Page 76 of Second Verse

She couldn’t deal with it. So she decided not to.

‘You’re welcome,’ Norah replied evenly, doing her best to affect a no-big-deal attitude. But she was as far from that feeling as she could get. But she was not going down this path again. Not a bloody chance. She’d had twenty years to grow and get over it. What kind of a dumbass would find their way out of hellish heartbreak and go back just to check it was as bad as they’d thought?

Not this dumbass, Norah decided.

‘You can just shove that in a drawer. I won’t expect you to hang it or anything,’ Norah said flippantly.

Poppy shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. I’m going to frame the ever-loving fuck out of this.’ She suddenly looked at Norah very seriously. ‘Norah...’

Norah felt suddenly nervous. ‘What?’

‘Why did you stop doing this?’

Norah was relieved. She thought Poppy was going to say something else. ‘Oh. Well. You know, life,’ she shrugged.

‘You were supposed to go to art school,’ Poppy recalled. ‘Did you do that?’

Norah shook her head. ‘No, I changed my mind. I got a bog-standard business studies degree in the end.’

‘Norah!’ Poppy almost yelled in horror. ‘What the fuck? Why?’

Norah shrugged. ‘My mother kept banging on about how hard it was to make a living as an artist.’ She laughed. ‘And here I am, working in a shitty customer service job with people who didn’t bother getting a degree at all.Stillpaying off the bloody student loan. Great advice, Mum.’

Poppy frowned and looked back down at the picture. ‘I’m sorry.’

Norah looked at her in confusion. ‘What for?’

‘If I’d been around, I wouldn’t have let you do that,’ Poppy said frankly. ‘I’d have banged on and on about your talent until you couldn’t ignore it. I’d have annoyed you into following your dream.’

Norah smiled sadly. ‘I think you’re giving yourself a bit too much credit to think you could have competed with my mum’s nagging.’

Poppy arched an eyebrow. ‘You underestimate my ability to irritate, Cauldwell,’ she said dryly.

Norah chuckled. ‘Well,youshould have gone to music college, like you planned. You were good.’

‘Imighthave been good, but I never really got to find out.’ Poppy shrugged. ‘But whatever happened to your graphic novel?’ Poppy asked.

‘It got an A plus,’ Norah shrugged.

‘I never got to read it, did I?’ Poppy mused.

‘No. And I’m afraid you never will. It got water damaged in a box in the garage.’

Poppy let out a sigh of despair. They both stood for a moment in the sadness for all that was lost.

‘You know, you’re not dead. It’s still in you, all that talent. It doesn’t have to be too late,’ Norah said, trying to shake off the melancholy.

Poppy gave her a meaningful look. ‘You think there’s still time to get back what we lost?’

Norah paused, stuck for an answer. It felt like it was a very loaded question, and she didn’t know what the hell to do with it.

Suddenly, there was a slight wail from upstairs. Poppy looked at the ceiling, stricken. ‘Sounds like she’s having a nightmare.’

‘I’ll let myself out. You go to her,’ Norah said.

Poppy nodded and went to her daughter.

Norah crept out the front door and walked down the street back to her mother’s place—her place. She wasn’t sure what to think right now, but she knew what she felt. Frightened.

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