Chapter Twenty-Three
‘So, it wasn’t a full-blown asthma attack?’
‘They call the less serious ones flare-ups,’ I corrected.
I was a brand-new expert on the condition, having spent a large part of the previous night following every online link I could find relating to childhood asthma.
I’d probably only scratched the surface of available information, and yet it had still been enough to frighten the life out of me.
How did anyone ever manage to navigate being a parent without living in a constant state of panic?
I looked across the room at my friend and added a footnote to that thought: unless they were like Mel, of course. There were some people who were born to nurture and care for others. Unfortunately, I didn’t think I was one of them.
‘Tell me again exactly what Rhys said when he phoned this morning,’ Mel questioned, swapping out my empty coffee mug for a fresh one.
She paused on her way to the dishwasher to wave at Steve, who was walking up and down their lawn pushing a mower.
He waved back and they both looked so happy that I immediately regretted bringing down the mood of their happy home by intruding on their Saturday morning routine.
‘He said that by the time he got to Annalise’s, Tasha was fast asleep in bed and was breathing okay. Thankfully the flare-up had subsided.’
Mel made a face like she was sucking lemons.
‘Did his ex say what had triggered it?’
I shook my head, but I knew that triggers could come from anywhere. ‘Maybe it was pollen, dust, or pollution. Or perhaps she just has a nasty cold. They’re often the cause,’ I said, quoting Dr Google. ‘Lots of kids suffer really badly in winter.’
‘It’s summer,’ Mel said, nodding towards the rays of sunlight slanting in through her open kitchen windows.
‘A summer cold then,’ I said, wondering where she was going with this. Mel loved nothing more than a good crime thriller. Film, TV, or book, she adored them all. She could sniff out a red herring faster than a bloodhound and left most fictional detectives in the dust when solving clues.
‘Just hypothesising here, but how sure are we that Rhys’s little girl—’
‘—Tasha. Her name is Tasha,’ I supplied.
‘How sure are we that Tasha was as bad as her mum made out last night?’
There were a great many thoughts that had run through my head since Rhys had left my flat the night before, but that one hadn’t even occurred to me. I was so shocked that the full cup of coffee wobbled in my hand as I set it back down on the kitchen table.
‘Are you suggesting that Annalise made it up?’
Mel gave an eloquent shrug.
‘What kind of mother would do something like that?’ My own had certainly had some questionable parenting skills, but I also knew she would never have feigned an illness.
I shook my head vehemently and the ponytail I’d gathered my hair into swung from side to side like a red warning flag.
‘No. I can’t imagine Rhys ever falling in love with someone capable of lying about their own kid’s health.’
Mel gave a you-could-be-right shrug. ‘Although I bet if you’d asked him a few years ago if she’d sleep with another man in their bed, he’d probably have said she wouldn’t do that either.
’ I felt a sudden stab of guilt at having shared Annalise’s betrayal with my friend, because it hadn’t been my secret to tell.
‘This is different,’ I insisted. ‘This is a step too far. If you had a sick child, you wouldn’t tempt fate like that.’
Mel gave a twisted smile. ‘Listen to you, talking about fate as though it’s something you actually believe in. Where’s that career-driven woman who always said you make your own destiny?’
‘I killed her off,’ I said, reaching for a second brownie before my conscience told me it was a bad idea. ‘In a lightning flash.’
‘Just think about it for a moment,’ Mel urged. ‘You and Rhys bump into wicked best friend at your awards do—’
‘We can’t say for sure that Helen is wicked,’ I said, determined to play devil’s advocate.
‘Okay. Well, Helen is none too pleased to see her bestie’s ex turn up with a new girlfriend.’
‘Whoa. Back up there. I’m not Rhys’s girlfriend,’ I protested.
Mel shook her hand as though batting away an annoying wasp. ‘It’s just a word. Anyway, she sees that the two of you are looking pretty cosy together, plus Rhys seems happy to let them all think that you’re an item.’
She was right there, so I nodded.
‘She is obviously going to report all of that back to Annalise. That’s just standard best-friend protocol. It wouldn’t surprise me if she even took some covert photos of you to pass on.’
I remembered the camera flash and realised Mel could well be on the right track.
‘Then you both emerge from making out on the balcony.’
‘Do people in this country call it making out?’
‘Stop interrupting me. Helen obviously knew exactly why you and Rhys were leaving the event early and what you were planning on getting up to afterwards.’
‘You’re making this all sound really sordid and dirty.’
Mel reached across the table and squeezed my hand. ‘Sorry, hon. But I actually think you’re long overdue some dirty sex. Unless you’ve been at it like a rabbit during the months of radio silence.
‘Anyway, the obvious thing for Helen to do is call her friend the moment you left the event. And then the obvious thing for Annalise to do is to find a reason to pull Rhys right back in again. And nothing was more likely to do that than a phone call saying that their little girl was sick.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘But it could have happened. At best, she could have been exaggerating the symptoms. In half an hour the kid was miraculously well enough to be fast asleep again. And Annalise had the man who was meant to be giving you the best sex you’ve ever had in her house instead of yours.’
She made a compelling case.
Mel got to her feet, miming a letter T through the window and a very hot and sweaty-looking Steve nodded gratefully. While Mel started to make her husband a drink, I stared at the whirls in the wood of her kitchen table as though they held the secret to the mystery of life.
‘It doesn’t really matter if Annalise fabricated, exaggerated, or plain-out lied about Tasha’s condition last night,’ I said, with iron-clad conviction.
Mel paused at the open fridge door. ‘Why is that?’
‘Because it could have happened, even if it didn’t last night. One night there will be an emergency, and Rhys needs to be there when it does. He needs to be on hand to soothe Tasha, help her calm down, use her inhaler properly, and take charge if things get worse and it turns into an emergency.’
‘He doesn’t need to live under the same roof as them to do any of those things,’ Mel pointed out reasonably.
‘Well, I think he does. Fathers who love their children as much as he does shouldn’t have to live apart from them.’
Mel shook her head and bit her lip. Half of me really wanted to know what it was she was refusing to allow to escape. The other half of me was too scared that I already knew.
‘That’s not what he has ever said to you though, is it? That he has to move back?’
‘Not in so many words,’ I admitted, starting to feel cornered.
Mel abandoned the tea and crossed the kitchen again and gave me a hug.
‘The only person using those excuses isn’t Rhys, hon, it’s you. You’re the one setting up these roadblocks. You really need to get out of your own way, Ellie, or you’re going to miss the chance to see where this thing could actually go.’
There were three missed calls from Rhys on my phone when I finally checked it.
I’d put my mobile on silent as I’d stood on Mel’s doorstep that morning, carrying a bag of brownies still warm from the bakery, and was quite proud of how I’d kept my phone tucked away in my pocket throughout my visit.
But each time it had vibrated soundlessly against my hip bone, I could feel my resolve weakening.
When Rhys had called that morning, I hadn’t been entirely honest with him.
After confirming Tasha’s flare-up hadn’t been serious, he’d asked if he could come and see me, but in a knee-jerk reaction that took me by surprise, I said I’d already made plans for the day.
Had he believed me? Perhaps not, because we both knew that just twelve hours earlier the only plan in my head had been to wake up in his arms.
But things change. They have to when life sends you the kind of reminder that it had done so effectively the night before.
I stared at his name now on my phone screen and felt a tug of longing. You’re doing the right thing, I told myself determinedly. You’re stepping aside to let a family find its way back together again. That was a good thing. So why did it make me feel so terrible?
‘How about after you’ve been to Mel?’ Rhys had asked, with a persistence that would have given me a warm glow if only things had been different.
‘Sorry, Rhys, I’m visiting family after that.’ It was a plausible lie to have plucked from thin air.
There’d been a long pause on the line, during which I could almost hear him trying to rearrange his life around mine. Don’t do that, I silently pleaded. Just let me go.
‘I have Tasha all day tomorrow, so that wipes out the rest of the weekend,’ Rhys said, his voice full of regret.
‘That’s okay.’
‘No, Ellie, none of this is okay,’ he said, sounding genuinely concerned. ‘But I don’t know how to fix it over the phone. I need to see you. I need to convince you that there’s something special here – or at least there could be.’
In the end I’d suggested that we grab a quick lunch in the week, which had been the least romantic scenario I could come up with.
‘I’ll take whatever time you can spare. I’ll fit in around you.’
Everything he did, everything he said, made it almost impossible to remember that we were a lost cause. There was no point trying to fight for us, because we weren’t meant to be.
It was something I should try telling my feet, because as much as I wanted them to walk away, all they wanted to do was run straight back to him.
I could smell the flowers even before I’d pushed open the street door. Their scent filled the communal hallway. One of my neighbours must have propped them up on the narrow table where we left the mail, and they lifted and brightened both the entrance hall and me.
There was a card stapled to the cellophane wrapping, but there was no need to tear it open straight away, because I already knew who they were from.
No one else in the world called me ‘Shoe Girl’.
It must have confused the hell out of whoever had taken in the delivery, but it made perfect sense to me and was an advance warning that there’d be no sappy message inside the small square envelope.
The flowers had been sent to make me smile, something they’d already achieved, I realised, as I bent to burrow my face in the exotic blooms. I regularly bought flowers and plants for clients, but there were several stems in this bouquet I’d never seen before.
As I filled the biggest vase I owned with water, I finally tugged the small white envelope from the cellophane. There was a quote on the card, one I’d never heard before, despite having studied American Literature at university.
‘Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.’
Mark Twain.
Every time I tried to convince myself that there was nothing special about this man, he revealed yet another facet of his personality that drew me right back to him all over again.
On a whim, I used the app on my phone to identify the unfamiliar flowers in the arrangement.
I couldn’t help smiling as my phone recognised them as Thunder Roses and Lightning Bolt Jewel Orchids.
Who took that much time, put that much effort into preparing such a perfect gift?
And what kind of fool walks away from a man like that?