The bar was louder than Linda remembered.

  Not busy-loud—just the wrong kind of noise. Voices overlapping without meaning. Laughter that landed too sharply. Music turned down but not off, like the room couldn’t decide whether it wanted to listen to itself.

  The smell hit first. Oil. Old beer. Disinfectant under it all, faint but familiar enough to make her stomach tighten.

  Jolie guided her through the door with a hand at her back, light but firm. Not pushing. Just making sure she didn’t stop.

  Linda’s phone buzzed in her coat pocket.

  She already knew.

  She answered anyway.

  “Jamie saw Skye,” Simon said, low and urgent. “He knows.”

  The room tilted.

  Linda closed her eyes, counted her breath the way she used to with patients who were about to panic. In for four. Hold. Out.

  “He won’t leave it,” she said. “Not now he’s seen her.”

  There was a pause. Then, softer: “I know.”

  She ended the call before either of them could say more.

  Jolie watched her face change. “What?”

  Linda swallowed. Her hand went to her sleeve without thinking, fingers brushing fabric where skin waited underneath.

  “He knows,” she said. “He’s seen her.”

  Jolie’s jaw tightened—not dramatically. Just enough that Linda noticed. “Okay,” she said. “Then we do this now.”

  They moved to the bar.

  Mick looked up, irritation already forming. “She’s missed three shifts this week,” he started, eyes flicking to Jolie. “I don’t care what—”

  Then he saw Linda.

  Everything softened.

  “Oh,” he said. “Mrs Harper. Christ. I—” He stopped himself. “How are you?”

  Linda stared at the bar top. The scratches. The old ring stains. Evidence of other people’s nights.

  “I’m not okay,” she said.

  The honesty surprised them both.

  Mick nodded once. “Right.” He grabbed two glasses. “What’ll you have?”

  “Whatever’s fastest,” Jolie said.

  “On the house,” Mick said, nodding toward Linda. Then to Jolie, almost apologetic, “You still pay.”

  Jolie managed a thin smile. “Fair.”

  As Mick poured, Jolie leaned in. “Yesterday morning,” she said quietly. “There was a woman here. Older. Pale. Neat hair. Thin coat.”

  Mick frowned. “Lot of people come through.”

  Linda looked up then. “She spoke to my daughter.”

  That did it.

  Mick hesitated. Then his eyes dropped—caught the edge of the bandage peeking from Linda’s sleeve.

  He didn’t comment. Just turned, already reaching under the bar.

  “I’ve got CCTV,” he said. “I shouldn’t—” He sighed. “I can show you a bit. Not long.”

  Relief hit Linda so fast it hurt.

  “Thank you,” she said, voice breaking.

  “You can thank me by making sure Alice turns up for her shifts,” Mick replied.

  Jolie nodded quickly. “Deal.”

  They waited.

  The footage loaded slowly, the screen flickering like it didn’t want to cooperate. A soft electrical hum filled the space. Linda felt her pulse in her throat.

  The image jumped. Stuttered. Then settled.

  Linda braced for nothing.

  That was the worst part — not knowing what shape the answer would take.

  There she was.

  The woman sat at the bar, hands folded, posture too deliberate. Speaking to Alice. Watching her the way clinicians watched patients when they were deciding how much truth they could handle.

  Jolie leaned closer. “Can you—zoom?”

  Stolen story; please report.

  Mick snorted. “It’s not CSI.”

  Then paused. Tapped a few keys. “Actually... yeah. I can.”

  The image sharpened.

  Linda inhaled sharply.

  “Oh my god.”

  Her mouth went dry, like her body recognised the woman before her brain allowed it.

  Jolie turned. “What?”

  Linda didn’t answer at first. The room seemed to pull away from her, sounds stretching thin.

  “I remember her,” Linda said.

  The words came out before she could soften them.

  “She was one of mine. Oncology.” Her voice steadied as the facts clicked back into place. “Terminal. Calm. Only took pain meds when she had to.”

  Her hands curled into fists. “She was one of the last people I saw before they called me in. Before...” She couldn’t finish it.

  Jolie’s hand hovered, then rested on Linda’s wrist. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” Linda nodded, once, firm. “She asked me what happened to my daughter. Not clinically. Personally.”

  The implication settled between them.

  The woman on the screen reached for Alice’s hand.

  Linda flinched.

  Mick shifted behind the bar. “You want me to save this?”

  Linda hesitated.

  This was how it started. Grasping. Looking for meaning where none existed. She’d sworn she wouldn’t do this again.

  Then she saw Skye’s face in her mind. Confused. Alive. Waiting.

  “Yes,” Linda said. “Please.”

  Mick nodded. “I’ll keep it quiet.”

  Jolie exhaled, long and shaky. “Okay,” she said. “We have something now.”

  Linda watched the screen as the footage looped back to the beginning.

  For the first time since Skye came home, the fear loosened—not gone, not fixed—but redirected.

  Forward.

  Whatever was happening hadn’t started with her family.

  And it wasn’t finished with them yet.

  ———

  The screen looped — the woman’s hand reaching, Alice’s face listening — and Linda heard a different sound over it, sudden and sharp in her head.

  A kettle.

  Five Years Ago — the morning everything split.

  The memory came uninvited — the last time a name had felt dangerous.

  The kettle’s scream — sharp, domestic, impossible to ignore — stayed with Linda longer than it should have.

  Even after the door shut. Even after the cold bit into her face and the car keys cut a neat line into her palm. The sound followed her down the path like something alive, like the house itself protesting being left.

  She didn’t turn back.

  Simon was already in the driver’s seat, shoulders hunched forward as he started the engine. The windscreen was misted over, Suffolk fog pressing itself flat against the glass. The car smelled faintly of damp coats and petrol and the citrus cleaner Linda used when she needed things to feel managed.

  She pulled the seatbelt across her chest too hard. It locked. She tugged again, sharp, irritated, and then forced herself to breathe as it released.

  “Even in the last moments you still somehow get dressed quicker than me,” Simon said, trying for light. It came out wrong.

  Linda stared straight ahead. The house receded in the mirror—brick, curtains, Skye’s bedroom window dark — the room she still thought of by the other name. The name pressed against her skull even as she refused it.

  Simon pulled away from the kerb.

  For a while, they drove in the thin, careful silence that had become muscle memory. Indicators clicked. Tyres whispered over wet tarmac. Somewhere, a radio presenter laughed at something neither of them heard.

  Simon cleared his throat. “Linda.”

  Her jaw tightened. She already knew what was coming. She could feel it, like pressure building behind her eyes.

  “About earlier,” he said. “In the kitchen.”

  “No,” she said. Not loud. Immediate.

  He sighed through his nose, fingers tightening on the wheel. “I’m just saying—we can’t keep doing this. Not forever.”

  She turned to him then. “Doing what?”

  “You know what,” he said gently, which made it worse. “The name. The stopping. The—” He searched for the right word and failed. “The pretending that our child is still the same as before.”

  Linda laughed, short and sharp. “Pretending? You think this is pretending?”

  “I think it’s delaying,” Simon said. “And I don’t know what you think you’re delaying for.”

  The fog thickened as they hit the main road, swallowing hedges and signposts whole. Linda watched the white lines appear and vanish beneath the bonnet like something being erased.

  “I’m buying time,” she said.

  “For who?” Simon asked.

  “For him,” she snapped. “For Luke.”

  Simon glanced at her, then back to the road. “You don’t get to decide how long that takes.”

  “I’m his mother.”

  “And I’m his father.”

  The words landed heavy between them.

  Linda folded her arms tightly, nails digging into the soft skin at her elbows. She could feel her pulse there, fast and insistent. “You don’t understand what happens once we say it,” she said. “Once we let it out into the open. You think it stops with us?”

  “No,” Simon said. “But I think pretending it doesn’t exist is worse.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t see his face this morning. He was trying. He was careful. If we rush this, if we push—”

  “Push?” Simon interrupted. “Linda, we’re not pushing him.He’s asking.”

  The fog thinned briefly, revealing a row of houses sliding past. Linda caught her reflection in the side window—tight mouth, eyes too bright. She looked like someone bracing for impact.

  “What if we get it wrong,” she said, and hated herself for how small it sounded. “What if we lock him into something he can’t undo?”

  Simon’s grip on the wheel shifted. “That’s not how this works.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know that refusing to see him won’t make him safer.”

  Linda swallowed hard. The truth was there, sharp and dangerous: I’m scared. Not of Luke—but of what the world would do once it saw him clearly. Of what couldn’t be controlled. Of what might be taken.

  She couldn’t say that. If she said it, it would be real.

  Simon softened, voice dropping. “He won’t stay forever if we keep this up.”

  She scoffed. “He’s twelve.”

  “He’s growing,” Simon said. “And one day he will leave. Or he’ll stop talking to us. Or—”

  “Or what?” Linda snapped.

  Simon hesitated. Just long enough.

  “Or worse.”

  The word hung there, ugly and unfinished.

  Linda turned fully toward him now. “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”

  “I’m not threatening,” he said quickly. “I’m afraid.”

  That did it.

  Linda laughed again, brittle. “You’re afraid? I’m the one who gets the calls. I’m the one who sees what happens to kids who don’t fit into neat boxes. You think a name fixes that?”

  “No,” Simon said. “But love does.”

  She looked away. The road bent, the car following without thought. “He has that,” she said. “He has us. He has Alice.”

  Simon’s shoulders slumped slightly. “That’s another thing.”

  “What?”

  “We’re putting too much on her,” he said. “She’s eighteen, Linda. She didn’t choose to be a buffer.”

  Linda closed her eyes briefly. An image flashed—Alice standing in doorways, watching, intervening, swallowing her own anger to keep the peace. Guilt pricked at her, sharp and unwelcome.

  “She’s an adult,” Linda said. “She can handle responsibility.”

  “She’s still our child.”

  “So is Luke,” Linda shot back. “And he needs protecting.”

  The car slowed as they approached the hospital. The building loomed out of the fog, grey and impersonal. Linda felt the familiar tightening in her chest—the shift from home to work, from mother to nurse. Roles she could manage. Labels she understood.

  Simon pulled into the staff drop-off and cut the engine. The sudden silence rang.

  “I’m not saying do it today,” he said quietly. “I’m saying... don’t be surprised if one day he asks again. And doesn’t wait for our say so.”

  Linda opened the door before she could answer. Cold air rushed in, shocking. She stepped out, the ground solid beneath her feet.

  “He’ll be fine,” she said, turning back to him. “He’s careful. And he’s got his sister.”

  Simon met her gaze, something tired and sad there. “I hope you’re right.”

  She slammed the door harder than necessary and walked toward the entrance, badge already in her hand. Behind her, the car idled for a moment before pulling away.

  Linda didn’t look back.

  She didn’t see the fog swallow the road again.

  She didn’t know that the sound of the engine fading was the last ordinary sound she’d ever hear from that morning.