The Imposter, Anna Wharton [romantic story to read TXT] 📗

particularly troubled stretch of water. Chloe looks between the two women. How many times have they sat across from one another over the years? How many years has this friendship endured? And has she always spoken to Maureen like this? Poor Maureen. She thinks of Patrick laying out the rules of her grief, and now Josie not allowing her a moment’s fantasy. Perhaps it was Josie who had stirred sugar into sweet tea on the day that Angie disappeared. Couldn’t she just allow her a little fancy now instead of shaming her for it? Why do people insist on being so tied to reality?

Maureen’s chair scrapes the kitchen floor.

‘How about a slice of cake?’ Maureen says, trying to sound cheerful.

Is this how it’s been for Maureen all these years? Both Patrick and Josie denying her an escape from real life, dragging her back to her heartbreak. She thinks of Park House, the residents there entitled to pick whatever year they want from their lives to revisit. They are living with a disease inside their brains, but is that really any different from the trauma Maureen lives with every single day? She thinks of that bathroom cabinet, and all the pills inside it that Maureen has to take just to get through the day. It’s all right for Patrick, all right for Josie. How dare either of them judge how this mother grieves?

Chloe pushes her chair back abruptly, knocking the table a little as she does.

‘Chloe?’ Maureen says. ‘Don’t you want to stay for some cake?’

‘No, I’ll leave you two to it,’ Chloe says, and she’s sure she sees a smile curl at Josie’s lips as she does. Maureen doesn’t argue with her, and as Chloe leaves the kitchen and climbs the stairs, she hears the two women talking, returning once more to the safety zone of their usual chatter.

THIRTY-ONE

Chloe stays in her room for the rest of the afternoon while her signal comes and goes on her phone. She sends Hollie a text wishing her a good trip, and feels grateful to have a best friend like her and not Josie downstairs, one who doesn’t ask too many questions. Through the gaps in the floorboards, their voices float up to Chloe’s bedroom, not that she catches any of their discussion. She doesn’t know why but something about Josie makes her feel nervous. She can’t put her finger on it. Perhaps it was simply the way she looked at Chloe.

Josie’s appearance at Elm House had momentarily made her forget all about the spare room. Does she feel any better for knowing what’s in that room now? That it was Maureen moving around on the other side of the wall in the darkness? Her guilty secret to sit among her daughter’s clothes and toys at night. No one could blame her for that. Except Patrick. Perhaps Josie thinks it’s wrong, too. It makes perfect sense to Chloe, though. After all, she’s blurred enough lines in her own life to stem disappointment, to ease the pain. Don’t we all to some extent? Aren’t we all just lying, even to ourselves, just to make life that bit more palatable? These are the little white lies that we tell every day to live with ourselves, and if we never tell anyone and they’re not discovered, how can anyone say they’re not true? If Maureen had kept her fantasy about watching Chloe to herself, then it would have burrowed itself deeper under her skin, colluding with its keeper. But now she’s told Patrick, she feels wrong – crazy even. But who’s to say that he is right and Maureen is wrong? People, things, places, they’re only as real as you make them.

At about four, she hears Patrick’s car on the drive. She sits up and looks out of her window, watching him coming in through the back door. She listens out, holding her breath in her room, wondering what he thinks of Josie – perhaps he colludes with her to tell Maureen she’s mad? Chloe reminds herself of her job here. She needs to see with her own eyes.

In the kitchen, Maureen and Josie are sitting at the table and Patrick is leaning against the worktop. No one says anything when Chloe walks in and starts making herself a drink, although she feels Patrick’s eyes on her as she opens the cupboard above the kettle. Her hand reaches for the coffee before she decides she needs something that will keep her in the kitchen for longer – tea brews. She picks up a teabag and drops it into her cup. She fills the kettle up to the top because she knows then it will take longer to boil, gifting her more time watching the interaction between Maureen, Patrick and Josie.

She’s surprised that Patrick doesn’t sit down at the table with the two women. The seat next to Josie is free, but instead, he stands next to Chloe as she waits for the kettle to boil. From what she sees he is not particularly friendly towards Josie; if anything, he’s quieter than usual. This piques her curiosity. Josie appears to be talking to both of them, telling them about someone they all know in Chestnut Avenue who has been ill. Maureen asks her questions but, Chloe notices, Patrick mostly keeps his eyes trained on his own shoes.

The kettle boils and clicks itself off.

‘Would anyone else like anything? Patrick?’ Chloe asks.

There’s a split second before he answers, as if he’s not really here in this room, as if he’s somewhere else entirely.

‘No, no thank you, Chloe.’ Patrick has never been this polite; it’s almost as if he’s a different person now Josie is here, as if he’s under scrutiny. But why?

Chloe watches Josie from under her fringe and she notices that since Patrick spoke Josie’s eyes are now trained on him. Maureen carries on talking, oblivious. But Chloe sees it, the way Josie clutches her handbag a little tighter on her lap, the way she pulls