Naomi’s head felt fuzzy and her eyelids heavy. The start of another new day without Charlie. After taking a herbal sleeping pill the previous night, she had climbed into bed waiting for, but not expecting, sleep to come. One minute she was wide awake, the next a little dizzy, and then oblivion. Although grateful for the much-needed rest, she knew it was going to be even more of a struggle to get going this morning.
Forcing her eyes open, Naomi was surprised to discover it was almost 7.30 a.m. Have I really been asleep for over ten hours? I don’t remember the last time I slept for more than three. She snuggled deeper under her warm duvet, listening for sounds of movement from Cassie in the next room. Nothing. Despite feeling a pang of guilt, she was glad to have a few more minutes without needing to respond to the constant demands and questions of an inquisitive five-year-old. There was something safe and comforting about the touch of soft flannel against her cheek and the faint smell of lavender lingering from the drops she sprinkled every night. Each morning was more difficult than the last to summon the energy needed to get up and go through the motions of a normal day, but she knew she had to, for Cassie’s sake.
Everyone, from her friends to the medical professionals she had reluctantly agreed to see, advised her that routine was the best way to get through each day, but it wasn’t them who had to come to terms with life after Charlie. The silence dragged on, suggesting that her little girl had also slept well. I’ll have to wake her if we’re going to make it to school on time, Naomi thought, pushing back the duvet as though it contained lead weights rather than feathers. She slid her feet into sheepskin-lined slippers and crossed the short space to her bedroom door, tying the belt of her dressing gown as she went.
‘Come on, sleepyhead,’ she said, opening the door to Cassie’s room, a smile plastered on her face. One look at the crumpled cover and she realised why there had been no sound coming from her room. Since her daddy had gone, Cassie had begun waking up in the middle of the night and going downstairs to the living room to curl up on the sofa with Pumpkin, the cat. Naomi had worried about it at first, but after her GP had explained that such behaviour could be brought on by anxiety, and that the best thing was not to make a big deal of it, she now treated it as perfectly normal to find the two of them snuggled up together. Usually, she was aware of Cassie’s nocturnal movements as she lay sleepless in her bed, tears seeping from the corners of her eyes, but the herbal pill must have dulled her senses.
Naomi was only mildly surprised when Pumpkin met her at the bottom of the staircase, brushing against her legs and purring, before he headed upstairs and trotted into Cassie’s room.
‘She’s not up there, silly, have you forgotten you’ve been cuddling? I thought it was only goldfish that had a three-second memory.’ The words froze on Naomi’s lips. Cassie wasn’t on the sofa as expected. ‘Cassie, where are you?’ she said, pushing through the door to the kitchen, a mildly panicky sensation starting in her chest. The room was empty, but one of the kitchen chairs had been moved from its place at the table and was now beneath the row of hooks near the back door where all the keys were kept safely out of reach. At least, I assumed they were out of reach, Naomi thought, noticing the door to the garden was ajar and her daughter’s pink-and-white spotted wellingtons were missing from the piece of newspaper on which she had stood them the previous night to stop any mud being trodden into the house. Why would Cassie reach the keys down and open the back door when she knows she’s not supposed to? Naomi wondered, unless she was trying to be helpful by fetching the spent sparklers in from her sandpit to create whiskers for the pumpkin cat we carved last night for Halloween?
‘You should have waited for Mummy…’
Her words hung in the frosty air. There was no sign of Cassie in the small enclosed space. Naomi was acutely aware of her heart thumping in her chest. No need to panic, she told herself, turning back into the house, there will be a perfectly simple explanation. Perhaps she’s in the bathroom. Yes, that must be it. Taking the stairs two at a time, she prayed that she would find her daughter proudly lathering up soap on her hands to wash away the sand. Her heart sank.
‘Cassie, where are you? Are you hiding? Come on now, it’s not funny. You’ll be late for school.’
Naomi grabbed at the wardrobe doorknob in her daughter’s room, but it held only clothes and toys. She tossed the bedclothes onto the floor and then looked under the bed, her breath coming in increasingly short gasps. Back in her own room, she wrenched the wardrobe doors open, staring for a moment at the neat row of clothes on her side of the wardrobe and the empty space where Charlie’s used to be. Tears were forming in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. Think logically – Cassie can’t simply have vanished into thin air.
‘Cassie,’ she called again, trying but failing to keep the panic from her voice as she stumbled back onto the landing. The peace and quiet she had been grateful for only minutes earlier was now a deafening silence. Then she noticed Pumpkin standing on his back legs, clawing at the front door. As with the back door minutes earlier, she noticed the key was in the lock. A cold fear gripped her heart.
‘Oh my God, no,’ Naomi muttered, running down the stairs as fast as she dared. She tried to turn the key to the right. It didn’t move; it was already unlocked. She flung the door open. The pumpkin she had carved to resemble a cat’s head was exactly where she had left it a few hours previously, only now it had sparklers stuck haphazardly around its triangular cut-out nose. Frantically, her eyes darted around the small front garden, searching for a flash of pink coat or wellington boots, but there was nothing. Then her gaze rested on the front gate, which was normally fastened shut. It was hanging loosely on its hinges, creaking slightly with each breath of wind. She began to shiver uncontrollably. Why would Cassie open the front gate and wander out onto the street? Where was she going? Naomi tried to take a step towards the gate and the road beyond, but her legs buckled beneath her.
‘Help me,’ she cried out, her voice shrill and desperate, tears she had been holding back now flowing freely. ‘Please, somebody help me. My little girl is missing.’
Knife in hand, Naomi looked dubiously at the large orange vegetable in front of her on the kitchen table and wondered where to start. Pumpkin-carving had always been Charlie’s domain, but he wasn’t here, and she was determined not to be defeated by an inanimate object.
‘Can we make it look like Pumpkin, Mummy?’
Glancing across at Cassie, who was sitting on a battered old club chair stroking their family pet, Naomi was thankful for the comfort he had brought them both over the previous five weeks. He was quite simply the best cat ever. No amount of young Cassie pulling him around or holding him like a baby had ever caused the ginger tom to scratch or bite; it wasn’t in his nature. It was as though the brush with death he had had as a kitten, using up the first of his nine lives, had made him eternally grateful to his saviours.
Naomi could clearly remember the snowy December evening, almost six years ago, when Charlie had pushed open the front door holding his woolly hat rather than wearing it. The tops of his ears were tinged pink with the cold and snowflakes had settled in his raven-dark hair.
‘Why aren’t you wearing your hat?’ she had asked, gently patting Cassie’s back to bring up her wind, to which Charlie had replied, ‘Someone needs the warmth more than me.’ He had pulled open the sides of his hat to reveal a pink nose and the perfect ‘M’ head markings of the tiniest ginger kitten Naomi had ever laid eyes on. It was love at first sight.
‘I think you need to start, Mummy, or it won’t be ready to take to school in the morning,’ Cassie said, a note of anxiety creeping into her voice.
‘You’re right, sweetie, and I think I’ll be able to use the shapes I cut out for the eyes as the cat’s ears if I make them big enough, but first we need to scoop the insides out. Fetch me one of the big plastic bowls from the cupboard, will you?’
‘Get down, Pumpkin,’ Cassie said. ‘I’ve got to help Mummy, now that Daddy’s not here.’
Naomi swallowed hard and kept her head down, pretending to focus her attention on scooping out all the seeds. Cassie often came out with innocent statements such as this, totally oblivious to the impact they had on her mum.
Almost an hour later, urged on by Cassie’s delighted squeals, Naomi had carved the pumpkin into a passing semblance of a large ginger cat’s head, with the triangular ears held in place by cocktail sticks. The nose was also triangle-shaped with a narrow vertical slit leading to a wide grin, not dissimilar to the Cheshire Cat’s in Alice in Wonderland.
‘It’s very good, Mummy, but our Pumpkin’s got whiskers.’
‘Hmmm, you’re right. What could we use, I wonder?’ Naomi said, casting her eye around the kitchen for inspiration. Her gaze rested on the two packets of sparklers she had bought that morning which were intended for Bonfire Night the following week. ‘Go and put your coat and wellies on, Cassie, Mummy’s had an idea.’
Pumpkin, who was once again curled up on Cassie’s lap, jumped down and began to stretch, only to be swept up by Naomi and carried through to the lounge.
‘You stay in there, boy,’ she said, closing the door on him, ‘you know you don’t like fireworks.’
She and Charlie had been surprised by Pumpkin’s terrified reaction to Cassie making giant circular shapes with her sparklers on Bonfire Night the previous year. He had been shut in the kitchen to keep him safely away from noisy bangers and whooshing rockets, but had jumped up on the window ledge to see what the family were up to without him. The moment Charlie had set the sparkler alight and placed it in Cassie’s gloved hand there had been an almighty crash from the kitchen. In his rush to get away from the window, Pumpkin had sent the basil and mint plants hurtling to the floor in their ceramic pots, then he had buried his head deep into the old fleecy jacket that served as a blanket in his cat bed.
‘Ready,’ Cassie said, appearing in the kitchen in her bright pink Puffa jacket and pink-and-white spotted wellington boots.
‘Put your gloves on, too, we’re going to light some sparklers. Do you remember how Daddy told you to hold them?’ Naomi asked, a rush of emotion almost overwhelming her. This time last year they had been the perfect little family. Brushing a tear away from her eyes, she reached for a packet of sparklers and the box of long matches, and then opened the back door, letting a cold rush of late October air into the warm kitchen.
Cassie carefully lined the toes of her wellington boots up with the edge of the paved patio area and held one outstretched arm over the grass, with the other hand in her pocket.
‘Like this, Mummy,’ she said, triumphantly.
‘Perfect. I’ll light the first one and we’ll hold it together until you feel confident to hold it on your own, okay? When mine is lit, we can make shapes together, but you have to keep your arm stretched out as far as you can and your other hand stays in your pocket.’
Charlie had come up with the pocket idea. If Cassie kept her free hand in her pocket, she wouldn’t accidentally touch the searingly hot end of the sparkler.
‘When it finishes sparkling, wait for me to take it off you.’
‘Yes, Mummy, I know. I don’t want to get my fingers burnt cos it will hurt.’
Out of the mouths of babes, Naomi thought, holding out the first spitting sparkler for her daughter and encasing her small, gloved hand in her own.
The tension and despair of the past five weeks eased as the two of them moved the sparklers around in big circles, the bright white light illuminating not only the small fenced-in back garden but also Cassie’s smiling face, coloured pink by the cold evening air. As each pair of sparklers was spent, Naomi walked across the stepping stones in the lawn to Cassie’s sandpit in the corner and placed them burnt side down to cool off safely.
‘They will make purrfect whiskers for the pumpkin cat, Mummy. Did you hear I made a joke?’ she laughed. ‘Pumpkin purrs, doesn’t he?’
‘Very clever, missy,’ Naomi said, hugging her daughter tightly after placing the final pair of sparklers hot end down in the sand. ‘Now, let’s get you in the bath, it’s already way past your bedtime.’
It was Naomi’s favourite time of the day. Cassie would sit among sweet-scented bubbles, chattering excitedly about her day and what was to come tomorrow, with Pumpkin sitting on the closed toilet seat, not wanting to miss out on anything. He had come into their lives five weeks after Cassie was born, and Naomi had always harboured the belief that the two of them shared the same date of birth. They had always been inseparable, and he even appeared to enjoy listening to Cassie’s nightly bedtime story, curled up contentedly on the end of her bed, occasionally twitching an ear. Tonight’s story was quite short as the little girl’s eyelids were drooping after the unexpected excitement of playing in the garden with the sparklers.
Just before she fell asleep, Cassie said, ‘Remember to put the pumpkin near the front door, Mummy, so we don’t forget to take it to school tomorrow.’
‘Will do,’ Naomi said, kissing her daughter’s forehead and feeling suitably reprimanded. Since Charlie had gone, she had occasionally forgotten things that her daughter was supposed to take in, most recently her contribution for the Harvest Festival. She had realised her oversight on arriving home from walking Cassie to school. The gingham-covered cardboard box that was to be distributed to the elderly people in the area, filled with tins of vegetables and jars of honey and jam, sat reproachfully in the middle of the kitchen table.
‘And Mummy?’ ‘Yes, sweetheart?’ ‘You did a very good job with the pumpkin, nearly as good as Daddy. I wish he could have seen it.’
‘Me too,’ was all Naomi could manage without her voice breaking to match her shattered heart.
Charlie was about to leave the safety of his hiding place behind some bushes across the road from his former home, when the front door opened. Naomi came into view, holding a pumpkin. He shrank back into the shadows and watched as his wife bent down to place it on the top step, a candle illuminating it from within. Is it really Halloween already? What happened to the last five weeks of my life? It all felt like a horrible nightmare, one he was desperate to wake up from. If only I could turn the clock back to the night of the argument, I would do things so differently.
For days after Naomi had thrown him out, he had taken refuge in his old bedroom at his mum’s house, refusing to eat and struggling to sleep. Three weeks ago, after the initial shock had worn off, and following a lot of encouragement from his mum, he had returned to work, although he was pretty sure he wasn’t currently the most productive member of staff. Only today he had been called into his manager’s office and asked if he needed a sabbatical. Charlie knew it was less out of concern for his well-being and more of a coded warning: get your act together or we’ll have to let you go. Losing his job would be a disaster. Going through the motions of a normal day at work was the only thing that was keeping him sane, and it also gave him the opportunity to make his nightly detour on the way back to his mum’s, hoping for a glimpse of his little girl.
It was a familiar routine. At around 7 p.m., the light would go on in the bathroom, followed about fifteen minutes later by the light in Cassie’s bedroom. Sometimes, when he was still part of his family’s life, she would jump up on her bed to draw her own curtains but, since he had been watching, it had always been Naomi shutting out the world.
Everything had been much later than usual this evening and, shivering in the sub-zero temperatures, Charlie had to keep telling himself to wait just a few minutes more, tonight might be the night. When he had heard shrieks of laughter coming from the back garden shortly before the bathroom light went on, it had almost broken him. It sounded like Naomi and Cassie were doing just fine without him. She’s even carved the pumpkin, Charlie thought, watching his wife lean back against the door frame to admire her handiwork. That’s always been my job. He buried his face in his hands for a moment, wondering how it had all gone so catastrophically wrong, and when he raised his head, he could have sworn Naomi was looking straight at him. It was so tempting to walk out of the shadows, up the front path and beg forgiveness from the only woman he had ever truly loved. But even as this thought formed, Naomi retreated to the warmth of the house, closing the door behind her and extinguishing all light but the flicker of the candle from the depths of the pumpkin. That’s all I have to cling onto, a tiny glimmer of hope that one day she’ll listen to my side of the story.
Although he knew he should be heading back to his mum’s, certain she would be worried sick about him, Charlie wasn’t sure that it was safe to leave the candle burning. What if it gets blown over and somehow sets the house on fire? I’d never forgive myself if I could have done something to prevent a terrible tragedy. He decided to give it a few minutes, and then make his way silently up the path to blow the candle out.
Before he had a chance to move, the hall light was turned off. Naomi must have decided on an early night, he thought, picturing her heading upstairs to the bed they used to share. He closed his eyes and imagined himself holding her against his chest before she raised her face to his and their lips met. He could almost taste the minty freshness of her breath and smell her perfume, The One, by Dolce & Gabbana. He had bought it for her on their first Christmas together as husband and wife, in part because he liked the smell but mostly because she was ‘the one’ for him. And now I’ve ruined everything, he thought, creeping stealthily up the path. He glanced down and realised that he should have credited Naomi with more sense. It wasn’t a real candle, after all.
There was no way Naomi was going to forget about the pumpkin, but to be on the safe side, she put it on the step outside the front door where she and Cassie would more or less fall over it the following morning. She turned on the artificial tea light candle to illuminate it from the inside and leaned back to admire her handiwork. Understandably, the school wouldn’t allow real candles, but the artificial ones flickered in almost the same way.
Naomi shivered. It’s probably just the cold, she thought, peering into the inky darkness beyond the reach of the street light, but it does sometimes feel as though someone’s watching me. She closed and locked the door, then headed through to the kitchen to double-check that the back door was secure too before she hung the keys on a metal holder shaped like a black cat. Despite his promises to paint it orange to more closely resemble Pumpkin, Charlie hadn’t got around to it. He was probably too busy seeing Jessica behind my back, Naomi thought, an image of the curvy blonde kissing her husband filling her mind. She reached for the work surface to steady herself. Simply thinking about her husband and what they had lost was overwhelming. Although she had tried her hardest to banish all thoughts of him, there were times, like earlier in the evening, as she had been carving the pumpkin, when it was impossible. It was hard to deny his existence when there were so many daily reminders to the contrary, not least of which was looking at their beautiful daughter, who was the image of her dad. Naomi had felt guilty at times for preventing Charlie from seeing Cassie, but it was a form of self-preservation. Explaining to a five-year-old the reasons why her mummy and daddy were no longer living together was something she couldn’t face at the moment. It was easier for him not to be in their lives. Eventually she might be strong enough to allow him to visit, but not yet; it was too raw, too painful to even contemplate.
‘Right, Pumpkin. What do you fancy for your dinner tonight, rabbit or turkey?’ she asked the ginger tom in an effort to blot out her thoughts of Charlie with routine. Pumpkin had purred rhythmically and brushed past her legs repeatedly in response.
‘Rabbit it is,’ Naomi said, spooning the food into his bowl and placing it on the plastic mat covered in miniature paw prints. ‘At least you love me,’ she added, tickling him behind his ears, ‘even if it is only because I feed you.’
She flicked off the kitchen light, leaving the door to the lounge ajar to give Pumpkin the choice between the comfort of the sofa or his fleece-lined basket.
Although it was only a little after 9 p.m., Naomi was barely able to raise one foot in front of the other as she had dragged herself up the stairs and undressed for bed before heading to the bathroom.
The harsh overhead light was less than flattering as Naomi ex. . .
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