Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
One of the reasons they’d bought this house was that the back garden got the sun for most of the day. When they’d moved here with eight-year-old twins, she’d envisaged summer days spent outside in the fresh air. Though he was less keen on the idea than she’d hoped back then, now Ben had condescended to at least sit on the patio watching cartoons on his tablet, although she couldn’t help but think that their company was less of a draw to him than his trike – the prized possession that he liked to be within tapping distance.
Having spent the afternoon weeding the flower beds, she’d invited Lynn over from next door. Sitting around their small table, Lynn looked as if she was on vacation with her sun hat shading her beaming smile and a glass of orange juice in hand. ‘It’s so lovely to have you back here, Erica. Isn’t it nice, Mollie, having your mum back here?’
Mollie, face pleasantly flushed from the heat, grinned at Erica. ‘It really is. Although she tells me to do my school work much more than Dad did.’
As if he’d heard his name, Andrew stepped out of the patio doors with a cup of juice for Ben in his lime-green cup with the straw. It had been really great to wake up together this morning and last weekend. Having Andrew there to share the load. And he had been doing it. A few times she’d had to bite her lip when he was doing something differently than she – and Ben – was used to. But he had to find his own way with his son.
It warmed Erica as much as the sunshine to see how much easier he was around Ben. It was still early days, but the difference was palpable. After placing his drink next to the trike and saying something soft to him – Ben nodded even if he didn’t look up – Andrew dragged another chair from the patio to join them at the back of the garden. ‘Can I get you anything else, Lynn?’
She waved her glass of orange juice. ‘No, I’m still full, thanks. Ben seems to have settled back in well. Is he coping okay with the weekends here and the weekdays at your other place?’
Change to routine was always tricky for Ben, and the hour in the car from the apartment to here on the last two Fridays – and back again on the Sunday night – had been a little sticky, but it was worth it to have the four of them together for the whole weekend. ‘He’s doing really well. He had an overnight stay at school on Thursday and he managed the whole night.’
She could hear the pride in her own voice. Andrew and Mollie had stayed at the apartment with her that night, but she hadn’t got a wink of sleep. It’d reminded her of when she’d first brought the twins home from the hospital and she’d been afraid to fall asleep in case they stopped breathing. This time, she’d slept with her phone – the ringer turned up to maximum – level with her eyes on the bedside table.
Lynn beamed at her. ‘Good for Ben! How was that for you?’
She looked from Erica to Andrew and back again. Erica looked at Andrew and he laughed. ‘I don’t know why you’re looking at me, but, yes, it was great. We drove to pick him up early the following morning and we had to wait because they had chocolate croissants for breakfast and he didn’t want to miss out.’
He reached across for Erica’s hand and it made her blush. After so long apart, it felt as if they were starting over and she was still getting used to being affectionate again. ‘He did really well. I was worried, obviously. But I didn’t need to be. He was happy.’
‘That’s great news.’ Lynn shifted in her seat and turned toward Mollie, who was pretending that she wasn’t surreptitiously scrolling through her phone rather than joining in the conversation. ‘And how about you, Mollie? How’s school been?’
After another week off, they’d managed to persuade Mollie to go back to school. It’d been helped by Amelia telling her that everyone was talking about her presenting on the local news. She’d made her sound like a celebrity. Despite the tears over breakfast on the morning of her return, it’d seemed to go well.
However, Mollie’s face wasn’t filled with enthusiasm. ‘It’s okay.’
This was one of the main reasons she’d wanted Lynn to come here for coffee rather than meet in town. Erica was hoping that Lynn might be able to get to the root of this with Mollie better than she’d been able to. ‘What do you mean by okay?’
Mollie tilted her head to one side, twisting a lock of her hair between her first two fingers. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I mean, a couple of the boys teased me, but most people were more interested in the TV stuff and wanted to know if I could get them to come into school and do a report from there.’
Thank heavens for the teenage obsession with fame. Still, Erica was concerned that Mollie didn’t sound totally happy. It was difficult not to jump in and try and fix things, try and persuade her that it’d all be okay eventually.
Lynn adjusted her hat from where it had fallen over her eyes. ‘Well, that sounds good. It must be nice to be a celebrity.’
With a weak smile, Mollie slid her hands under her thighs and rocked gently in her seat. ‘I want to change schools.’
Erica’s heart sank. Clearly things weren’t as good as she’d thought they were. Had she missed it again? Assumed that everything was okay only to discover there was something going on below the surface?
Sipping her orange juice, Lynn frowned. ‘Why’s that?’
Shifting in her seat, Mollie glanced sideways at Erica and Andrew. ‘I want us to all live together. And I’ve found a school near Ben’s where they do Media Studies GCSE. And they have special courses in TV and drama at their sixth form. I want to go there.’
From the look on Andrew’s face, this was news to him too. When had she researched all of this? Was she just doing this to make life easier for them? Because that wasn’t what Erica wanted her to do. ‘Are you sure that’s what you want, Mol? You’re over halfway through school and it’ll be a big upheaval to…’
She trailed off. She could feel herself doing it again. Jumping in to solve everyone’s problems, second-guessing their needs and wants.
Mollie turned in her seat, her face a picture of determination. ‘It is what I want. I want to start again. And I can’t do that if I stay at the same place where everyone knows what happened.’
It was going to take a long time for her to get over the humiliation she’d felt, Erica knew that. Nonetheless, she also knew that starting a brand-new school was no walk in the park either. But the choice had to be Mollie’s. ‘If that’s what you want, we can go and look at it.’
Mollie’s expression was simultaneously surprised and hopeful. ‘It is. And I want Dad to come, too. I want us to all live in the same house again. Every day.’
Since their conversation in the kitchen, she and Andrew had been spending their time swapping houses and children and trying to be together as a foursome as much as possible. It couldn’t continue like that, but she wasn’t sure what the long-term solution was going to be. ‘Your dad needs to get to work. And the commute is too far from where I’m living right now.’
Andrew raised a hand like he was in class. ‘Dad can get a transfer. Someone needs to make a sacrifice and it’s definitely my turn.’
She looked at Andrew, then back to Mollie, then glanced at Lynn whose smile echoed the one that was spreading over her own face. They were going to need time to work through all the mistakes and miscommunications of the last thirteen years, but it looked as if they might be travelling there from the same house, together.