Excerpt from One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

As I pass the newsagents and the rack of papers outside, a headline catches my eye: "Local School to Close." The words mean something to me, only I can't think what. I lean in, peering at the photograph of a gray, imposing building. Then I remember—­it's Daniel's school. The secondary school where he works as the deputy headmaster. Daniel says the school isn't closing but merging. Another school is getting a big development and all the children from Daniel's school are joining that one. Daniel could work there, but he doesn't want to. I frown, unable to remember why.

At home, I pick a bill up from the doormat, edge my coat off, and place my shoes on the rack Josie recently insisted I buy. When you reach my age, everything becomes a trip hazard.

I go straight through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Ordinarily I'd wait for Josie, but the events of the morning, seeing Lucy, require a cup of tea before Josie's arrival. Whatever happened to her? I feel I should remember but I can't. I roll her name around in my mind. Lucy Theddle, Lucy Theddle. It feels strange, forbidden, and I bite my lip trying to quell the unease that squirms in my stomach.

Josie finds me, fifteen minutes later, sitting in my chair in the living room, sipping from the mug Daniel bought me last Christmas. It has a sketch of a cityscape and the word "Stockholm" written in a delicate script. A gift from his latest city break.

"Hello, Edie," Josie bellows at me from the hallway. "Have you been out?" She pokes her head round the living room door and peers in at me.

"The post office," I say.

"What for?"

"Stamps."

Josie frowns while shaking her coat off. She's holding a tiny collapsed umbrella and it gets caught in her sleeve. "I could have done that when I go to the shops tomorrow."

I attempt a shrug but find my shoulders don't obey. My joints, nowadays, often ignore my instructions.

"Not got the telly on?" she asks, looking at me suspiciously. Josie cannot understand how anybody would want to sit in a living room and not have the television on.

"No," I say. "I was thinking."

"Thinking?" Josie repeats the word with some wonderment. "Well, that would be nice, wouldn't it?"

Not waiting for my reply, she scoots off to the kitchen, then returns wearing my apron. "I'll just do this bit of washing up, Edie, take the rubbish out for you. Then I'll make us a cuppa. Oh. I see you've already made one."

"I'll have another."

She nods, disappears. I can hear her rattling around, turning on the tap, the sound of the cupboard door opening and closing. She's probably looking for the marigolds.

Josie comes for two hours, four days a week. Expensive. But worth it. It was Daniel's idea, and I was most against it at first, but I've got used to her now. I enjoy the way she bustles around, making sure she earns her nine pounds an hour—­a perfectly reasonable rate, Daniel tells me. She isn't my carer, just to clarify. She helps out with the household chores. Daniel insisted on hiring her and I went along with it. Of course, I'd never let Josie go now I have her. She's a single mother, you see. She needs the extra income.

Josie was reluctant, at first, to sit down and have a cup of tea with me, during working hours as she calls them. She soon changed her mind when I persisted, although she often stands, leaning against the doorframe, or else she perches on the sofa arm, as if she isn't really stopping, only pausing. People don't like to take breaks anymore, I've noticed. They have to keep busy, as if something terrible will happen to them if they stop.

I push myself up from the chair and move unsteadily into the hallway. My kitchen, these days, is very beige and very clean (Josie is fond of bleach).

She's at the sink with her back to me, her shoulders slightly rounded, her dark hair tied with a thin red band.

Excerpted from One Puzzling Afternoon by Emily Critchley. Copyright © 2023 by Emily Critchley. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks Landmark. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.