It was as if Yvonne had discovered a missing part of herself that she hadn't realized that she had lost. The sudden arrival of Bell into her house lent purpose to her life.
Lauren's face had brightened immediately the first moment she laid eyes on Bell. She might have been expected to react unfavourably to a dog that was taking Trigger's place, the faithful Alsatian that she had grown up with but she hadn't. Without saying it in so many words, she had let herself grieve for Trigger's passing, and allowed let fresh sunlight into her life. She enthusiastically set to work with Yvonne to train the very playful, puppyish Bell into their ways of living, free from their past.
Yvonne noted this quietly, and was grateful for the serenity of the months that had passed since Lauren's discharge from prison last August. She had conscientiously attended the regular sessions with the psychiatrist, who had worked with her to ensure that all the choices that she could make in her life would stay open for her. She had come to feel to the bottom of her soul how those tenacious were those primeval Atkins instincts that had been laid down. This wasn't an intellectual exercise like going to a lesson at school. She was part of the lesson , and gave her that breadth of perspective. She found out that she had to live and feel and breathe the changes that she was going through. She accepted that there might be moments in her life when she might feel threatened or vulnerable that she might revert to type. She learnt that her immediate off the cuff remarks said more about her than she realized. Whatever the future faced for her, she was open to facing it fair and square. All this was something that Yvonne gathered from brief snatches of conversations and little indications in the way that she behaved. Her reaction to Bell was one of them.
She looked out of her living room window as, each passing day, spring was making its uncertain progress. The days of fine blue clear skies were brushed aside by sudden squalls of biting wind and grey clouds but all the time, the buds were beginning to appear on the bare twigs and branches of the trees at the bottom of their garden. For so many months, they had etched a bleak tracery pattern in the grey sky at a time when the seasons were in hiding, in retreat. Soon, the full force of the sun would come out to play, and the trees would be covered with leaves. The sun would dazzle her eyes as reflected off the waters of her swimming pool.
Yvonne and Lauren chose Sunday morning to take a long stroll round the garden. It only took the magical word 'walk' for Bell to bound to her feet pirouetting in circles round and round in circles. Bright eyed, she led the way for Yvonne and Lauren to laughingly follow them. She sat down on the front door mat, looking expectantly at them. Once outside the door, she and the two humans felt free.
A clear cool breeze ruffled their hair, but the sun was brighter than they had thought. They blinked their eyes as the sun leaned down on them. Nothing was said but the three of them headed out onto the lawn, as it was the obvious place to go. The grass felt solid under their feet, as solid as the foundations beneath their lives and the large certainty of their house. Bell scampered ahead of them without a care in the world.
While Lauren ran ahead of her on the lawn to catch up and laugh and play with Bell, Yvonne slipped into a dreamily reminiscent mood. Her free floating thoughts wended their way to John who had been instrumental, via his free spirited if sometimes tactless daughter, in bringing this simple happiness to her. What they had in common was the bringing up of a daughter and their incredibly strong ties to their offspring. It didn't surprise Yvonne in the least that John's passion for justice and his waywardness would have taken the form in Charlie that it did. John seemed happy enough, if a little embarrassed to admit how come Bell came into his possession in the first place but he had that ability to tolerate and understand that Charlie would never have learnt in a lifetime. That quality had certainly done wonders to put her own family on its feet. Her memory for words said and deeds done was very extensive but she had treasured his words to her at the end of Lauren's trial.
"You are perhaps, one of the most loyal, caring, utterly devoted mothers I have ever had the pleasure to meet, so I know you can do that. Now, go home, gather all your friends around you, and get on with your life."
Well, she could lay claim to having managed that, all right. She had made her break from the past, smoothly and effortlessly enough. That was easy enough as she had control over her life but it was quite another matter for her daughter to have done the same. In the old days, Charlie had bent everyone to his will by that deadly mixture of charm and ruthless force so that everyone did what he wanted. If she was to root that out of her own family, she could hardly revert to type if persuasion did not work. She couldn't manage other people's lives and thoughts by remote control and so it took much more patience.
It was curious the way that John would periodically crop up in her life, in particular the way that he had appeared out of the blue once when they were walking in the park and they had slept with each other. She lived with the certainty that, sometimes her friends were out of reach, doing other things, but time and chance would bring them together. She wondered idly what he was doing with his life and hoped that the sort of good fortune that he had bestowed on her family would remain with him.