Robbie
Dinner?
Or a chimpanzee tea party — which is what it felt like.
Dave was being a dick.
Interrupting me mid-sentence, changing the subject, sulking whenever he wasn’t the centre of attention. His harpy of a girlfriend had dumped him after finding out I was now in control of Mum’s money. That was after I discovered he’d been using Mum’s bank card to buy Mandy gifts.
Not that Dave or Mum told me.
No — I found out by accident.
I’d been looking for something else when I opened a cupboard and found a stack of unopened bank statements Dave had intercepted.
I wasn’t just mad.
I was livid.
Taking Mum’s card to buy food was one thing.
Using it to buy crap for the harpy was another.
I wasn’t sure what was worse — his lack of remorse, or the way he lied about it.
And through all of it, while I sorted the statements and tried not to scream, Ashton was there. Lending me his strength. Listening while I ranted. Not judging. Just...steady. Present. Mine.
He was there the day I took Mum to the doctor for her assessment.
I’d expected tears — hers, not mine.
I sat there, numb, while the doctor asked her to count backwards from 100, then say the months in reverse. Then he gave her a name and an address to remember. When he asked her to repeat it, she looked confused. She didn’t even recall being asked.
It was me who sat with her during the MRI.
Me, who had to tell Dave she had Alzheimer’s — not just “being forgetful to annoy him.”
She was on medication now, slowing the progression. But like King Canute, there was no holding back the tide. Eventually, the disease would over-take her. Not yet. But one day.
I chose that moment to tell Dave about Ashton — not the connection to Dad, just who he was to me.
Dave didn’t take it well.
He was more concerned about how it reflected on him than how it made me happy.
After everything that had happened, I shouldn’t have been surprised.
Or disappointed.
But I was both.
For now, I was going to enjoy this time with Mum while she still remembered us. Sometimes she asked after Dad, forgetting he was gone. Those moments hurt the most.
But tonight, she was happy.
A full house.
New people to tell her stories to — people who didn’t contradict her.
And honestly?
Watching Gavin, Evan, and Ashton at the dinner table was the exact chaos I needed.
Gavin had somehow appointed himself “official taste-tester,” which meant he kept leaning over the table with his fork like a seagull eyeing chips.
Evan kept batting him away with the serving spoon, muttering something about “boundaries” and “basic human decency,” which only encouraged Gavin to try harder.
Mum thought it was hilarious.
She kept offering Gavin extra roast potatoes just to watch Evan’s eye twitch.
Ashton, bless him, was trying to be polite — but every time Gavin stole something off his plate, he’d give this tiny, affronted gasp that made me choke on my drink. At one point, Gavin reached for Ashton’s Yorkshire pudding, and Ashton slapped his hand away with the reflexes of a ninja.
“Touch it again,” Ashton warned, “and I’ll feed you to the neighbour’s cat.”
Gavin grinned. “Worth it.”
Dave glared at all of us like we were ruining his evening, which only made it funnier. Evan caught my eye and gave me a conspiratorial smirk, like we were both silently agreeing that chaos was preferable to misery.
And through it all, Ashton kept brushing his knee against mine under the table.
A small thing.
A quiet thing.
But grounding.
Reassuring.
Home.
For the first time in a long time, the house didn’t feel heavy.
It felt alive.
And as Mum laughed at something Gavin said — a bright, clear sound I hadn’t heard in months — I realised something:
This was what Dad would have wanted.
Not perfection.
Not pretending.
Just...life.
Messy, loud, ridiculous life.
And love.
In all its forms.