Then She Was Gone

by Lisa Jewell

I became fixated on you, Laurel.

And in watching you I became more and more familiar with Paul.

I just wanted to show myself to you and for you to like me. That’s all it was. For you to find me familiar.

by now I had had a DNA test done. By now I knew, with only 0.02 per cent of a chance of improbability, that Poppy was not my child and that the only person she truly belonged to was you.

Women like you did not like men like me. And I … No. There’s no defence for it. None. I took advantage. Plain and simple.

I hope this means that in the days that follow Poppy will be seamlessly assimilated into the Mack family. I’ve given her the bare bones of the truth. I will leave it to you to decide how much more she needs to know. And remember, this house and everything in it belongs to Poppy. She’ll more than pay her own way in life.

Noelle Donnelly is under there. Before that she was in a chest freezer in my cellar. She’d been in there since the night she told me about Ellie. The night she told me Poppy wasn’t mine.

I couldn’t go without telling someone and I know whatever you decide to do, it will be the right thing.

A quick glance through the front window tells Laurel that Floyd’s car is gone, and that so, by extension, is he.

Her baby. Her baby girl. Not tramping the back roads of England with a rucksack on her back, but locked in Noelle Donnelly’s basement growing a baby for her.

‘He told me that Noelle wasn’t my mum. He told me that your daughter was.’

‘Do I look like her?’ she says. ‘Yes. You look just like her.’

‘Was she as pretty as Hanna?’ Laurel is about to say, Oh, she was much prettier than Hanna. But catches herself. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘She was as pretty as Hanna.’

‘Are we still going to the party?’ she says. ‘Do you want to?’ ‘Yes. I want to see my family,’ she says. ‘I want to see my real family.’

At this juncture I have no idea what is worse: to break my daughter’s heart or to break my daughter’s heart and then spend the rest of my life either in hiding or in jail. Plan B at least does not involve a funeral.

I know that these are my last moments. And that is fine. That is absolutely fine. I put my hand into the plastic bag and I take out the gun.

Poppy calls her Mama. Not Granny. Not Mum. Not Laurel. Mama. She chose the appellation herself.

she has been the light and the joy, the sun around which Laurel and her family all orbit. Mostly she has just been a miracle.

Laurel’s mother finally passed away eight months ago. But not before she’d had a chance to meet Poppy.

Laurel hasn’t told Poppy the full truth about Ellie.

Neither has she told Poppy about the body in Floyd’s garden.

As for Floyd himself, Laurel told Poppy that he’d taken his own life because he felt so guilty about pretending to be Poppy’s father when he wasn’t.

Her daughter is dead and her mother is dead and her husband lives with a woman who is nicer than her in hundred different ways. But she is OK. Laurel is OK. She really is. Because she has Hanna and she has Jake and now she has Poppy and Theo too.

She sees something of herself in Sara-Jade, something important in some way, something to nurture.

Hanna and Poppy are the best thing to come out of the horror of Ellie’s disappearance. Poppy hero-worships Hanna and Hanna adores Poppy. They are virtually inseparable.

She smiles and Hanna winks at her and blows her a kiss. Her beautiful daughter. Her golden girl.

I don’t know where she is now or who is looking after her but please, please find her if you can. Please find her and look after her and tell her that I loved her. Tell her that I looked after her for as long as I could and that she was the best little baby in the world.

I want you to tell them all that I’m sorry and that I love them more than anything in the world and that none of them must feel bad about what happened to me because I am brave and I am brilliant and I am strong. Yours sincerely, Ellie Mack