Chapter 54
Chapter Fifty-Four
Flora
Once the cool air hit me, I realised how drunk I was so had taken the decision not to storm round to casa Walker slurring and making a spectacle of myself and God forbid, scaring the children.
Instead, I walked to the park with the intention of grabbing a coffee, but I hadn’t got any means of payment with me.
“Bollocks,” I hissed as I got to the café.
“Don’t think they’re on the menu.”
I turned to find Gabe, with Charlotte, who eyed me suspiciously.
“I’d ask if you’re okay, but you’re clearly not, Flora. I am not my wife so have no desire to fix other people’s problems in any way that isn’t professional, but you seem to have been partying hard this afternoon and you’re without cash, so let me buy you a coffee.”
I prepared to protest but he continued.
“My wife will have plenty to say if she discovers I didn’t help you, so, please, take a seat and let me get coffee. Charlotte, come with Daddy and see if they have the brownies Mummy doesn’t let us have before dinner.”
The little girl giggled and dutifully followed her father who apparently didn’t trust me to be alone with his daughter. Preparing to be offended, I looked into the café and caught sight of myself in the window.
“Shit! No wonder he’s taken the kid with him.
” I looked awful, almost like the victim of an accident with my still red, blotchy and swollen face, but worse than that was the clearly drunk, glazed eyes.
I looked like I should live on a park bench or under a bridge.
I smiled sadly for a second as I thought of the troll that lived under the bridge in The Three Billy Goats Gruff, one of Craig’s favourite stories.
I’d miss the children as much as Maurizio, just in a very different way.
All of them had got under my skin and made their way into my heart in the months I’d lived with them and taken care of them.
“There we go.” Gabe placed a large cup in front of me. “I got you a double shot of espresso in there.”
“Thank you.”
“You smell funny.” Charlotte didn’t try dressing things up and my drunken state was no exception.
Gabe made no effort to correct or chasten her. He placed some brownies on the table. “Tuck in. Brownies are always the answer to problems. Oh, and I got you these.” He threw me a packet of hand wipes and some mints.”
“Thank you,” I repeated.
“No problem, we’ve all been there.” He paused, his cup raised halfway between the saucer and his lips. “Are you okay as in not hurt . . . I mean someone hasn’t hurt you, have they? Not everyone is kind or honest . . .”
“I’m fine, thank you.” I remembered hearing the brief details of Carrie having had her drink spiked and someone she had once considered a friend attempting to hurt her.
“Okay.”
Charlotte’s squeal of excitement drew our attention to the presence of Seb, Bea’s boyfriend. He scooped up Charlotte and covered her giggling face in kisses before taking the seat opposite Gabe. It was then that he looked at me and seemed to recoil in horror.
“You okay? Do you need a hair of the dog?”
Gabe cussed at him under his breath. “No, she doesn’t. We are having coffee and brownies and then Flora is going home, probably for a nap, right?”
I nodded. He didn’t need to know that I was going home to say my piece and then I was leaving for good.
“What brings you here?” I asked Gabe hoping to move all attention from the state I was in.
He laughed. “What happens in the café stays in the café, right?”
I nodded.
“My wife is in her nesting stage of pregnancy, so I decided it was safer for us both to leave the house and come here.”
“Snap!” Seb announced, leaning across and taking a bite of Gabe’s brownie before then sipping the coffee from his cup. Neither man acknowledged it while Charlotte giggled at her uncle.
“You sound like wise men,” I told them both.
“And your man, Mo, is he not a wise man?” Gabe asked.
I shook my head. “No, he’s not.”
“Ah. I am not in the habit of offering advice, again, I am not my wife, but whatever has happened between you, he is totally smitten.”
I scoffed. Gabe didn’t know what he was talking about but he had been nothing but kind to me so I let it slide.
“Look, it’s no secret that me and the guy aren’t exactly BFFs but Gabe is right.
We met him in a bar months ago and he is well into you, so if he has .
. .” He covered Charlotte’s ears. “ . . . been a dick, you might want to hear him out.” He uncovered the little girl’s ears.
“I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but even I have made mistakes. ”
Gabe laughed and I joined in with his laughter. Seb ignored us both.
“But Bea allowed me an opportunity to earn back her trust, so, I dunno, just don’t be rash.”
“Thank you, both.” I smiled at Charlotte who was looking up at me as I got to my feet. “All of you, thank you.”
Armed with the wipes and the mints, I headed to the bathroom before going to see Maurizio. I didn’t know if I would take their advice, but I absolutely had to talk to him, even if it was to get things off my mind.
When I arrived at the house, I still looked like shit, but I wasn’t as drunk, the rain and wind blowing around me had gone some way to tame my hair a little, but it had also left me rather wet and the mints, of which I’d eaten about half, had freshened my breath.
Maurizio’s car was absent from its position between Sophie’s and mine, which was no longer mine. Seb’s and Gabe’s words ran around my head and I was glad to have met them because now I was calm and had only one intention. To say my piece.
Knocking on the door, I waited. Sophie pulled it open and smiled at me, concern etched across her face.
“Flora, are you okay?” She didn’t wait for a response.
“You’re wet through, let’s get you in and dry before this storm hits.
” She was heading back into the house and I followed.
“There’s a yellow warning for rain and wind later,” she told me, the kettle already being put on.
I watched her and could see her as the woman of the house here, but why wouldn’t she be? This had been, was her marital home? How much of the décor here had been her choice?
“Let me grab you a towel and some spare clothes.” She scurried off and the sound of a gentle snore alerted me to the sleeping children, cuddled together on the sofa. The image made me smile.
“They went down about ten minutes ago so we won’t be disturbed.”
“Sophie,” I began, but I had no clue where I was taking this.
“There you go, get dry and dressed while I make the tea.”
Taking the items she’d gathered for me, I dried my hair and removed my outer clothes, replacing them with a pair of leggings and baggy T-shirt she offered me. Hers. She was taller and far slighter than I was, but the outfit did the job.
“Tea.” She offered me a steaming mug and we sat opposite each other at the table that just a few days before had seen her walking in on me being in Maurizio’s lap.
“Sophie, why are you being so kind? I left. I was seeing your husband, sleeping with him.”
She frowned. “I know. Oh, and he is as good as my ex-husband. The first part of the divorce came today.”
My mouth dropped open and I was stunned into silence.
“The benefit of two legal minds is that we get this shit done on a daily basis so legal things aren’t problematic.”
“Maurizio loves you.”
She was the one speechless now, at least for a few seconds. “Not like he loves you.”
“I heard him tell Nico.”
“You didn’t. You heard him venting to Nico, but you need to speak to Mo about all of this.”
“I don’t understand. You left and didn’t see the children, then you saw them infrequently.”
She looked guilty.
“I’m not judging you.”
“You should be and I am judging me.”
“But Maurizio welcomed you back here and then he was speaking of divorce but he refused to explain . . . I don’t understand.”
“Okay. The stuff you think you heard Mo say, I’ve already said, you need to speak to him, but me coming back and why he wouldn’t explain, well, that I can tell you.”
She took a mouthful of her tea and then began to speak.
I sat, mesmerised at her strength and poise as she retold me the events of the months before she returned and the time since then, including her visit to the hospital with Maurizio and her fears for not being around for her children.
“I am so sorry, Sophie.”
She nodded and as she rubbed the back of my hand I could have sworn she was comforting me.
“It’s shit, but I will know more once I have seen the doctors next week. Mo was going to tell you when he cooked your breakfast. I asked him not to until I had been to the hospital. He told the children this morning about you two.”
“He did?” I was stunned and already regretting not being an adult and speaking to him, giving him an opportunity to explain.
Sophie laughed. “Well, he tried to, but the children somehow managed to tie him up in knots about the type of friends who make breakfast for each other, like boyfriend and girlfriend people.”
“No!” I threw my hand over my mouth in horror.
“It gets better, Craig told us all that you are his Daddy’s girlfriend because he saw you kissing, the day I came back.”
I dropped my head to the table and buried my face. A loud crack of thunder made me jump back into a sitting position, causing Sophie to look at me with concern.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “I don’t do well with storms.” I didn’t say any more and she didn’t ask, but stroked my hand again. “Are you sure there’s nothing between you and Maurizio . . . I know what I heard.”
“I know what you think you heard, but there was far more you didn’t hear, and me and Mo? Old news, co-parents, friends, no more.”
“Did you love him?”
“I’d offer you a glass of wine to do this discussion, but I’m living clean and I think you might not want to partake again so soon.”
“That obvious?”
“Oh, yes.”
“So, did you love him?”