Tell Me No Secrets by Julie Corbin

from me before she pushes her way back into my life. I can’t afford to make a mistake with this.
    I take the photograph off the wall and go into the kitchen where my mother is spreading pink icing over the surface of a twelve-inch cake. As I open the door, she looks up, startled. Her face is flushed a raspberry hue and she’s breathing hard as if she’s just been running.
    â€˜Oh, it’s you, Grace,’ she says, moving around the table to greet me. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ She gives me a perfunctory hug then steps back and looks at me, exasperated. ‘If you’ve come for the cakes then I haven’t finished them yet.’
    â€˜I know they won’t be ready until Saturday.’ I kiss her warm cheek. ‘I’m not here to rush you.’ I show her the photo. ‘Do you mind if I borrow this?’
    â€˜Of course not.’ She waves the palette knife. ‘Keep it.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ I slip it into my handbag, not really sure why I want it.
    â€˜Wonder how Orla’s doing now,’ she says casually.
    I shrug. ‘No idea. She just upped and disappeared.’
    â€˜She did write to you, Grace.’ She gives me a sharp look. ‘You were the one who let it slide.’
    There’s no arguing with that. I lift a couple of mugs off the hooks. ‘I’ve just been chatting to Dad. I came in to get us a cup of tea. Why don’t you stop for a minute and join us?’
    â€˜No, no, no! I’m busy with the finishing touches.’ She examines the smoothness of the icing from several angles. ‘You go and talk to him. He has some ridiculous notion about painting the house. I have the cakes to do and lunch will be ready soon. You’re staying, I take it?’
    I hesitate. ‘Only if it’s convenient.’
    She frowns at me. ‘Since when have I given my own daughter the impression that her visits are inconvenient?’
    â€˜I didn’t mean it like that, Mum.’ I put teabags in the mugs. ‘Of course, I’d love to stay for lunch. I know it’s a lot with the cakes, that’s all.’
    â€˜I’ve been making the girls’ cakes since they had their first birthday.’ She reaches over and takes the teabag out of my father’s mug. ‘Not those teabags, Grace! Give him some peppermint. He’s been having trouble with his stomach.’
    â€˜What sort of trouble?’ I try to sound casual, add the boiling water to the mugs and look her full in the face. ‘Mum, is Dad not well?’
    â€˜Oh, you know your father.’ She breezes past me and takes another knife from the drawer. ‘Always in denial.’
    I wonder whether to mention the blood on the hankie but she’s left the kitchen and is inside the pantry, humming purposefully. I take the tea outside and sit down on the bench beside my dad. ‘I hear your stomach’s giving you gyp?’
    â€˜Who, me?’ He looks behind him as if there might be someone else around. ‘Fighting fit and raring to go, I am. It’s just an excuse for your mother to get me started on a health kick.’ He takes a sip of the tea and screws up his face. ‘So how are my granddaughters?’
    â€˜Why not have the doctor check you over, Dad? One of those well man clinics, you know?’
    â€˜I know I’m getting old, toots. That much I know. No point in digging around. It’ll only stir it all up. Look at Angus. Never a day’s worry until the hospital got their hands on him. And Mo.’ He gives a weary shake of his head. ‘She was the same.’
    â€˜Please?’ I take hold of his hand and bring it on to my lap. ‘Please, Dad. For me.’
    â€˜Well . . . I don’t know, lass.’ His face moves through reluctance and irritation, eyebrows meeting in a frown and then rising again as he settles on maybe. ‘You were always one for getting your own