The Quiet Restoration of Charlie Carter [ON HOLD]

2 | Friendship and forgiveness

I wasn't always a scream-in-a-crowded-room, jump-a-stranger kind of girl. Which is probably hard to believe when all you know about me is tonight.

That's the problem with travelling past normal – you fail to even start your own story in the right place.

If my maudlin tale did have a clear, true beginning, this house would no doubt be the setting. Her name is Marchmore and she wears her etched brass nameplate with pride. An old, red brick Edwardian with high ceilings and big rooms, Mum and Dad bought her when Sophie and I were babies. They did all the restoration work themselves – a labour of love and sweat and tears and crown molding and glossy oil-based paint.

Sophie and I used to skate down this hardwood hallway in our socks and ride air mattresses down the staircase. We built tents under the dining table and forts in the rambling garden. Dad made gingerbread pancakes in the kitchen on Sundays. Mum devoured book after book on the window seat in the study. After a party like tonight's, Sophie would sneak into my bed for the blow-by-blow rehash.

This house used to be full of fun and noise and laughter and so did I.

Now? Now there's just silence that screams louder than sirens. And permanently drawn curtains. And a faint musty smell that tells you grief lives here.

I let Noodles out for a wee and grab myself a glass of water. I empty the dishwasher. I fold clothes. When I can't possibly delay it any longer, I go in and check on Mum. The tray I brought her for dinner sits untouched on the walnut dresser. The clean pyjamas I laid out are still there on the wing-backed chair. Her bags from our summer at the farm remain unpacked. She's curled up in a ball under the bed clothes, so still and so lifeless that she might as well not be there at all.

Mum seemed okay while we were away. Not her normal self exactly, but she got dressed in the mornings, and she went for long walks on the beach, and she ate a bit.

I thought maybe when we got home things would be better than last year. That she'd keep improving. Maybe do some things with her friends. Go to the gym. Do some stuff around the house. Talk to work about easing back in.

But she didn't.

And so screaming silence prevails.

Noodles follows me upstairs to Sophie's room. He flops down in his favourite spot on the pink and cream pom-pom rug, and curls his shaggy, cavoodle body into a neat little chocolate-coloured ball. I climb onto my sister's queen-sized canopy bed and bury my head in the pillows. They used to smell just like Soph – a unique combination of coconut shampoo and Chanel perfume. Now I have to breathe in really hard just to get a whiff of her.

She's fading.

I hate it.

"Cha-Cha pick up, Cha-Cha pick up," screams the perkily annoying ring tone Odette made for herself. Shit, I forgot about Odette.