Eggshell Days (39 page)
Authors: Rebecca Gregson
That was the way to do it, she thought, thinking of the human chaos of the last few weeks. Will we still be here to miss you? she wondered.
In the distance, at the pond's edge, a group of mallards walked in fileâa drake with its unmistakable green head and white neck ring, followed by his two adoring ducks. Their nests in the bamboo and reeds had been under constant attack from foxes and badgers. Asha had cried over the smashed eggs and sticky feathers, and yet still the ducks walked, heads up, expecting.
“It's nature,” she'd told her daughter. “It's what happens.”
She watched her own young, letting the soothing sound of their bike wheels on the gravel drive wash over her, not unlike waves over pebbles. From another corner of the garden, she could hear the sound of Jonathan hammering, mending a garden bench.
In the cushions next to her, Lila's chubby little hand reached out and picked up a toy cup, her fat wrist rotating in the air. Simple pleasures, Sita thought. Simple lives. Kind of.
The phone rang inside the house.
“Can you get that, darling?” she shouted to Jay. “You're faster than I am.”
“I will,” Asha cried. “I will.”
Sita pulled herself up and started to walk inside after them, expecting it to be Emmy.
“It's James Culworthy-King,” Jay said on the steps, trying not to feel as if he had just drunk a pint of lead. “He's got someone else interested. He wants to know when the bus is going.”
The sound of hammering stopped. Lila dropped her cup.
Jonathan walked over to his family and the four of them stood by the oil patch, in the space where the wheels had once been.
“Well,” he said quietly, “what do you think we should tell him?”
Sita, Jay and Asha looked at him hopefully.
“Go on. I'm listening.”
“I think we should tell him it's still here,” Jay said.
“And another one has come, too,” Asha suggested.
“A peace convoy,” Sita said. “To celebrate the summer solstice.”
They trooped into the house together, and when they came back out a minute later they looked at the blanket on the lawn and saw that Lila was sitting up, straight-backed, perfectly balanced, without cushions, all on her own.
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Contents
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin's Press.
EGGSHELL DAYS
. Copyright © 2002 by Rebecca Gregson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
First published in Great Britain by Pocket Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd.
First U.S. Edition: August 2003
eISBN 9781250089908
First eBook edition: June 2015
