I Found You by Lisa Jewell

self-assured and physically attractive. It’s her resilience, her artistry, her generosity of spirit that draws him to her. Alice had told him last night about the dog, Hero, how she’d been left behind by another tenant, how Alice had taken her in, unquestioningly. And then when her parents had become too ill to look after Sadie, how she’d taken her in, too. And now here he is, in her cramped house, another body to house, another mouth to feed. And she genuinely doesn’t seem to mind.
    ‘Hero!’ He hears a small voice calling in the courtyard. ‘Hero!’
    The dog jumps from his bed and ambles out of the door. It’s the little girl. Romaine.
    She stops when she sees him standing in the doorway.
    ‘You’re up early,’ he says.
    ‘I know,’ she says in a broad Yorkshire accent. ‘Mummy told me to go back to bed but I couldn’t.’
    ‘And you were up late last night, too. You must be tired.’
    She shrugs, her arms looped around Hero’s giant neck. ‘I don’t get tired.’
    ‘Oh, well, that’s lucky.’
    She shrugs again and kisses Hero’s head.
    ‘So, what are you going to do now?’
    ‘I think I might go and try and wake Mummy up again.’
    He starts at this suggestion. He thinks of the shadows under Alice’s blue-green eyes, the way she grabs her hair in her hands and pulls it away from her face as if trying to stretch herself awake. It’s Saturday. It’s early.
    ‘How about I make you some breakfast and then we can put the telly on. Or something?’
    ‘OK,’ she says. ‘I have a toasted bagel for breakfast. With peanut butter. Can you make that?’
    Frank tries to envisage a bagel. He knows the word but is finding the associated object hard to locate. He sees a dog with silken ears. But that’s not right. It’s something that goes in a toaster. So it must be something bread-like.
    ‘If you show me where everything is I’m sure I can manage it.’
    ‘OK then.’
    He follows her into the narrow kitchen. The clock on the microwave says 5:58.
    ‘Here,’ she says, lifting the lid of a wooden bread box and pulling out a tubular bag of – yes, bagels ! He remembers now. ‘And the peanut butter is up there,’ she points at a high shelf.
    ‘Do you like butter too?’
    She shakes her head.
    ‘Good.’ He claps his hands together. ‘Right.’
    He pulls a plate from a wooden plate rack and finds a knife. Romaine sits on the chair at the kitchen table and watches him as he tries to force the bagel into the toaster.
    ‘No!’ She laughs. ‘You have to cut it in half!’
    ‘Of course you do,’ he says. ‘Silly me!’
    ‘Silly you!’
    He cuts the bagel in half and slides both sides into the toaster.
    ‘Why can’t you remember anything?’
    ‘I don’t really know,’ says Frank. ‘Your mum thinks maybe I had a big shock. A shock so big that it forced all the memories out of my head.’
    ‘Like an electric shock?’
    ‘No. More like a life shock. You know. Like something bad happening.’
    ‘You mean like when my dad stole me.’
    Frank turned to look at Romaine. ‘Did he?’
    ‘Yes. But then the police came and everything was OK.’
    ‘Wow. That must have been quite shocking. How old were you?’
    ‘I was small. Three years old. But it did a different thing to my memory. Because I can’t remember much about being three but I remember all of that bit.’
    ‘Do you still see your dad?’
    ‘Not really. Only when he comes to England. And he lives in Australia now, so he doesn’t come much. But I’m not allowed to go anywhere on my own with him in case he does it again.’ She suddenly leans forward in the chair and stares at the toaster. ‘That’s enough!’ she cries. ‘I don’t like it too toasty!’
    ‘How do I . . .?’
    ‘That button! There! Quick!’
    He pops the bagel up. It has barely changed colour. ‘OK?’ He shows it to her.
    ‘Yes.’ She looks relieved.
    ‘So, why did your daddy steal you? What happened?’
    ‘It was because Mummy moved up here when I