The Kindness Club on Mapleberry Lane - Part Two: An Autumn Promise

Contents
Title Page
About the Book
Part Two: An Autumn Promise
Chapter One: Veronica
Chapter Two: Audrey
Chapter Three: Sam
Chapter Four: Audrey
Chapter Five: Veronica
Chapter Six: Veronica
About the Author
Copyright


About the Book
This is part two in a heartwarming four-part serial from Helen Rolfe, author of The Little Village Library.
A little kindness can go a long way …
Veronica’s cottage is the neatest house on Mapleberry Lane. A place for everything, and everything in its place – that’s her motto. But within her wisteria-covered walls, Veronica has a secret: she’s hardly left her perfect home in years.
Then her teenage granddaughter, Audrey, arrives on her doorstep, and Veronica’s orderly life is turned upside down. With a little help from the residents of Mapleberry Lane, Audrey forms a plan to help her gran reconnect with the community: a kindness club, carrying out one generous action a day to make their world a better place – and perhaps help each other at the same time.
As their small acts of kindness begin to ripple through the village, both Veronica and Audrey find that with each passing day, they feel a little braver. There’s just one task left before the end of the year: to make Veronica’s own secret wish come true …
The Kindness Club on Mapleberry Lane is an uplifting story with community at its heart, about the little kindnesses that make the world a better place. This is Part Two.


PART TWO
An Autumn Promise


Chapter One
Veronica
Veronica’s daughter Sam had only moved in with her a week ago and already number nine Mapleberry Lane was fit to bursting with tension.
Seeing Layla coming down the front path now, pink backpack bobbing up and down, waving farewell to Bea, her childminder, Veronica felt a sense of relief – the little girl’s infectious enthusiasm was just what she needed after another day with her own family. To think that she’d been feeling so lonely a few months ago – but as the saying went, be careful what you wish for!
Veronica had the door open before Layla could knock and the little girl ran straight into her arms.
‘I missed you!’ she squealed.
Veronica hugged her tight. ‘I missed you too.’ Layla had no idea how special these hugs were. She was the only person Veronica got them from – Sam and Audrey might be here now, but they were all a long way off being able to show affection to one another. Sam had descended on Mapleberry and Audrey had gone from amicable to biting Veronica’s head off for no reason, schlepping around the place, leaving laundry on the bedroom floor, crumbs on the kitchen bench and unrinsed crockery in the sink. They’d been making headway before Sam showed up, and civility had even begun to teeter over into a friendship, but now Veronica had no idea what was going on, unable to read Audrey or Sam’s mood from one day to the next.
Some people might wonder how it was possible for so much tension to come between a parent and child, but Veronica knew more than anyone how easily it could happen. Sam and Audrey had been pleasant enough to each other on day one, but by day two they were less tolerant, day three they’d stopped talking, and now they could barely be in the same room. The only way Veronica was coping with the shift in the dynamics was to dig her heels in and stick with it because this might be her last chance to claw back some semblance of a relationship with her daughter. She longed to be the person who helped rather than the one who ruined everything.
Veronica had gone from living on her own and barely hearing from family, let alone seeing them, to having three generations all living under one roof, and to say it wasn’t easy was an understatement. But at least Sam had timed her arrival well, coinciding with young Layla being away on holidays with her dad, Charlie. It meant Veronica could focus on the changing dynamics, not that she hadn’t yearned for a distraction now and again when tensions mounted with her daughter and granddaughter.
Layla and Charlie lived at number twenty-five Mapleberry Lane, on the same side of the road as Veronica. Layla was only eight, but over time she and Veronica had become close and Layla visited most days. She loved to bring collections of fruit and vegetables from the veggie patch she’d cultivated with her dad, they’d spend time chatting or playing games, and Veronica had begun to teach Layla the piano. It was a secret from Charlie, at least until Layla improved. She wanted to be good enough to play Christmas songs as her mum once had before she died, and seeing her determination to succeed brought a tear to Veronica’s eye at the loss Layla had been through, as well as the memories she was trying to honour.
Before Sam turned up Veronica felt she’d begun to make some headway with Audrey, despite her granddaughter’s changing moods. Lord knows she’d had to work hard at it, tolerating rudeness and setting ground rules without seeming to be a total ogre, and all while hiding her own insecurities. One day Audrey had come right out with it and asked Veronica why she never left the house, and finally, Veronica had admitted her fears. But it had felt like a blessing rather than anything shameful, not that Veronica had given her problems a label in front of Audrey – she hadn’t needed to. Audrey got it, she understood Veronica had agoraphobia, and that day had marked a change in her granddaughter’s attitude. Audrey had become more pleasant to be around, more polite, and although she had her moments – she was fifteen after all – they were making progress. Veronica had even been starting to think she’d be able to send Audrey back to Sam a happier person; she’d have won at something and maybe it would be a path back into her daughter’s life too.
But now, with Sam around, Audrey was back