The sun was high in a cloudless sky. The garden was full of the sounds of industry and expectation. It was the day of the Virginia Gardens Annual Summer Party.And also the day that her firstborn became a teenager.She’d thrown Grace a small party in their back garden earlier: non-alcoholic cocktails, helium balloons, a giant red velvet cake with thirteen candles, all her friends from the garden, a round of ‘Happy Birthday to You’, nothing fancy.Now she stacked sticky paper cups into a tower, gathered up handfuls of brightly coloured straws with concertinaed tissue fruits attached, balled up used paper napkins and shreds of ripped wrapping paper and envelopes and dropped them all into a black bag. She took birthday cards through to the living room and arranged them on the dining table, piled up Grace’s gifts neatly: a hoodie from Tyler, just like the hoodies that Tyler herself wore; a John Green novel and a framed arrangement of silk butterflies from the sisters; money and a malodorous celebrity perfume from Clare’s mother; clothes from her; a glittering diamanté bracelet from Pip in a suedette box; and from Dylan, well … Clare didn’t know what he’d bought her daughter; Grace had taken it still wrapped into her bedroom after the party, saying she was saving it for later.They’d gone now, all the children.
