rolled her eyes and sat down on the barstool next to her daughter. ‘Okay, so you have questions? I’ll answer them. I know this must be weird for you.’
‘I think it’s great! My friend Olivia’s dad isn’t married either. Her mum left.’ Esme shrugged, ‘Apparently she was overly good friends with the gardener, that’s what Olivia says.’
Mollie snorted a little to herself, ‘Well, I’m sorry for Olivia, that must be really sad for her.’
‘Olivia says I’m really lucky that I never knew my dad, because now I don’t miss him.’
Mollie tilted her head slightly, stroking her daughter’s hair and feeling that pang in her chest, that underlying fear that she wasn’t doing a good enough job, clawing at her once again.
‘Would you rather I didn’t go out on any more dates?’ Mollie looked into her daughter’s light eyes, so unlike her own, ‘I don’t mind. I’m happy without all of that.’
‘I don’t mind, Mum, God, whatever,’ Esme rolled her eyes, ‘but can I go to Olivia’s after school tonight? She was going to teach me a dance routine.’
Mollie frowned, ‘A dance routine?’
Esme shrugged, a slight blush on her cheeks as she took a bite of the toast, ‘Yeah.’
Mollie shrugged, deciding the intended heart-to-heart had been appropriately over the top for her child and agreed, hustling her out of the house and down to school. The days were getting cooler, that smell of autumn leaves as Camden exploded into yellows and oranges. The leaves were scattered on the ground and Esme loved to crunch on them as they walked. Some days, Evie joined Mollie on the walk, and they swung Esme between them, other days it was just Mollie, taking that all important time to chat with her kid.
They stopped at the school gates, and Mollie looked past her child to the other children in the school yard, ‘Are you enjoying school Ez? If you ever want to have your friends over to the studio, we can do something, you know...’
‘Mum! I’ve got to go, okay!’ Esme huffed, ‘Whatever! Come get me from Olivia’s house. Her dad’s gonna text you the address.’
Mollie felt her chest tighten, that she was just meant to let her kid go with these people. She’d seen Olivia, at school, but hadn’t seen this mysterious green-fingered mum, or the jilted dad. But Esme had been quiet and withdrawn those first few weeks at the new school, having left all of her friends behind in Badgeley when they moved over the summer. This was the first friend she’d mentioned, and Mollie couldn’t bear to disappoint her.
‘Okay, I love you.’
Esme rolled her eyes again, briefly kissed her mum’s cheek, and ran off into the school playground. Mollie frowned as she noticed all of the badges and patches were missing from Esme’s backpack. Something wasn’t right. She felt it in the pit of her stomach. Esme was changing.
She thought about it as she walked back to the studio, making lists in her head of all the small things that had changed since the school term had started.
Esme had always been different, in the most beautiful and wonderful way. She was like a time portal. She loved music Mollie had never even introduced to her, and had a strange understanding of how people interacted. She often saw things before adults did. She saw Evie and Killian getting together from the beginning. She recognised Mollie’s relationship with her own mother, Linda, easily, constantly telling her to forgive Grandma and trust that she had the best intentions. Esme was a much better person than she was. And that was her greatest achievement as a mother.
But something didn’t sit right.
Mollie walked straight into the kitchen of the studio and got to work. There was an event she was catering, a small amount of baking for a local couple’s engagement party that weekend. That would be done easily enough. And then onto the prep for tomorrow’s segment on morning TV, thanks to Ilyaria, who lived in Camden Square and worked in television, championing their events and promoting them like no one’s business. Once she’d mentioned her new venture, Mollie Makes, fuelled by passion for healthy eating and a few too many glasses of Prosecco at a launch one night, Ilyaria hadn’t stopped until she had ten kids’ parties and an after-school club interested in what she could offer. She called last week to say they needed someone for their morning news segment. And there Mollie was, with a sudden moment of fame, and she wanted to vomit.
But first, coffee.
Killian wandered in at five past nine, the same as every day, and reached for the coffee pot. It was one of the things she liked about her working day, the fact that Evie’s boyfriend worked in the room in the back of the studio, and was always happy to have a chat and sample some of her first cookies of the day. This was part of the reason she’d been lulled into a false sense of security – Chelsea had found Kit, and Evie had found Killian. There were clearly good men out there. Men who didn’t know when to stop eating her freshly made cookies, and men who wanted to set her up with horrible obnoxious accountants, but good men. There was hope.
‘What’s that look for?’ He poured them each a cup of coffee from the pot, sliding one over to her, ‘Still grouchy about the date?’
‘Evie told you already?’ Mollie huffed. The other downside of her best friend and flatmate having a boyfriend who worked in the building.
Killian shrugged and ran a hand through his dark stubble, crossing his arms, ‘She felt guilty. Like they’d strong-armed you. She feels responsible. But, I was thinking...’
Mollie held up a finger, ‘Killian, I like you. I like that we have coffee every morning and that you’re crazy in love with my best friend. If you are about to suggest a set-up with one of your friends, I will kick your arse from here till Tuesday.’
Killian froze and then nodded, ‘Ah, that scary mama face. No wonder Esme’s an angel child.’
‘Well, that’s more what I’m worried about.’
Killian frowned, and leaned back against the cabinets, tilting his head in question.
‘I think something’s up with Esme. Do you think she seems happy?’
Killian shrugged, ‘She spent all summer at the skate park, playing with the local kids, she’s still her polite, book-obsessed self... sure, I think she’s happy.’
‘But she put her leather jacket away in the cupboard, her backpack hasn’t got any patches any more, and she’s hanging out with a girl who wants to teach her dance routines,’ Mollie frowned, ‘She hates that. It’s like when I gave her a Barbie doll and she turned the hair pink with a highlighter and cut it off.’
Killian shook his head, sipping at his coffee, ‘Molls, she’s gone into Year Six, she’s got one year to either ignore everyone and wait until secondary school, or try to make friends. It’s got to be pretty lonely, being as smart as Ez is. She lives in this awesome world where she has all these people who love her and she lives in an art centre. Her family are constantly doing these fun events, and people like me are being added gradually. She probably hasn’t got the same frame of reference as those other kids. And what you learn to do in that situation is hide the parts that are different, muffle them, just a bit. It’s survival instinct. Esme’s smart, but she’s not changing, she’s just blending in.’
Mollie tugged at her hair and sighed, ‘Yeah,
