Read an extract from The Memory Keeper by Abigail Johnson

Meet Gracie. At mid-life, she’s fed up with her unhappy marriage and humdrum career. So when a new housing estate threatens to sever her last connection to her late father – the oak tree he planted as a child – she decides to take a stand. Only Gracie has never stood up to anyone.

When Gracie’s five-year-old neighbour, Tilly, unexpectedly bounds into her life, she shows Gracie that you shouldn’t always take no for an answer. Despite long-buried family secrets being revealed and conflicts taking root, Gracie begins to think that this could be the beginning of a new chapter – one in which she finally discovers her inner strength and realizes that even in the face of loss, there is hope.

READ AN EXTRACT FROM THE MEMORY KEEPER

Ten Candles

The school day was like a treadmill that Gracie was desperate to jump off, especially today when her birthday present was waiting for her at home – the blue suede roller-boots with bright-yellow wheels she’d been asking for all year. Gracie’s head filled with daydreams as she stared out of the window across to the willow trees that were softly sweeping the edges of the playground. The sun-filled sky promised that she could play outside after tea. Soon she’d be zooming up and down her cul-de-sac in her new roller-boots, getting faster and slicker with each loop.

‘Coming to the roller-disco tomorrow, then?’ Faye, her best friend, whispered to her, as if reading her mind. Faye had had her roller-boots for months, which meant Gracie had spent endless Saturday afternoons staring at the kitchen clock while Faye whizzed around the roller-rink.

Gracie hadn’t even had a chance to reply when Mrs Mansfield looked up from behind the overhead projector with stern eyes. ‘Something you want to share with the rest of the class, Gracie?’

Gracie shook her head. ‘No, miss.’ There was no point in explaining that it was Faye who had been talking.

Before Mrs Mansfield could interrogate her further, the bell rang to signal home time. Chairs scraped across the floor and desk lids were slammed shut on the school day. Gracie stuffed her pencil case into her bag and rushed out of the classroom, wishing there was a law against having to go to school on your birthday. Usually she walked home with Faye, but today she ran straight past her and didn’t stop until home was in sight and she was hot and breathless. After charging upstairs, she threw off her uniform and rummaged through the pile of dirty washing, trying to find something to wear. She pulled on her favourite ra-ra skirt and found a T-shirt on the floor that smelled of strawberry laces and sun cream. As she pulled it over her head, the scent filled her up with a rainbow feeling that made her smile. It didn’t matter that Mum hadn’t done the washing in ages.

Gracie pushed open the kitchen door and paused, taking in the scene in front of her. It was like she had stepped into a different house, although the beige tiles and oak cabinets were the same. The kitchen tap still dripped and the red venetian blindswere in their usual position, hung at half-mast. However, the air was unusually sweet and warm. A trail of flour lay over the counter and the washing-up bowl was piled high with soapy dishes. Stranger than that, Mum was singing along to the radio and Dad was laughing. He wasn’t usually home from work when Gracie returned from school, and yet here he was, with a smear of icing on his nose.

‘Here’s the birthday girl!’ Dad bundled her into his arms. ‘Not too old for a hug from your dad, I hope?’

‘Never,’ Gracie said, sinking against the reassuring weight of his chest and holding on to him tightly. At least some things were still the same.

‘Look what I made!’ Mum pointed to a cake on the worktop, covered with coloured Hundreds and Thousands. Ten pink candles were sinking into a layer of thick chocolate icing.

‘It’s amazing,’ Gracie said, staring at it open-mouthed. ‘It’s the best cake I’ve ever seen.’ She danced around the kitchen to the tinny sound of Madonna on the radio, and Mum joined in until they collapsed in a heap of giggles.

‘Double figures, eh?’ Mum said, wiping her forehead and switching off the music. She handed Gracie the cake, on a plate with pink flowers on it. ‘Pop it on the table. A special cake for a special birthday.’

Gracie wanted to hold on to the cake – or, rather, the love from her mum that only ever came in short, unreliable bursts – and never let it go. Once she’d put the cake down, she pinched her wrist to make sure it wasn’t a dream. Marmalade the cat fastened himself around her ankles and purred as Gracie took a seat at the table. Mum and Dad sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and, as she blew outher candles, she made a wish: please can we be this happy for ever?

The cake was fluffy, and the chocolatiest thing Gracie had ever tasted. They ate it from paper plates, like it was a real party, and wore paper crowns that had sat in the kitchen drawer since Christmas. Afterwards there was only a small piece of cake left. Mum put it in the biscuit tin and covered it with a checked tea towel.

‘A little bit of birthday happiness left over for tomorrow,’ she said, kissing Gracie’s cheek and leaving a wet trail that she didn’t wipe away.

After tea, Mum disappeared in front of the television, leaving Dad to wash up. Gracie sat on the stairs and opened up the box containing her new roller-boots. This was turning into the best day ever. As she put them on, she imagined gliding past Faye on the shiny floor of the roller-rink. Very quickly she realized that wasn’t going to happen. The boots were far too big and gaped around her ankles and heels. Although she tied the yellow laces as tightly as they would go, before she even reached the front door she rolled over awkwardly and her feet fell out of them. Disappointment slid into her stomach. It was worse than not being given them at all. They went back in their box, nestled in tissue paper that smelled like Sunday-night shoe polish. Gracie dumped them on the kitchen table and took herself off to bed to cry.

A seesaw of sounds sailed in through the open bedroom window: birdsong alternating with the shouts of children playing out onthe street; the occasional grumble of a car engine; the tinkling of an ice-cream van, happy to be doing its final rounds. It was still early, but Gracie closed the window and drew the curtains. When Dad came up later to see if she was okay, she pretended to be asleep, then resumed reading her copy of Jackie by torchlight until her eyes refused to stay open any longer.

She woke up in her clothes, with her face stuck to the pages of her magazine. She rolled over and looked at her alarm clock, the arms of Mickey Mouse telling her it was almost 11 p.m. She’d waited so long for today and it had disappeared in a flash. She crept downstairs. Orange light spilled into the hallway from beneath the living-room door, and the muffled sound of the television indicated that Mum was still up. Her nerves meant she was often awake for most of the night and asleep during the day.

Gracie slowly opened the kitchen door so that it didn’t creak and stepped over the noisy floorboard. The lid of the biscuit tin popped softly as she lifted it. There was the proof. She hadn’t imagined it: Mum really had made her a cake.

The small swell of joy inside her disappeared when she saw the box containing her abandoned birthday present on the table. It was so unfair. There was no point in telling Mum the boots were the wrong size. She would only say that Gracie was being ungrateful and she’d grow into them. Gracie never wanted to look at them again. She quietly carried the box into the hallway and stuffed it beneath a pile of coats in the cupboard. When she returned to the kitchen, she dished out the last piece of cake onto a clean paper plate and licked her chocolate-covered fingers. The taste instantly recaptured that blink of happiness: the three of them around the table, smiling while Marmalade nudged her shins with his wet nose. The candles were still on the counter. She crammed three of them into the remaining slab of cake and lit them, just to remind her of the feeling she had had earlier. She placed a discarded paper crown on her head as Marmalade snuck in through the cat flap and began to meow.

‘Shhh!’ Gracie said, crouching down to stroke him under his chin.

His meowing only got louder and more frantic as he snaked around her legs.

‘Gracie?’ Mum shouted from the living room. ‘Gracie!’

The nuances of Mum’s shouts had been learned more efficiently than her times tables. This one meant she was about to snap like an elastic band stretched too far. Gracie threw off her crown and quickly left the kitchen. She ran up the stairs and jumped into bed, pulling the duvet right up to her chin, scrunching her eyes closed and hoping Mum didn’t follow.

The next time she woke up, her eyes were stinging and smoke was curling around the edge of her bed.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,’ she told herself, unaware that in the next few minutes her whole life would come crashing down around her.

The Memory Keeper is published by Pan on 30 July 2026