Free The Legacy by Gemma Malley

couldn’t risk telling Sheila what he knew about her parents. It had been stupid to promise that he would. ‘But it’s not that easy.’
    ‘No,’ Sheila said tightly. ‘I guess it isn’t. I guess it isn’t sensible relying on other people either, is it, Jude? When all they ever do is let you down.’
    She stood up and ran from the room, pushing past Pip who looked at Jude with a bemused expression.
    ‘I’d never let you down,’ Jude said miserably, his voice catching slightly as he turned towards her. But it was too late – she couldn’t hear him. And he hardly believed himself anyway.

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    Chapter Five

    Anna chopped tomatoes for the picnic, every so often glancing down at the pile of cushions heaped on the floor, on top of which lay Molly. ‘Beautiful,’ she murmured. Molly was the most beautiful creature in the whole wide world – Anna could stare at her for hours with no awareness of time ticking by. Her daughter. Her Molly.
    ‘Are you ready?’ Peter swept into the kitchen, stooping down to grab Molly and bringing her to his chest. Molly’s eyes opened for a second, her arms shooting up in a startled reflex before she nestled her head into his shoulder and resumed her nap. Anna turned back to the tomatoes.
    ‘Five minutes,’ she lied, knowing that the picnic wouldn’t be ready for at least ten, but knowing also that with Molly in his arms Peter, usually impatient, would not notice if five minutes became ten or even fifteen. Time, for Anna, was the real luxury of their freedom. On her wrist Embedded Time, the watch etched into her own skin, reminded her constantly of her days at Grange Hall where every minute was accounted for. There it was drummed into her, into all the Surpluses, that time was not theirs – that it belonged to Legals, just as they did. But she covered it up these days with long sleeves and even when she caught a glimpse of it, it no longer caused her heart to beat faster. She owned her own time now. If the picnic was late, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except their little family unit, their safety.
    She glanced back to where Molly had been lying, her imprint still visible in the cushion. She opened her mouth to say something, to tell Peter about the letter waiting for him, the letter that she had stuffed under the cushion minutes before he had appeared. Then she closed it again. She knew what he’d say. The letter would blacken his mood.
    ‘And how’s my little Molly?’ Peter was grinning, kissing his daughter on the nose, causing her eyes to open again sleepily. She gurgled and Anna turned back to the kitchen worktop, her heart thudding in her chest. She knew who the letter was from, knew exactly what it would say. And she also knew that Peter wouldn’t read it, that he would dismiss it with an angry stare, tell Anna she could open it if she wanted to but that he didn’t want to know the contents, that he had no interest in the letter or its sender, that he had no mother, whatever she thought.
    And he was right; she knew that sometimes. But she also knew that you couldn’t just deny something and be done with it. Peter’s mother was Mrs Pincent, Anna’s overbearing tormentor, a woman who she still sometimes imagined watching over her, criticising her. A woman who she still somehow felt a desperate need to please; a woman whose pain she couldn’t help sharing in her darker moments. To live without knowing Molly? Without knowing Ben? Terrifying.
    ‘She’s trying to sleep,’ Anna said, forcing her mind back to the present, as Peter threw Molly gently in the air.
    ‘Sleep’s for wimps,’ Peter retorted. ‘Anyway, I think she wants to play. Don’t you, Molly?’
    Molly produced a big smile which Peter pointed to triumphantly. ‘See?’ he grinned. ‘I told you.’
    Anna nodded and forced a smile. To tell Peter would risk ruining the day. Not to tell him would mean that she would be carrying a secret around with her. And secrets, Anna knew, were mini-betrayals.