Nine
Sofija was at the door of Freda’s cottage. She looked at me over Kelly’s shoulder, the skin over the planes of her face pulled flat by her tightly plaited hair. She tried to smile.
Rosa stood by her, her arms around her mother’s leg as she peered up at us. The breath caught in my throat. She had grown. Of course she had. It was months since I’d seen her. But the change was bigger than that. The last vestiges of babyhood had left her and she’d become a little girl.
I dropped down to Rosa’s height, calling her name with my arms stretched out but she didn’t move.
‘Rosa, it’s your Aunty Jen,’ Sofija said. ‘Remember? Aunty Jen. She took you to the park. With the ducks? And the swings? You remember playing on the swings. Going higher and higher? Say hello to her.’
She tried to prise Ro
