalist and ended up in communications and PR. I’ve spent 15 years helping some of the world’s biggest brands craft their narratives and find the right words to tell them. Stories are, and have always been, what I do.
But it took a while for me to find the confidence, time and commitment to write a story of my own. I began writing fiction back in 2008, maybe even earlier. My debut novel Salt Sisters was eventually published in 2021. That’s a long draft.
I’m originally from the North East of England and today I live in Taipei with my partner. I love 90s RnB, Cadbury’s chocolate buttons, spin classes and bubble baths.
Visit my website to learn more about me, get exclusive book club content, and find out what inspired Salt Sisters. You can also sign up to my mailing list and be the first to hear about future books.
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