Page 172 of Pull Me Under

‘Nothing’s wrong. I just – I have to go somewhere. Kit’s coming with me. We might be gone a day or two.’

‘And you want me to nursemaid your dad?’ Tom’s voice is distracted, a faint bleating audible in the background.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Birthing a sheep.’

‘Right, lambing season. Right, well, my dad should be easy in comparison. Can you? It’s important.’

‘Important how?’

I take a breath. ‘I’m going to find Brynn. I’m going to Bristol. The district nurse is coming in, too, but…’ I could tell him that I’m also hoping to find my mum and my mystery sister, but I don’t. Finding Brynn is reason enough.

‘Right,’ Tom says finally. ‘I’ll pop round in the morning. Check he hasn’t choked on his own stubbornness. I’m practically a doctor.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Great minds.’ I can hear him grinning through the phone. ‘Go get her, mate. And Jude?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Don’t muck it up this time.’

Kit’s waiting by the truck, Maisie half-asleep on his shoulder.

‘Okay, get in, let’s do this.’

We load up. Maisie in the back, already curling into the blanket Kit brought. Kit in the passenger seat, the letters in his lap.

I start the engine.

‘Bristol,’ Kit says. ‘Four hours if we don’t stop.’

‘We’ll stop. Maisie needs breakfast.’

‘Maisie needs to meet her grandmother.’ Kit’s voice is thick. ‘And her aunt. Christ, Jude. She’s got an aunt she’s never met.’

Maisie stirs in the back seat. ‘Are we going on an adventure?’

‘Something like that, sweetheart.’

She’s out within seconds. The easy sleep of children, unburdened by the weight of what they don’t know.

I pull out of the village. The road unspools ahead, dark and empty, leading toward a woman who went to find my mother because I couldn’t.

Because she’s brave where I’m not.

Because she does the hard things while I hide.

Not anymore.

Kit’s quiet beside me, the letters clutched in his hands. Our mother’s words. Our sister’s existence. Everything we should have known, finally found.

‘Jude,’ Kit says.

‘Yeah?’

‘Thank you. For doing this. For—’ He stops. ‘I couldn’t have read those alone.’