A Mother's Love(21)

She clutched the quilt to her chest, looking about the room with large, frightened eyes. “Are you here, Jack? If you’re here, let me see you.” She now realized that Bruno’s imaginary friend was the spirit of her son. She didn’t doubt it. How else could he know to collect all these things and not an object more?

She remained on the floor, with the quilt against her heart, until Bruno found her there. He saw her tearstained face and then took in the open box on the table, and he blushed the color of a tomato. “You’ve been talking to Jack, haven’t you?” she asked, and the desperation in her voice sounded more like anger.

“No . . . I . . .” But Bruno wasn’t a very good liar. He began to tremble. His small shoulders rose to his ears as if he wished his head could disappear inside them. Then he burst into tears.

“Bruno . . .” But before she could explain, he grabbed the box and hurried from the room. Celeste scrambled to her feet. She made to run after him, but when she looked into the garden, he had gone.





10

Celeste looked everywhere for Bruno, but he was nowhere to be found. She looked in Jack’s bedroom and in his own. She searched the house from top to bottom, calling Bruno’s name, but he didn’t answer. She scoured the garden with Tarquin, but only the pigeons knew which way he’d gone and they weren’t telling.

Eventually, in despair at having caused him unhappiness, she went down to find Marigold and Huxley. She found Marigold on the terrace with a large box of biscuits and a novel. When she saw her daughter-in-law hurrying down the lawn in tears, she called her husband, who was napping in the sitting room. “My dear girl, what’s happened?”

“It’s Bruno. He’s run off,” Celeste explained in a thin voice.

“Run off? Why?”

“I upset him.”

“How did you upset him?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

Huxley appeared through the French doors. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Bruno’s run off,” said Marigold. “Celeste says she’s upset him.”

“Well, he was a very happy chap when I dropped him off at the cottage.”

“But then he found me,” said Celeste, unable to remain still.

“Do sit down, dear,” said Marigold. “Your fidgeting is making me dizzy. He found you, doing what?”

“I was looking through his special box.”

“And that upset him?” Marigold persisted.

“No, it upset him that I found out he’d been talking to Jack.” Huxley and Marigold were now lost for words. They glanced at each other and Celeste knew they suspected she had gone mad. “Every object in the box corresponds with a square on the quilt I was making Jack. The peacock feather, his pony, Harry Potter, the butterfly. Each one. How could he have known if he hadn’t been talking to Jack?”

“Well, I can’t imagine,” said Marigold.

“And he’s run off, has he?” said Huxley, impatient now to get back to the problem of Bruno’s disappearance. “I think you’d better call Robert,” he said.

“I’ll call him,” volunteered Marigold, pushing herself up. “Why don’t you look around our garden, Celeste; and Huxley, you go up to the farm. He can’t have gone far. He’s only got little legs.”

“I’m so worried.” Celeste began to bite her nails. “He was crying.”

Huxley patted her on the back. “We’ll find him,” he said, and his voice was so reassuring Celeste was certain that they would.

Robert arrived in a cloud of dust. He pulled up outside his parents’ house and hurried round to the terrace where his mother and Celeste were now anxiously waiting. Celeste threw herself into his arms. “I’ve scared him away,” she sobbed. “Oh, Robert, I’ve scared him away when I only meant to ask him about Jack.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, confused.

Celeste pulled away and dried her eyes. She knew she had to pull herself together in order to find Bruno. She told him about Bruno’s box and the quilt. “All the time we thought he was talking to an imaginary friend, he was talking to Jack.” Robert looked skeptical. “He sees him,” she insisted. “No doubt about it. He sees Jack.” At that moment her father-in-law strode around the corner.

“No luck at the farm,” he said, shaking his head.

“No luck in the garden either,” Celeste informed him. “And I took Tarquin to sniff him out.”

“He’s good at that,” said Marigold drily.

“Now we mustn’t panic,” said Robert. “He’s hurt because he clearly thought you were cross with him, Celeste.”