Page 36 of Mad Mabel

I blinked at her.

“I mean, I know you probably have about fifty friends already,” she added quickly, “but I don’t. And being the new girl is rotten. So, I’m relying on the kindness of a good few. What do you say?”

There were many things I wanted to say. Too many. So many that I found myself unable to speak at all. Undeterred, Daphne plowed on. “You’re probably wondering what I bring to the table. Good question. First, I’m loyal. Buried-the-body-without-asking loyal. Okay, slight fib—I’d ask, but only once the body was good and buried and we were somewhere with thick curtains. Second—”

My mouth twitched.

“—I can talk my way out of anything. The key is to keep talking. Never stop. Just keep throwing words like spaghetti at a wall until they get tired and let you go.”

She wasn’t wrong. It was the same energy that had made me adore her in kindergarten. That oddball confidence. That whiff of chaos.

“Anyway, that’s just the trailer,” she said. “What do you think? Friends?”

She extended her pinkie toward me like a royal scepter. And without meaning to, I lifted mine to meet it.

“There. It’s done. You can’t break a pinkie swear. Not ever.”

I didn’t know that. But I liked the sound of it. So I nodded.

“Guess we’re stuck with each other now,” she said.

Oh, how I hoped so.

Daphne stayed the whole afternoon, parked beside my bed,chatting away like a radio show without an off switch. I’m not sure I got a full sentence in. But I didn’t mind. I’d had enough of my own thoughts to last a lifetime. Her monologue was everything I didn’t know I needed. When she finally rolled away, I was exhausted—in the best possible way. And that night, as I drifted off to sleep in my balcony-less hospital room, the world felt a shade less gray.

I’d found my bosom friend.

21

Five days after my mother died, she rose from the dead. Like Jesus in the tomb, only it took my mother a couple of extra days.

I was being discharged from the hospital when a young nurse swept into my room, all bounce and brightness, as if the walls weren’t still heavy with death. “Your mother has arrived,” she announced with a smile.

And for a split second—I believed her.

Of course, I knew it wasn’t true. I’d held the knowledge of my mother’s death like a burning coal for five days. But grief plays tricks, and something in me—some foolish, fragile part—looked to the doorway expecting her. Hoping.

When I saw the figure silhouetted there, my heart cracked all over again.

“Her aunt,” Cess corrected, stepping into the room with her arms folded. “Her aunt has arrived. For pity’s sake.”

Cess wore a black pencil skirt and a black shell top and black pumps. I’d never seen Cess wear so much black. “Ready, Mabel?”

“Ready.”

I’d packed my clothes, my toiletries, my books, and my journal. But I wasn’t sure I was ready. My bones were set and healing, there was nothing they could do for me in the hospital that rest at home couldn’t do. And Daphne had been discharged the day before, so there was nothing more for me there. And yet, as Cess signed the paperwork, took my bag, and guided me to the parking lot, I felt leaden with dread.

A Mass booklet was waiting for me on the passenger seat and a picture of my mother beamed back at me from the cover.

“I saved that for you,” Cess said. “Not as good as your mother picking you up, I know.”

I opened my mouth to say thank you. When nothing came out, she nodded and started the ignition.

“Your father left for London this morning,” Cess said, as we drove.

I nodded. I was glad he wasn’t going to be there, obviously, principally because with him gone, I’d thought I could lie to myself that Mum and Dad had gone on another trip. But my father was right, as it turned out. I was a terrible liar. And with every inch closer we got to Rosehill, the less I was able to lie about where she was.

The neighbors waved uncomfortably as we pulled onto the street. Mrs. Harris muttered a greeting as she came home, pushing two kids in a stroller with another one on her heels. Mr. Watkins, the gardener, was weeding the front garden and he told us he’d cut some lilies—Mum’s favorite—and put them in vases around the house. If he thought it was rude that neither Cess nor I responded, he didn’t show it.