Chapter 25
EMMA
‘Mummaaaaaaa!’ The yell from the other room had reached a deafening crescendo. I put down the crumpet I was buttering and poked my head round the living room door. I couldn’t see Flynn anywhere, but the huge pile of cushions in the middle of the room gave me a clue as to where he was.
‘Hello?’ I called.
No answer, just a giggle.
‘How strange, Flynn must have left for playgroup already. Maybe I’ll eat his crumpet instead.’
‘Nooooo!’ A cushion tumbled and then a little person appeared, clambering over obstacles to reach me. ‘My crumpog!’ he said, jumping up and down.
‘Oh there you are,’ I said, bending down to scoop him up. He wriggled in my arms but I managed to force a cuddle before he squirmed back to the ground and raced through to the kitchen. By the time I got back he’d already devoured half the crumpet I’d been part-way through buttering.
‘Someone’s full of beans this morning,’ I said, taking a foil-wrapped sandwich out of the fridge and placing it carefully into his Bluey lunchbox.
I added a small box of raisins, some Pom Bears and a carton of blackcurrant juice, and then tucked a box of raw carrots down the side that I was certain would come home again completely uneaten, and zipped it shut.
‘Don’t break my cave, will you, Mummy?’ Flynn said, his blue eyes wide.
‘I wouldn’t dare, darling,’ I said, glad I was going to be in the office today so I didn’t have to look at the chaos in the living room.
I’d gone back to work three days a week after my maternity leave.
I wished I could be with Flynn every single day, but I needed to earn some money.
For a while I’d planned on selling the house because the mortgage was too much on a part-time wage.
But then something had happened that had changed my mind.
Flynn was just over a year old the first time.
We’d been in the bathroom, splashing around in the bubbles, and he was laughing like a hyena when he’d suddenly stopped dead and stared at the doorway, eyes round. I glanced over my shoulder but couldn’t see anything.
‘What is it sweetheart?’ I said, tickling him under the chin.
‘Man!’ he shouted, his gaze never leaving the empty doorway.
I stood, water splashing all over the floor, and poked my head round the doorway.
‘There’s no man there,’ I said, crouching back down beside him and running my hand over his bubbly head. ‘It’s all good.’
His gaze stayed fixed on the doorway for a few more seconds, then he looked back at me and smiled his gappy grin.
I didn’t think anything of it until a couple of weeks later when the same thing happened – only this time we were in Flynn’s bedroom.
He was on my knee on the little chair beside his bed, curled up against my chest while I read him a story.
He was almost asleep when his body had stiffened, suddenly alert, and he’d stared at the open doorway again.
‘Flynn, what’s the matter, darling?’ I said.
‘Dada,’ he said, the words as clear as day and my heart stopped beating.
Even though I knew there would be nobody there, I stood with Flynn in my arms and walked over to the doorway.
‘Who did you see, little man?’ I whispered.
‘Dada,’ he said again, and I thought my legs were going to give way right there and then. I stood still for a moment, trying to feel a presence, sure that if I wished for it enough, Nick would come to me. But after a few minutes I gave up and walked back over to the chair once more.
After that, it happened every few weeks.
Sometimes Flynn would stop, stare at a point in the distance, and either smile or shout ‘dada’.
Other times we’d be out in the garden, collecting apples that had scattered across the lawn from the large tree in the corner and separating the worm-eaten ones from the good ones, when a smile would break out on his face and he’d whisper ‘No, not there, that’s a bad one. ’
And while Flynn was too young to tell me what he was seeing or who he was speaking to, it was clear to me that it was Nick.
We might not have been able to force the connection between us, but the link between father and son was obviously too strong, and Flynn could feel his daddy’s presence in the house.
Although I had no idea what I was going to tell Flynn if he ever started asking about him, it was a comfort to me to know Nick was there, somewhere, looking over us.
How could we ever leave this house now?
‘Right, five minutes, mister,’ I said now. ‘Go and clean your teeth and get your shoes on.’
Flynn slid off the chair and ran upstairs, his feet thundering on the stairs like a small herd of elephants. I checked my bag, grabbed my own sandwich from the fridge, and went into the hall to apply my lipstick in the hallway mirror.
A few minutes later Flynn and I were walking along the street hand in hand, Flynn with his tiny rucksack on his back and his lunchbox swinging in his other arm.
He chattered away as we walked, telling me about his friends, about Miss Hardcastle, about the birds in the trees and shouting every time he spotted a yellow car.
At one point we had to stop and watch as a fire engine screamed past, Flynn’s mouth wide open in amazement.
It was only a ten-minute walk to Flynn’s nursery, but it usually took at least twenty, and by the time we arrived this morning most of his friends had already gone inside. Miss Hardcastle was still there, smiling.
‘I go now, Mummy,’ he said, tugging his hand away.
I crouched down and gave him a hug. ‘Be a good boy for Mummy, won’t you?’ I said.
‘Yep!’ Then he turned and ran towards the door, disappearing into the darkness beyond.
I was just about to leave when I heard someone call my name. I turned to see Miss Hardcastle walking towards me.
‘Is everything all right?’ I said, my stomach plummeting to the ground.
‘Yes, nothing to worry about,’ she said, her bright smile lighting up her face. ‘I just wondered…’ She glanced over her shoulder then back at me. ‘I wondered if I could ask you a rather personal question?’
‘I… I guess so.’ I was intrigued now.
‘It’s just, Flynn had never mentioned his daddy before, and I’ve always assumed he’s not around, but I… I wondered if I could show you a picture he drew yesterday?’
‘Yes of course.’ My heart thumped low in my belly as she went back into the classroom and re-emerged a few seconds later clutching a piece of paper.
It fluttered in the breeze as she handed it to me, and it took me a few seconds for my eyes to make out what was on the bright white sheet.
But when they did, my stomach flipped over.
On the paper Flynn had drawn a large purple square, with green scribbles underneath it, and blue scribbled above. A yellow scribble sat in the top right corner. But it was what was inside the box that my eyes focused on.
Flynn had drawn three crude figures. One had long orange scribbles around its head which I took to be me. One was smaller with blond hair and our hands were joined so I guessed that was Flynn.
The third one, though, was what I assumed had piqued Miss Hardcastle’s concern.
The figure was drawn higher than the others, almost as though it was floating above it.
It was scribbled entirely in black, and even though Flynn’s drawing skills were rudimentary, when I looked back at the stick figures of me and him, we both had tears in our eyes.
My hand had started to shake and I handed the piece of paper back.
‘Sorry, I don’t know where that’s come from,’ I said, forcing a smile.
Miss Hardcastle tipped her head to the side and nodded.
‘That’s okay. I just wanted to make you aware in case…
well, in case there is anyone else in his life that he might feel a bit fearful of.
’ She cleared her throat. ‘Not that this always means that. Often it can just point to an overactive imagination, but we always like to mention it to parents, just in case.’
‘Yes, thank you. That’s very kind but I’m sure it’s nothing. He probably just wishes he had his daddy around like his friends do.’
Miss Hardcastle smiled sympathetically. ‘Yes I’m sure you’re probably right,’ she said. ‘Well, thank you for your time, Ms Vickers. I hope you don’t mind me showing you this.’
‘No, of course not. Thank you,’ I said, backing away. As soon as the young teacher had turned back to the classroom I turned and scurried away, keen to get out of there as quickly as possible.
I walked the rest of the way to work on autopilot, my mind. My breath came fast and I stopped just before I reached the office to calm myself down. I leaned against a wall and took a couple of deep breaths.
I wished I’d asked to bring Flynn’s drawing with me so that I could look at it again.
Had I overreacted? It had seemed obvious to me at the time that the purple square represented the bandstand, and that the three figures were me, Flynn and a man…
his daddy? I thought back to the only time I’d ever taken Flynn to the bandstand, the place he was conceived, back when he was a tiny baby.
His reaction had been so strong I’d never dared take him back there again.
But what if something in his subconscious remembered it?
What if he’d somehow made the connection between the man he saw in the house and the bandstand?
After all, Nick had come to me through some sort of portal – God, listen to me – that only seemed to work there.
Maybe the time had come to take him back and see whether the portal was still there – because what better person would there be for Nick to visit than his own son?
I was about to let myself into the house when a voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned to find my neighbour leaning over the fence.
‘Hello,’ I said, surprised. We’d spoken a few times over the last few years, but we barely knew each other, and I could count on one hand the number of times she’d stopped me to say hello.
‘Hello, Emma. I was just wondering how you were?’
‘Me? I’m good thank you. You?’