The Returned by Seth Patrick Page A

course it had.
    ‘It’s over, Mum,’ said Chloé, holding her tight. ‘It’s OK.’
    She’d got Chloé to bed again, then had gone to bed herself. Checking the security locks on every door, closing all the curtains, crying and trembling in her bed.
    Thomas had come home soon after midnight and Adèle had pretended to be asleep. Her eyes were closed, and all she could see was Simon’s face.
    The last night she and Simon had spent together, she’d been working a shift in the Lake Pub while Simon’s band played. Every chance she could, she caught his eye, smiling, knowing
what she knew and wanting to tell him.
    After the set had finished, she’d gone to him, hugged him. A little red-headed girl, one of the Séguret twins, had sat in the band’s drum kit and started to mess around. The
girl’s father had told her off, but Simon had gone over and shown her what to do.
    Adèle had borrowed a camera, and caught the moment on film.
    The girl had probably been the same age as Chloé was now. Adèle imagined the picture, imagined Chloé in place of the twin, sitting at the drums and smiling. The closest
thing Adèle would ever have to seeing Simon as a father.
    She’d stuck the Polaroid on the pub’s photo wall ten years ago, and she’d not been back in that building since. Not once.
    They had spent the night in her apartment, and the night was long and good. They were twenty-three, and in a matter of hours they would be getting married. She was happy.
    In the morning, they woke much later than they’d intended. Time was pressing.
    ‘Shit!’ she said. ‘We’ve hardly slept.’
    ‘We can sleep when we’re dead,’ said Simon, kissing her until she pushed him off, laughing.
    ‘Stop it! I need to get ready.’
    ‘Go on then,’ he said.
    She shook her head. ‘It’s bad luck if you see me in my dress.’ They’d talked about this already, Simon finding the superstition amusing, but he was willing to indulge
her.
    ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘I’m going.’ He moved to get up, but saw it in her face: her sudden need to tell him something. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Nothing,’ she said. Her smile said otherwise.
    ‘Come on, out with it . . .’
    She hesitated. Tempting as it was, it didn’t seem like the right moment. ‘I’ll tell you tonight.’
    ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘What is it?’
    ‘No, tonight.’
    ‘What? Are you pregnant?’ He’d been kidding, of course, but he’d got it. She raised her eyebrows in answer. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘You’re really
pregnant?’
    She nodded, suddenly unsure how he would take it. ‘Are you glad?’ she said. He hugged her close, and she realized he was crying.
    The good kind of tears, he’d told her, and by the time he left to go to his own apartment and get ready, she’d believed him. Three hours later she was standing in the church, and he
was late. She was already becoming angry with him when she saw the priest’s eyes move to the church entrance behind her. She saw something in those eyes. The smallest hint of panic.
    And she turned. When she saw the police, the bouquet fell from her hands. She’d looked down at it, and had left it on the floor. She’d known she didn’t need it any more.
    Adèle was alone in her bedroom; Thomas and Chloé had both been up and around for a couple of hours. Thomas had left the bedroom door open so the sounds of
activity and the smell of breakfast would come up to her. Gentle nagging that she should get out of bed; Thomas always on guard, always there to make sure she didn’t slip back into her old
ways.
    But not pushing. She was glad of that. At work, she knew, Thomas had a reputation for accepting nothing less than total commitment, but at home he was all kid gloves.
    Even when, like this morning, they had an appointment to keep.
    At last she dressed and went downstairs. She paused outside the kitchen when she heard Chloé’s voice from inside.
    ‘What’s Mum doing?’
    ‘She’s having trouble getting up,’ said