Chapter 28
For three children who apparently couldn’t wait to get home, they were doing their best not to let that happen.
I’d finally persuaded Kaylynn into her car seat and had left Bronte keeping an eye on her while I tried to wrestle Harley’s top half out of my washing machine, and still had no idea where Lennon was hiding when there was a loud ‘Ay up!’ from the front hallway.
Caught off guard, my instinctive response was to panic.
After two nights of next to no sleep, I didn’t have the processing capacity for my old and new lives – or, more accurately, my new and even-newer lives – to coexist in the same corridor.
It wasn’t only Merry standing jauntily in my house, either. Darya and Lola were with her.
No Will, I noted with a ripple of disappointment, before chastising myself for being pathetic.
‘Doing some washing?’ Merry asked, grinning at the pair of chubby legs sticking out of my machine.
‘We’re actually on our way out,’ I said, hoping I didn’t sound as overwrought as I felt.
‘You look awful,’ Darya noted, her face screwing up. ‘Like, really, really dreadful.’
‘Yeah.’ What else could I say to that?
‘Oy!’ Lola stepped past me and tickled Harley’s feet. ‘Are you coming out to say hello?’
‘I’m never coming out.’ Harley giggled, squirming.
‘Oh, no.’ Lola wailed. ‘Somebody told me the strongest, smartest, bestest boy in the whole world was here, and I really wanted to meet him.’
‘They probably meant Lennon,’ Harley said, but his legs had stopped wiggling. She’d got his attention. ‘He’s the strongest.’
‘Okay. They said it was a boy with one red and one green sock, who likes putting his head in washing machines. A boy who is maybe four or five. Is that Lennon?’
‘That’s me!’ Harley wriggled out of the drum, face bright red and beaming, a smear of ketchup from lunch across his cheek.
‘Hi, me!’ Lola said. ‘I also heard this super-strong boy is so smart he can get his shoes and coat on and climb into his car seat all by himself. But that can’t be true. You’re way too little for that.’
‘I’m not too little!’
And in under two minutes, Lola had accomplished what I’d been struggling to do for the past twenty.
‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ Darya said, with a sympathetic smile. ‘She’s a dental nurse. She’s had a lot of practice in convincing reluctant children into chairs.’
‘Right. Well, now he’s safely in, I need to find his brother.’
‘No worries,’ Bronte said, appearing in the doorway. ‘Lola said she’ll wait with the littlies while I look for Lennon. You chat to your friends.’
She waggled her eyebrows in a way that would have embarrassed me if Darya and Merry weren’t fully aware that me having friends was a novelty.
‘Don’t worry, we won’t keep you from wherever you’re going with these random children you keep posting pictures of, as if we’re supposed to know who they are and whether or not we need to inform the authorities of a potential kidnapping.
’ Merry held up a cardboard folder. ‘We just wanted to show you the final menu.’
Darya coughed. ‘Actually, that’s really an excuse. We’re checking on you. We appreciate how a family situation meant you had to miss the Christmas social and the rest of the Tucker’s refurb, but when Will said he’d not heard from you in days, we started to get seriously concerned.’
‘You couldn’t keep your hands off each other last Thursday,’ Merry said. ‘Even for a lifelong commitment-phobe such as yourself, it seemed a bit much to ghost a man in Will’s circumstances.’
‘I’ve not ghosted him,’ I said, grabbing my phone and staring at the screen as if some of the squillions of mental messages I’d imagined sending him would suddenly materialise in my WhatsApp. ‘I messaged him about Ernest on Friday.’
Darya pursed her lips and tapped her toes on the tiled floor a few times.
Is this what friends did? Showed up and demanded you explain the behaviour you’d done a great job of fooling yourself into believing was acceptable until forced to discharge it from your own head into the real world?
‘Okay. You’re right. I should have contacted him. I can see how maybe it looks as if I’m avoiding him.’
‘When you collected Ernest, you didn’t even get out of the car.’
‘Yeah. That probably didn’t look great. I just… I have… It’s been…’
At that point, Lennon came flying down the stairs wailing like a police siren.
He tumbled straight into Merry, rebounded into the wall and fell onto the floor where he lay on his front, arms flung behind his back, shouting, ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court…’
Bronte walked down the stairs as he finished reciting the police caution.
I glanced at Darya, who was pressing one hand against her chest, eyes growing wide in alarm as she sucked in a deep breath.
‘Don’t worry, that means he’s going to behave,’ Bronte explained. ‘He’s pretending to get arrested so he has to do whatever he’s told. Come on, young man, let’s get you in the police car.’
Oh, my goodness. I had no idea what I was doing.
‘They’re my sister’s kids,’ I said, babbling because Darya wasn’t the only one on the brink of a panic attack.
‘She’s got a situation going on and needed some help.
As you can probably tell, they’ve been all-consuming over the past few days.
I’m taking them home, though, so can get back on track with Tucker’s, and…
and things. I’m sorry I’ve not been here to help finish the project. ’
‘No apology necessary,’ Merry said, absentmindedly massaging Darya’s shoulders. ‘Family comes first. Usually. Depending upon your family. Anyway, the whole point is we’ve finished. It’s all come together and Joel has had the best idea for our grand reopening on the twenty-third.’
‘We’re having a Friends Wanted Christmas dinner,’ Darya said, before bending over, bracing both hands on her knees as she muttered an admonishment to Mr G.
‘Open to anyone who might be alone on Christmas Day. Joel and Donovan have been putting up posters, and Will shared it on the Bigley Facebook page.’
‘We’ve sold thirteen tickets so far,’ Merry added proudly, as Darya began counting.
‘You’re selling tickets?’ While I’d tried to convince Merry how important it was to consider profits, I would have made an opening event free of charge, if for no other reason than no one would pay to come to the old Tucker’s.
‘For three pounds fifty each. If it was free, then people might say they’re coming, then not bother turning up.’
‘Okay. That makes sense.’ This whole thing was making a lot of sense. Merry and Joel would do just fine with the relaunch. It seemed my work fixing Tucker’s was done.
‘You’re going to come, aren’t you?’ Darya asked, hands moving to her hips as she slowly straightened up.
Well, I could hardly reject an invitation from a woman battling an anxiety attack, could I?
‘I will. I’m back this evening, so I’ll need a day to sleep and tidy my house, but I’ll be around after that. Whatever you need.’
‘We don’t need you, Alex.’ Merry folded her arms underneath her bosom.
‘Oh. Okay.’ I’d been gone for less than a week. Had it really upset them that much? I’d never figure out how proper friendships worked at this rate.
‘But we would love you to be involved, if you’d like. No pressure. See how you feel.’
‘But yes, pressure to speak to Will,’ Darya added as they left. ‘Don’t be like Lola’s ex-boy-deadbeat. He was worse than this British weather. Sunny, cloudy, hot, cold. Mostly wet like a soggy, useless tissue.’
Oof. They were right, of course. I’d speak to him. Soon. Once I’d slept and managed to brush my hair. Scrubbed the jam out of the rug and wiped the chocolate spread off the window.
Figured out what the hell I was going to say.
Later that evening, after Lacey had called to double-check Lennon was winding her up when he casually mentioned my ‘special bedtime brownies to calm everyone down’, I messaged Will.
I’m so sorry I’ve been quiet. Your voice messages have kept me going these past few days.
He replied almost instantly.
It’s been rough?
Like being cranked through a meat grinder. A few good moments, but even those were pretty intense for an emotional hermit like me.
Are you feeling up to a call?
If it had been anyone else, no. But this was Will. Talking to him was better than any hot bath, good book or glass of wine. Any of the self-care strategies I relied on.
We spoke for over an hour, until Jordan needed help when his computer froze.
We talked about our parents, the weekend, how Edith had pretended she believed in Father Christmas, then written him a letter begging for a phone, even though she’d done the research and had accepted it might not be the worst thing to start with a basic non-smart option.
We gossiped about how Jordan had invited Catrin Clements to the cinema, and what the odds were on whether they were still ‘just friends’ by the time they came home.
I told him all about Bronte, how amazing she’d been and how proud of her I was, and how I wanted nothing more for her than to be able to enjoy being an irresponsible, reckless, nail-art obsessed teenager for a change.
I didn’t mention Lacey’s court case, even as part of me wanted him to stop being so considerate and ask what was happening. I needed this conversation, without spoiling it by telling him what I knew I had to say.
When Jordan interrupted, I was relieved, because we’d not made it onto the topic of us and I simply couldn’t bear to either lead Will on or break both our hearts right then.
Shortly after hanging up, I crawled into bed and immediately fell asleep, so it was morning before I found the two other messages he’d sent.
I didn’t have a chance to say it on the phone. But at the risk of sounding needy, I’ve missed you. This week has seemed endless. The kids keep accusing me of being Grumpy Dad again.