The Things I Know Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE COORDINATES OF LOSS

  ‘An emotion-packed tearjerker.’

  Woman and Home

  ‘A thoughtful and sensitive read, well recommended.’

  Woman’s Way

  ‘We loved this raw depiction of motherhood tested to the limit.’

  Take a Break

  PRAISE FOR AMANDA PROWSE’S OTHER BOOKS

  ‘Amanda Prowse is the queen of contemporary family drama.’

  Daily Mail

  ‘A tragic story of loss and love.’

  Lorraine Kelly, Sun

  ‘Captivating, heartbreaking and superbly written.’

  Closer

  ‘A deeply emotional, unputdownable read.’

  Red

  ‘Uplifting and positive, but you may still need a box of tissues.’

  Cosmopolitan

  ‘You’ll fall in love with this.’

  Cosmopolitan

  ‘Warning: you will need tissues.’

  Sun on Sunday

  ‘Handles her explosive subject with delicate care.’

  Daily Mail

  ‘Deeply moving and eye-opening.’

  Heat

  ‘A perfect marriage morphs into harrowing territory . . . a real tear-jerker.’

  Sunday Mirror

  ‘Powerful and emotional drama that packs a real punch.’

  Heat

  ‘Warmly accessible but subtle . . . moving and inspiring.’

  Daily Mail

  ‘A powerful and emotional work of fiction with a unique twist – a practical lesson in how to spot a fatal, but often treatable, disease.’

  Piers Morgan, Good Morning Britain presenter

  ‘A truly amazing piece of drama about a condition that could affect any one of us in a heartbeat. Every mother should read this book.’

  Danielle Bux, actor

  ‘A powerful and emotional page-turner that teaches people with no medical training how to recognise sepsis and save lives.’

  Dr Ranj Singh, paediatric doctor and BBC presenter

  ‘A powerful and moving story with a real purpose. It brings home the dreadful nature of this deadly condition.’

  Mark Austin, Sky News presenter

  ‘A festive treat . . . if you love JoJo Moyes and Freya North, you’ll love this.’

  Closer

  ‘Magical.’

  Now

  ‘Nobody writes contemporary family dramas as well as Amanda Prowse.’

  Daily Mail

  OTHER BOOKS BY AMANDA PROWSE

  The Girl in the Corner

  The Coordinates of Loss

  Anna

  Theo

  How to Fall in Love Again: Kitty’s Story

  The Art of Hiding

  The Idea of You

  Poppy Day

  What Have I Done?

  Clover’s Child

  A Little Love

  Christmas for One

  Will You Remember Me?

  A Mother’s Story

  Perfect Daughter

  Three-and-a-Half Heartbeats (exclusive to Amazon Kindle)

  The Second Chance Café (originally published as The Christmas Café)

  Another Love

  My Husband’s Wife

  I Won’t Be Home for Christmas

  The Food of Love

  OTHER NOVELLAS BY AMANDA PROWSE

  The Game

  Something Quite Beautiful

  A Christmas Wish

  Ten Pound Ticket

  Imogen’s Baby

  Miss Potterton’s Birthday Tea

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Lionhead Media Ltd

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477825211

  ISBN-10: 1477825215

  Cover design by Ghost Design

  The Things I Know is dedicated to all the people like me, who throughout their life have always felt that they didn’t quite fit. For all those who believe that happy ever after is something that happens to other people. To all of you I would say, ‘It only takes one person to show you the magic, and when it happens, you’ll know it was worth the wait.’

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Hitch pulled the jotter from her bedside table and unscrewed the top of her pen before writing down the thoughts that raced around inside her head. A small act, but one that encouraged the words to stop rolling and helped her think a little straighter.

  She had always done it. Some might consider her thoughts and dreams to be somewhat juvenile, but for someone who was born with challenges, a girl who had always lived life a few steps behind her peers, lurking in the shadows, hidden from the shiny, perfect girls who reached for the stars, it was how she expressed everything that was too hard to say out loud.

  These are the things I know . . .

  I know my name is Thomasina ‘Hitch’ Waycott.

  I know I’m not like everyone else.

  I know I was born a little bit different, like someone held the instructions upside down or lost a part when they opened the box.

  I also know that words are powerful things and they have weight.

  I know certain words have sat in my stomach for as long as I can remember and weigh so much that when I’m in a crowd or I meet someone new they pull my shoulders down and make my head hang forward so I can only look at the floor.

  Tard.

  Fuckwit.

  Rabbitmouth.

  I know I want to see other countries.

  I know I want to go to New York.

  I know I want a boyfriend.

  I know I want my own kitchen.

  I know I want to paint my nails instead of having them caked in mud.

  I know I want to own clothes that are pretty.

  I know I want to own sparkly red shoes that I will never get to wear but I can look at whenever I want . . .

  What I don’t know is just how different I am and I also don’t know how I can find this out.

  And I know that some days I’m happy and other days I’m sad, but that’s the same for everyone, isn’t it?

  ONE

  The two drove back from the Barley Mow in the pickup truck, the dark, shadowy lanes lit in part by the full bright moon that hung low in the late night sky.

  It had been a good evening. How Hitch loved Jonathan being home, realising in that moment just how keenly she’d felt the absence of her clever little brother, who had been away at agricultural college for the last couple of years. And now he was back – her entertainer and her protector.

  Jonathan, look after your sister!

  Her parents had been yelling this at him since he’d been old enough to walk and talk. And that was kind of the unwritten rule: that they looked
after each other. Right now Jonathan was drunk as a skunk and it was her turn to watch out for him by driving him home.

  The whole evening had felt curiously like a celebration of sorts, as a good night out often did. They had won at pool, beer had been sunk, the jukebox fed with coins, and their high spirits now lingered in the car. Jonathan sat upright in the passenger seat, his face ruddy from too much drink, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his breath sour. The windows were rolled down to let the cold night air into the cab of the truck and the sounds of their music out.

  ‘D’you think Shelley might like to go out for a drink with me?’ He slurred a little.

  ‘You like Shelley?’ This was news.

  ‘Kind of.’ He sighed. ‘Not really – well, I don’t know. I think she’s pretty and lovely and straightforward and kind,’ he rattled on, ‘but you know what it’s like, Hitch – around here we can’t be too choosy. There’s not that many options.’

  ‘You can’t go for Shelley just because there’s not much choice.’ She thought about the nice-enough girl who worked behind the bar and who’d been in her class at school. ‘I think that’s a bit mean.’

  ‘I would never want to be mean to her – she’s fabulous. I just feel like I could go crazy here!’ he yelled.

  ‘You go crazy? You only came home a couple of weeks ago, and actually the way you’re shouting like a madman makes me think you’re probably halfway there already.’

  ‘Maybe, but I’m twenty-one, Hitch. I want more than this!’ He looked up through the windscreen at the wide, dark rural sky. ‘Sweet home Whamalama!’ Jonathan bellowed, ignoring her point.

  ‘That’s not the words.’ She sighed.

  ‘I don’t care, because I have a secret.’ He grinned at her, tapping the side of his nose before drumming his fingertips loudly on the dashboard.

  ‘I couldn’t care less if you have a secret.’

  ‘Good, because I’m not going to tell you what it is.’

  ‘Good, because, as I said, I don’t care!’

  ‘Good then, because I’m not telling you!’

  Some seconds later she let loose the question that jumped up and down on her tongue: ‘So what is it then?’ She was confident that if he did have a secret it would be nothing of great significance, because she knew practically everything about him.

  Over the last couple of years she had devoured the texts and emails he sent from his college digs on the other side of the county. For Hitch, reading about the life he led while learning the business of agriculture in readiness to take over the family farm, it might as well have been on the moon. She would lie in her childhood bed, reading with a smile about the drunken antics of Jonathan and his squad of buddies, who, it seemed, were able to make a party out of the most mundane of events. She pictured the characters he mentioned – Louis, Jasper, Alex, Ben and Big Olly – living her life vicariously through her brother’s stories.

  She loved her brother and wanted him to be happy, and yet at the same time when she closed down her phone in readiness for sleep, staring at the same walls she’d stared at her whole life, she was left with an ache of envy in her gut for all the things she’d missed out on.

  At times like these her mum’s words, often quoted, sprang to mind. There isn’t anything out there, Hitch, worth missing. You’ve got everything you need right here. We love you and you’re safe . . .

  The reminder was enough to make her retreat, wary of the ills her mother hinted at – woeful, unimaginable events that might lurk around every corner for a girl like her. A girl who, according to her parents, had arrived in the world twenty-four years earlier with enough ailments to make the midwife wince. Hitch used to imagine the woman’s reaction, assuming she must have delivered thousands of babies and therefore understood better than most what the perfect human blueprint might look like. Hitch was far from perfect, her development a little slow and her body a little bent out of shape, and she figured that, with all the things that made her different, those joys that other people took for granted, like love, marriage and being able to wear high-heeled shoes, might be a little out of her reach.

  Not that she let her differences hold her back, no sir! With her folded hand, it might take a little longer for her than most to grip things, and early on she had had to work out how to make best use of the misshapen, coiled fingers of that hand, whose movements were a little jagged, but she managed. And her foot, arched on to its toes, meant she walked with one knee raised and a wobble to her gait. It made stairs difficult and the muscles of her foot and ankle ached at the end of a long or cold day, but walk she did – miles and miles across the rough and muddy farm terrain, either in spite of her difficulties or because of them, she wasn’t sure. And as for the crude rind of a scar that bisected her top lip, well, that was no more than cosmetic.

  Her thoughts churned with what her brother’s great revelation might be. Maybe he was one step ahead of the Buttermores and had a cow in mind that might win her class at the county show. Now that would really be something – to beat the golden family, the smug Buttermores, who, while the rest of them lived through feast and famine, always had enough in the kitty to upgrade their equipment and seek sun in faraway places she could only dream of. She liked the idea of triumphing over them, wiping the arrogant smiles from their faces, even if it was only for one day.

  Or maybe Jonathan genuinely knew something she didn’t. Was Pops finally trading in the rusting old Subaru for a newer model? She squeezed the worn leather-wrapped steering wheel; while a shinier truck might be fun, she’d miss this old girl. They had history. Hitch glanced at her brother briefly and then back at the meandering lane.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Jonathan, you’re just annoying me now! What is it?’

  ‘Well, if I tell you it won’t be a secret, will it?’ He wheezed with hysterical laughter, in the way those under the influence did over just about anything.

  ‘You can’t say that and not tell me!’ she shouted.

  ‘I can’t tell you, Hitch.’ His tone sobered a little. ‘It’s too big a thing and you’d only tell Mum and Pops and that will mess things up for me. I need to just do it – just go! Because if I think about it too much, I might lose my nerve.’

  ‘Do what? Go where? You’re making it sound so mysterious. God! I won’t tell anyone, not that anyone would be interested.’ The two shouted over the music, the atmosphere still jovial, if a little charged.

  ‘I promised I’d keep it quiet!’ he yelled, before biting his lip. ‘And I don’t want to jinx things till it’s all sorted. I’m relying on a friend, Carter Steele, a guy I know from college, but I want so badly for everything to be in place. I can’t wait!’

  ‘So don’t tell me then.’ She pouted a little, properly irritated now. ‘And you’re not the only one with secrets, Jonathan.’

  ‘Oh, is that right?’

  It was his laughter that caused her tears of frustration to spill over. With her sight blinded, she pulled the pickup on to the verge and jabbed the button to turn off the music.

  The silence was sudden, sharp and biting.

  ‘What’s going on, sis? Are you okay?’ He turned in the seat to face her and she sniffed back the sobs that threatened.

  ‘I . . . I wish I did have a damned secret. I wish I had something going on!’ She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  ‘You’ve got lots going on.’

  ‘Have I? Have I really? What? What have I got to look forward to, Jonathan? It’s all right for you – you’ve been to college, you have friends with names like Carter Steele, but I’m twenty-four and my life is the same as it was when I was fourteen. It’s exactly the same! I’ve just swapped school for work. I feel as if everything is standing still.’

  ‘I think there are a lot of people who would like the comfort of knowing their life is standing still. There’s peace in it.’

  She was glad that her smart little brother didn’t deny the truth of her words, using the soft voice he saved for when she was feeling really
sad and he’d do his best to make things feel a little better.

  Ignore them, Hitch . . . They’re idiots, all of them – what do they know?

  ‘God, Jonathan, peace? The quiet strangles me sometimes! And how come you don’t want the peace of a life standing still?’ she asked plaintively.

  ‘It’s different . . .’

  The two sat in quiet contemplation for a second or two. It was the words he didn’t say that rang out the loudest. Because I have the chance, because I’m not flawed, because Mum and Pops will let me go but they don’t like you being out of their sight, because it’s just the way it is . . . She mentally filled in the depressing blanks.

  His look of concern, coupled with this rare moment of undivided attention, increased her desire to open up to him, to someone. Digging her nails in her palms, she spoke quickly before the hatch of opportunity closed and she was once again submerged in the darkness of her secret frustrations.

  ‘I love Mum and Pops,’ she began, ‘but I don’t know if this life is enough for me.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Despite his solemn tone, his eyes lifted in a half-smile, as if waiting for the punchline, and she understood: what other life could there be for her, for them?

  ‘I . . . I . . .’ she stuttered. It was so much easier in her head.

  I didn’t choose to farm; our great-grandparents did! But why does that mean my life has to follow the same path? I like bits of it, but not all of it, and I kind of feel like I’m running out of love for the life and the place, but I don’t know what else to do or where to go . . . Who’d give me a job? Who’d want me? And I know Mum and Pops act with love but I feel so caged in that it’s suffocating me . . .

  ‘I—’ she began, struggling.

  ‘I’m moving away,’ he blurted. ‘I’m going to America. That’s my secret. I’m getting out of here. I’m leaving, Hitch.’ He stared at her, eyes bright with excitement.

  She felt his words hit her brain like a thump to the chest. ‘Leaving?’

  ‘Yeah, going to the States.’

  She was breathless, winded by news so big it put her revelation of discontent firmly in the shade. She placed the words she had been about to voice back in the bottle and tamped them down with the stopper, so they rattled around in her thoughts. It was almost unthinkable – a life on Waycott Farm without her little brother? She tried to imagine what this might mean for her parents, who would not only miss him but, on a practical level, would now be a pair of hands short. And what might it mean for her? Jonathan was the sharp snort of laughter over the kitchen table, the one who got her jokes, who played pranks, who sang along loudly to the radio as he worked, the person she locked eyes with when her parents were being unreasonable, her support network and the background noise to her life. The thought of it falling silent was jarring in the extreme.