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“So what do you suggest?” Jack asked her helplessly.

Hanna threw out her hands. “It might be a start if you told her you’d made a colossal mistake and want to come home.”

Jenna looked at Jack and decided not to come to his rescue, in spite of not being sure she’d want him back now anyway. She might still love him and wish it was possible to erase these last few months, but she was beginning to realize that she’d lost respect for him, and without that—and trust—they were never going to stand a chance.

“I have to be true to myself,” Jack said quietly.

Hanna’s temper flared again. “And being true to yourself is blowing my sister’s inheritance, almost getting her charged with fraud, making her afraid she was about to lose her home—oh, and shacking up with another woman when you’ve got four children at home. How are you liking that truth, Jack? How well is it working for you? Because I can tell you this, it’s not working for me at all.”

Jack eyed her darkly. “You’ve always had too much to say for yourself, too high an opinion of—”

“Stop,” Jenna cut in sharply, “both of you. The younger ones are just on the other side of that door, and frankly I don’t want to listen to any more of this. All that matters to me is that my children are safe. I understand that matters to you too, Jack—”

“Which is why he shot off to the States,” Hanna interjected.

“And he came back when Paige was in trouble,” Jenna pointed out. “He has a lot of ground to make up with her, there’s no doubt about that, and I’m not paving the way for you, Jack. I’ll do what I can to help her through everything, obviously, and as soon as I feel that a rift between you is having a detrimental effect on her I will get on the case. Until then, think about what she’s just been through, remind yourself that everything’s about her, not you, and for God’s sake start taking her rejection like a man instead of hanging around here feeling sorry for yourself all the time. Oh, and let’s be perfectly clear about this: the real reason you want to hurry up and get back on terms with her is so you can return to the States to be with your mistress.”

“Yes,”
Hanna whispered behind her.

Jenna turned to glare at her.

“It needed to be said,” Hanna pointed out.

Kay came to pat her back. “Yes it did, Jenna,” she told her. “I’m sorry, Jack, but it really did.”

“So you’re all ganging up on me now,” he said sourly.

“Yes, we are,” Paige told him from the back door.

As everyone turned round, Jenna asked. “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” Paige replied, hanging Waffle’s lead on its hook. “Mum’s right, Dad, you’re only staying until I’ve said it’s all right that you fell for someone else and that I understand, but I’m never going to understand it. Perhaps one day it won’t matter anymore, but right now it does and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t. You’ve hurt the person I love most in the world, and she really didn’t deserve it. You’ve hurt all of us too, me, Josh, and the twins, and we didn’t deserve it either. That’s not to say I don’t love you, because I know that on some level I still do, but it’ll never be the same between us again, and that’s what I’m finding really hard. You’ve ruined what we had, but instead of understanding that, you seem to think everything’ll be all right just as long as we play by your new rules. Well, it’s not going to happen. It can’t, because what you’ve done has changed everything. I’m Mum’s best friend now, not you, and she’s mine. You can be a part of it, but you’ll never be at the center of it the way you used to be. I expect it’ll be easier for you with Josh and the twins, because they’re younger, but don’t think they won’t know as they get older that you put someone else before them. That’s not me saying I’ll tell them you did, because I won’t; they’ll work it out for themselves, and they’ll realize that we have the best mum in the world who loves us more than anything and would do anything for us, and a dad who loves us and would do anything for us provided it doesn’t get in the way of what he wants. Good luck with that, Dad. I hope it goes well for you, but don’t ask me to forgive you right now, because I can’t.” Leaving them all speechless, she clicked her fingers for Waffle to follow and took herself off upstairs.

Jack’s face was even paler than Jenna’s as he stared at the empty doorway.

In the end, Jenna said, “I hope, when you’ve stopped thinking about how this is affecting you, Jack, that you’ll spare a moment to feel proud of her for being able to speak her mind the way she just did.”

Jack’s eyes came to hers as he said, “I think I already do.”

Paige was in her mother’s car outside the Dylan Thomas Centre. Her grandma, Bena, and Auntie Hanna were in the car behind, while Josh, the twins, and Waffle were at home being looked after by Mrs. Keys from the village. The children were too young to come to a play like this, even though they’d been mad keen to see their sister perform.

“I expect you’re going to be famous after,” Flora told her so earnestly that her little glasses steamed up with the excitement of it, “and everyone will want your autograph. Can I have it now so I’ll be the first?”

Paige had dutifully signed the back of a drawing, the only piece of paper Flora had been able to find. Josh and Wills were next in line, with an old envelope in Josh’s case and a birthday card in Wills’s.

In truth, Paige still wasn’t sure she could go through with it. Though she’d been attending rehearsals for the past week, which had all gone well, it wasn’t the same as having to stand up in front of an audience that the recently expelled Kelly Durham or one of the Durmites might have snuck into.

On the other hand, she was determined not to let them win. She wanted to do this. She loved the play and knew how much it would mean to her mother to see her in the lead role. Oliver was coming, and that meant a lot to her, even if he didn’t want to go out with her. She’d feel a proper loser if she backed out now, and yet the truth was she desperately wanted to.

“Are you OK?” her mother asked gently.

Paige nodded. She was glad they were in the car park next to the river, well past the hotel she’d seen her dad coming out of with Martha the last time she was here. They’d obviously been in there screwing, which made her feel sick and angry with him all over again.

He probably wouldn’t come tonight after the way she’d spoken to him the last time she’d seen him.

Good. She didn’t want him here anyway. He wasn’t a part of their lives anymore.

Swallowing the tears that suddenly threatened, she said to her mother, “Did you know that Olivia was supposed to be performing Stravinsky’s memorial piece tonight?”

“You mean ‘Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night’?” her mother replied. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“She’s not now. Miss Kendrick confirmed today that she’d pulled out. I wonder if she and Owen might come to see the play anyway.”

“It’s probably more likely that they’ve already gone to Kent with their aunt,” Jenna reminded her.

Paige wasn’t entirely sure why, but it made her feel horribly sad to realize she might never see them again. “I keep thinking about her,” she admitted, “and wishing she’d had the courage to make friends in the proper way. We’d have made her feel a part of our family—and shown her what we’re really like.”

Smiling at the irony, Jenna said, “I’m afraid she wasn’t capable of connecting in a normal way, which is a great pity. She probably could have been a lovely friend.”

“When I think about all those vile things people said about me and Dad and then I think about her…She was really going through it, and he’s her
real
dad, for God’s sake. It’s so horrible, and her mum was a part of it. Can you imagine how bad it must have been? I hope they get sent to prison for the rest of their lives.”

“I don’t think the sentence is as long as that,” Jenna responded, “but it ought to be.” After smoothing Paige’s hair, she said, “Are you ready to go in now?”

“I guess so,” Paige replied, feeling another surge of nerves swamping her resolve.

When she didn’t move, Jenna said, “If you’ve changed your mind…”

“I haven’t. I just…” Spotting Auntie Hanna and Bena waiting out in the cold, she opened the car door. “I’m going in now,” she declared to her mother. “You don’t have to come with me.”

Since they’d brought Paige early for costume and makeup, Jenna said, “We’ll probably go across the road for a drink, but I’ll keep my phone turned on in case you need me.”

“OK. Thanks, but don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

Famous last words.

An hour and a half later Paige was at the side of the stage with Captain Cat, Rosie Probert, and the five drowned sailors ready to begin at the beginning. Cullum and Charlotte, who were playing Mr. Edwards and Miss Price, were still hanging back, but they didn’t need to be ready for their cues yet. Paige’s opening speech was a long one, and though she knew it by heart, right now she couldn’t think of a single word.

“Breathe,” Miss Kendrick whispered in her ear. “Nice deep breaths.”

Doing as she was told, Paige felt the lines slowly reassembling, all the richly witty and outlandish adjectives, the strange and thrilling use of verbs, the poetic conjuring of the sleeping town of Llareggub. From the other side of the curtain she could hear the burble of voices, and she tried to picture where her mother was sitting, and Oliver, and Kelly Durham if she’d managed to sneak in. Once the lights went up she wouldn’t be able to see the audience, so she wouldn’t know where anyone was, which might be a good thing.

What was she going to do if everyone started catcalling and booing?

Die and never put herself in this position again.

“OK, make with the dry ice,” Miss Kendrick instructed Lloyd Brace, one of the stagehands.

As the predawn mist began to billow over the stage, Paige felt a sudden, desperate urge to flee. She might have done so, were she not frozen to the spot in panic.

Breathe. Just keep breathing.

Captain Cat—aka Tom Parsons the class clown—was going onstage to lie on his bunk.

As he disappeared in the mist Miss Kendrick’s hand touched Paige’s arm, gently easing her into position.

When the curtain went up she would be performing solo for a full three minutes. Everyone would be watching her, listening to her delivery of the world-famous lines, assessing her understanding of how they should be spoken, judging how worthy she was of this great honor. A female almost never took on the role of First Voice; it had been written for a man, and the Thomas diehards, the purists, would want to see and hear it performed by a man.

They were going to hate her, boo her, and shout her off.

From the corner of her eye she caught Miss Kendrick’s arm going down, Lloyd’s cue to raise the curtain, and hers to begin at the beginning.

She heard herself speaking the words: “To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town…” The audience could see her now, a girl, an impostor seeming to float in a groundswell of fog, an apparition in Llareggub. “…starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent…”

There wasn’t a murmur in the room; the only sound was her, speaking softly, lyrically, wryly, with Captain Cat, asleep on his bunk, being slowly revealed.

She wasn’t sure at which point she lost the sense of herself and became totally immersed in the bizarre and wonderful tragicomedy; she only knew on a level too distant to touch that there was nothing apart from the hilarious and intriguing oddities of the characters, their dreams, rivalries, disappointments, passions, and the day they were spending “Under waking Wood.”

Until finally Polly Garter met Mr. Waldo in the forest, and “the thin night darkens” and Llareggub was quiet again.

As the cast took the applause Paige could feel herself shaking so violently that it was hard to smile, even to move forward to take a bow. She’d landed back in reality with a crashing thud. She couldn’t believe that they were at the end of the play, that she’d got through it, that it was over and no one had howled, cackled, or done anything but laugh in all the right places and hang on to each and every word. A sea of faces was bobbing in front of her, one indistinguishable from another, as hands pounded together and whistles flew like cheers through the air.

She spotted her mother sitting with Richard, Auntie Hanna, and Bena, Grandma with Oliver just in front, and so much pride welled up in her that she was ready to burst. Then she saw two figures standing at the back, both blond and looking right at her. Her heart caught with surprise, but even as their eyes connected Olivia and Owen turned like ghosts and left.

It was time for her single bow. She stepped forward, smiling so hard it kept turning to sobs of laughter. Her eyes swept the audience again and again and stopped when they found her dad sitting alone, near the back. Now he was standing, hands held high as he clapped, pride oozing from every part of him.

He’d come, and though she’d felt sure he would, she hadn’t realized how happy that would make her too.

You were totally awesome. O.

She showed Charlotte the text in the dressing room, her heart thundering with excitement, adrenaline still pumping through her veins.