Chapter 20 December 20th #5
Fuck, what am I doing? “Yes.” Christ, I need to shut the hell up before I get myself into a situation I’m nowhere near prepared for.
“See you, Albi.” I throw him a wave and get on my way, caught somewhere between dread and hope.
I want him to take the bait for Dec. I don’t want him to take it because there’s no way in hell I can put myself in a pre-school full of four-year-olds.
When I make it all the way to the street, I turn and look back at the house.
He didn’t take the bait. I hate that a small part of me that’s relieved.
I would have figured it out somehow had he bought into my ploy, maybe declared a horrible sicky bug before we got to the school and made my escape before I had endless triggers thrown at me.
I pull my phone out when it beeps, wondering what the hell I’m going to do now. The message is from Thomas.
Sounds nasty. Half the office has gone down with some bug! Feel better. Hope you’re back soon.
I’m so fucking confused. He told me he wanted to fire me a few days ago, and now he hopes I’m back soon?
Spinning the phone in my hand, I look up at Dec’s impressive house.
Does this mean Thomas has abandoned his plan to sell up?
I’d ask Dec, but he’s preoccupied with his reluctant prawn.
So I quickly text him, wishing him luck and apologising for not being able to help, actually feeling quite defeated.
Have I lost my touch? I could persuade Noah to do anything.
A little bit of harmless reverse psychology.
Make him believe he was the root of all happiness, which was easy because he was.
But most of all, I didn’t want him to be afraid of anything.
I swallow down the rising lump and get moving, but I make it only two steps when Dec’s door flies open and Albi appears at the top of the steps.
And he’s a prawn again. “I want to be the prawn, I want to be a prawn!” he yells, jumping up and down, the antennae dancing like a pair of over-excitable worms breakdancing on his little head. “I want to be a prawn!”
Dec appears behind him. “He wants to be a prawn,” he murmurs, almost hesitant.
My heart soars and sinks at the same time, and Dec’s apologetic face tells me he sees that. I blow my cheeks out and make my way back to them, feeling my legs getting heavier as I climb the steps.
“I’m a prawn again!” Albi looks so damn chuffed about that.
“I’m so happy you’re a prawn again.” I reach for an antenna and smack it, making it spring back.
Albi dashes back off into the house, and we watch him go. “It’s a lot,” Dec says, keeping me on the doorstep as if he’s half expecting me to decline his invitation to go back in. “I don’t expect you to come.”
I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I must if we’re moving forward.
“I know you don’t, but Albi expects me to come because I said I would, and that’s the end of that.
” I take a breath and step back into the house, hearing him, the little whirlwind, dashing around like a prawn that’s had too much Red Bull.
“Well, now you two have everything under control,” April says, pulling her coat and fancy handbag off the chaise in the hallway, “I’ll be off.” She stops before us, half in her coat, and smiles. “I’m not going to get all mushy, but I really love this.”
I catch Dec shaking his head mildly, silently telling her to rein it in. It’s something else I hate. That he’s suppressing his happiness, curbing his enthusiasm because he feels it’s insensitive or I might crumple. That’s not how this should be.
I hook my arm through Dec’s and lean into him, now Albi’s out of sight, smiling my appreciation, even if it’s slightly strained.
“Take lots of pictures!” April sings, leaving and slamming the door behind her, a breeze swirling around the hallway as she does.
Dec immediately turns into me, holding my shoulders. “When I asked you to come this morning, I didn’t anticipate this. I wasn’t thinking at all, to be honest. It was stupid and insensitive.”
“Shut up,” I order gently, and he withdraws, surprised. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.” I’m not sure how yet, but I’ll make sure of it. You got through yesterday, the hardest day of the year, so you can do this.
Albi comes racing out the kitchen with his lunchbox and a pack of mini Christmas Fairy cakes, and I quickly move away from Dec. “Come on, Daddy,” he shouts, tucking the cakes under his arm to open the door, surely squishing them.
“Like I’ve been the holdup,” Dec murmurs as Albi dashes down the steps to the car. “Ready?” he asks.
I nod.
It’s a lie.
The car ride goes by in a haze of questions from Albi, not all of which I can answer. Or should. “How old are you?” he asks. “My daddy is forty! It was his birthday and Aunty April had a party at her house and we had cake and balloons and Daddy blew out a whole forty candles!”
“Well, that sounds like lots of fun,” I say, looking back at the little prawn all bundled up in his car seat. “I’m thirty-seven. And you’re four.”
“Four and a half. When I’m five, Daddy said I can have an iPad. Just for a little time. Fred at school has an iPad. It’s blue with dinosaurs on it. I don’t want dinosaurs on my iPad. I want prawns on my iPad because they’re brainy and Daddy says I’m a brainbox. Are you clever?”
“I don’t think I’m as clever as you.” I feel Dec looking at me out the corner of his eye, almost in apology.
“Will you clap after the play?”
“Of course I’ll clap.”
“Will you sing the songs with us?”
“You bet I will.”
“Can you look after my cakes so Herbert Smith doesn’t eat them all? He’s greedy. One day, he took Ben Cuthbert’s Dunkers out of his lunchbox and ate them all and his Jam Roly-poly cake. He said he didn’t but he had jam all round his mouth.”
“I’ll look after your cakes,” I assure him, smiling to myself as I return forward in my seat.
“Will you stay for the party in our classroom? Father Christmas is coming, and I’m going to tell him what I want him to bring me this year. I’ve been a good boy, haven’t I, Daddy?”
“A very good boy,” Dec confirms. “We’ll let this morning slide,” he adds under his breath, taking a left at the lights. “And I don’t think grown-ups are allowed at the party, fella. It’s just for children and teachers.”
“And Father Christmas.”
“And Father Christmas,” Dec confirms.
“And Rudolf,” Albi adds. “I know all of Father Christmas’s reindeers, don’t I, Daddy?”
“You sure do.”
“Do you know all of Father Christmas’s reindeers?”
“I don’t.” I turn in my seat to face him again, becoming all too addicted to his beaming smiles so full of delight and innocence. “Can you tell me?”
He grins. “Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen and Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen aannnd . . .”—he claps his hands theatrically—“Rudolph!”
“Wow.”
“I’m smart, aren’t I, Daddy?”
“The smartest boy I know.” Dec scrunches his nose at me, mouthing, “Sorry.”
“Stop it,” I order. “He’s the cutest.”
“And a real chatterbox today.” He looks at Albi in his rearview mirror, his smile on another level.
It’s the smile a parent could only give their baby.
The contrast in Dec Ellis is incredible.
Stoic, serious businessman. Pacifying, playful dad.
I fell in love with the former, saw chinks in his armour that made him all the more fascinating. This Dec? I love him the most.
“Do you love my daddy?”
Dec’s smile drops, as does mine, despite both of us knowing the answer is quite easy. Fuck. “What does love mean?” I ask, cringing as I turn back to face the road.
“It means you want to help him get dressed.”
“Oh?”
“And help him have a wash or a bath. And you take him milk when it’s bedtime.
And you read him a book even when you’re supposed to be working.
And you cut up his dinner for him. And you give him cuddles and kisses, and you tickle him and play Uno with him.
And you let him help you at your office.
And you let him eat ice cream at bedtime on Fridays. ”
Oh my heart.
“Basically, loving someone means you’re their skivvy,” Dec murmurs quietly, and I laugh, the sound loud and rich, making Dec smile my way. “Well? Do you love me, Camryn?” he asks, splitting his attention between me and the road, interested.
“If you’re Daddy’s special friend, you have to love him,” Albi declares. “And Daddy loves you because he said you’re his special friend.”
“Then I guess I love him,” I confirm, warmth gushing through me unstoppably. “If that’s okay with you, Albi.”
“Yes! Daddy, you can come to bed with me, and Camryn will bring our milk now so you don’t have to.”
My laughter turns up a few more notches, and Dec joins me, as Albi breaks into song in the back of the car.
A few years ago, I undoubtedly could have named any song being sung by any four-year-old across the land.
Now, I have no idea what’s coming out of his mouth.
“What are you singing, Albi?” I ask, as Dec’s hand rests in my lap, silently demanding I hold it.
“Moana,” he tells me, taking a short break to do so, before he’s off again, all the way to the school.
Dec drives around the block twice before he finds a space down a side street, and my heart noticeably beats faster as he gets out of the car and lifts his prawn out the back. Deep breaths. I step out and close the door, looking down the street to the school gates.
Dec passes me the cakes. Squashed to death. “Okay?” he asks, the car beeping as he joins me, Albi’s costume dragging through the melting snow.
I nod and motion down my front. “I would have made myself presentable had I known I’d be debuting at his school.”
“Could be worse,” he says, taking my hand. “Albi’s a prawn.”
I chuckle and smack his bicep, and quickly remove my hand from his, looking back at Albi trailing behind us, his lunchbox knocking his lower leg as he walks.
“You’ve told him you love me, Camryn,” Dec says quietly. “I think it’s safe to let me hold your hand.”