Prologue
“We cannot say much about love at first sight. It happens, and we live in the wake of a new life.”
–Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi
“Revenge is the sexy man’s justice.”
–Jeremy ‘Jez’ Osborne. Peep Show.
September 30, 1999
Sam could seethe boy watching her from behind the cherry tree. He thought he was hidden by the trailing branches and the fence separating his house from hers, but she could see his face through the gaps. He was a strange-looking kid. His face was skinny and his hair was the color of beach sand. She knew who he was—their new neighbour, Something Sanderson.
“Nooo!” Sam’s baby sister Tabby screamed. It was a happy scream. Her other sister Nicole was spraying her with the hose as they filled more water balloons for water balloon hopscotch. It was a hot afternoon and Nicole had invented the game with the intention of keeping them cool. It was just regular hopscotch in which the loser was pelted with water balloons. The loser was usually Tabby, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Again,” she cried whenever they smashed a water balloon on her head. “Again! Again!”
They’d been having a pretty good time, laughing and jumping until Sam saw the boy spying on them. The boy their dad had told them to avoid.
The Sanderson family had moved in three days ago. She, Nicole and Tabby had sat on their front steps and watched men haul white couches and giant pot-plants into the house. When they brought up a piano, a big black one like in the movies, Nicole’s eyes had grown huge. “They must be rich! I’m going to go tell dad!”
They’d ran around to the studio side of their house to tell their dad rich people were moving in. He and the guy he was tattooing laughed.
“Maybe they’re rich and maybe they aren’t,” he said. “When I’m done here we’ll go and say hello, okay? Go and find some nice things we can bring as presents.”
Sam and her sister had rushed into the garden to make a bunch from the roses and collect bottles of homebrew cider their dad kept in crates in the shed. They wanted their mum to help, but she had locked herself inside the office and whenever that happened, they knew not to interrupt.
Lately, her mum and dad had been spending alotof time in the office. Sam didn’t know what they were doing in there but whenever they left they seemed sadder than when they went in. Yesterday, Nicole had pressed her ear to the door and heard them saying something about a boyfriend. That made no sense. Her dad was her mum’s husband and boyfriends came before husbands. Everyone knew that. Sam made her twin promise never to listen to the office door again.
They’d waited on their front steps with the presents until their dad came outside and walked them over to the new neighbours’ house—a big white one twice the size of theirs. A small blonde woman answered the door. She reminded Sam of a doll, all small and white. She smiled as she took the flowers and cider, but she didn’t look happy.
“I’m Elaine,” she said, in a strange tinkly voice. She and her dad shook hands. “Pleased to meet you.”
“You too! I’m Edgar, and these are my girls Samantha, Nicole and Tabitha,” their dad said, grinning at them in turn.
“Oh, how lovely,” Elaine said, looking sadder than ever. Her gaze flicked between her face and Nicole’s. “Are you girls’ twins?”
“Yes.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Identical in every way, but only on the outside,” their dad said. “Chalk and cheese on the inside. Such a miracle, isn’t it? The way kids turn out? You plant the seed but until it blossoms, you’ve got no idea what’s in store.”
“Yes, very true.” She glanced over her shoulder but there was no one there. “Have you…have you lived next door for long?”
“Ever since I was a boy.”
Sam hoped her dad wasn’t going to tell Elaine the whole story of how his great-grandparents built their house. It was very boring. Luckily, he asked, “What brought your family to this corner of the world?”
As Elaine and her dad talked about London, she, Tabby and Nix stood on tiptoe and examined what they could of the house. It was strange. The DaSilva home was full of hanging plants and paintings and what their mum called ‘kid shit’. This house was as white and clean as Elaine herself. Everything looked like it had been put there on purpose—like in a museum. Years later Sam would see a first generation white iPod and think it looked exactly like the Sanderson house.
“Do you and your husband have any kids?” Sam’s dad asked.
Elaine’s smile went sad again. “Just the one. My son, Scott.”
“Wonderful. How old is he?”
“Eight,” she whispered, as though eight was the scariest of all the numbers. Sam wished she would speak up, her soft fluttery voice was making Nicole nervous. Her twin had her face buried in their dad’s leg and it wassoembarrassing when she did that.