Chapter 14
Tim
After work, I headed straight back to Mum’s flat, where I was staying until she moved to the memory care home I’d booked her into.
Mum had been a bit dazed and confused for six months, and, as Dad had passed on two years ago, I had no one to check in with.
Finally, I’d taken her to a specialist, who’d diagnosed her with early dementia.
I’d kept all this from my sister, as I didn’t want her anxious or changing her life to pay the bills.
I was going to take care of the expense, but because I’d chosen a luxury home, I needed the fee from the TV show, and I needed to win.
“Hi, Macy,” I greeted the night carer as I got in the door. She told me Mum was resting before dinner. After we talked about Mum’s day, I said, “Thanks, Macy. You can leave now if you like.”
“Not going out to the pub?” Macy waggled her eyebrows.
Both she and her twin sister, Stacy, who was the day carer, were nosy and inappropriate whirlwinds with spiky pink hair and forever busting on each other, but reliable.
I shook my head before she could list who I’d find at the local.
I was working too hard to have a social life, and there was definitely no time for women, probably another frustration.
After Macy left, I slumped exhausted to my boyhood bedroom, barely able to climb out of my clothes, throw them in the wash, and shower.
After dinner and clearing away, I sat back down at the kitchen table, settling in for at least two hours of paperwork and emails for my business.
Mum looked up from her favorite armchair, where she was watching one of her police procedurals. “How’s the filming going?”
Oh, she remembered it started today. I thought about my answer because I never bothered Mum with any sort of negative stuff from my day.
“Great, Mum. It was fun. It’s cool watching how telly is made.”
She turned off the TV with the remote. “Oh, like what, honey? What sorts of things?”
I was so tired I could barely speak, with hours of my construction company paperwork still in front of me.
And I didn’t really want to bring the show home with me.
I already had truckloads of misgivings about the way it was going between Tabitha and me and how unnerving it was to be filmed most of the day, although I’d thought that wouldn’t worry me.
I’d also just seen some bloody awful comments about Tabs on the production company website in response to the short video they’d posted for today, and I had to figure out what I was going to do about them.
I was tempted to gently fob Mum off, but her strained face told me she desperately needed to chat.
My phone beside me bounced with a text, reminding me that Simon had instructed us to take behind-the-scenes videos and photos and post them on our personal accounts to build interest. Maybe he could get the horrible comments about Tabs taken down.
I pulled up my photos and vids, joined Mum at her armchair, and handed her my phone.
“Mum, here’s some pics from today if you’d like to look.” I felt a wrench of guilt in my gut that I was still fobbing her off, buying time to get my paperwork done.
She poked at the phone, and the image disappeared.
“Remember how I showed you.” Don’t say remember; it doesn’t help. I braced myself to be patient as I slowly demonstrated how to click into the vids and swipe right to see the photos.
“Sorry.” She looked up at me. “I’m hopeless.”
“No, you’re not, Mum.” Hers weren’t the normal fumblings of some of her generation. She’d run the back office of a legal firm for years and had always been an early adopter. But her mind just doesn’t work the same now.
As I worked at the kitchen table, she scrolled, laughed, and oohed and aahed happily.
I heard a lot of a certain person’s voice sound from my phone, her laugh and her chatter, but I shook that off.
Maybe Mum was only clicking into certain vids.
Honestly, it was just great to see her happily engrossed in something for so long, and that made me smile gratefully.
Eventually, she handed my phone back to me.
I took it without looking up.
“Tim, all those photos and videos are of Tabitha.”
Surprised, I felt my forehead crease as I glanced up at her. That couldn’t be right. But Mum wasn’t always right these days.
I took a quick scroll through myself. Every video, every photo, flashed blond hair and big blue eyes.
On the videos, I heard her soft, posh voice in conversations, her huge belly laugh.
Seven years ago, I’d gazed closely into those eyes as we kissed, just once, run my hands through that silky hair, and heard her voice in my ear.
I clutched on to that memory so tightly, I could barely breathe.
“Oh well, that’s because I can’t take pics of myself,” I said.
“You can’t take selfies?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, selfies. I must have forgotten, not sure why.”
She sighed happily as she stood there over me, lingering.
“I like Tabitha. You two spent hours and hours together after I picked you up from school. I loved waiting at the school gates for you two to come out. Couldn’t break you apart.
Thick as thieves, you were.” Mum tumbled that expression around her mouth with rounded vowels and rolled Rs in her thick Gloucestershire accent I loved hearing.
“Building those little homes in the fields, swimming down at the river. Remember that time you rode her family’s old ponies to the next village and you forgot to take money for food, and when you got there, you had to busk on the street for cash to buy some lunch? ”
I chuckled. “Tabs had a nice voice, but I was pretty much tone-deaf, so I think they threw coins to stop me singing. Yeah, we had loads of adventures, all right.”
“Well, I’m just glad you’re back together again. You two always brought out the best in each other.”
Not true anymore, that was for sure. Sometimes I humored Mum for an easy life, but for some reason, I didn’t want to this time.
“We’re not together, Mum. Honestly, we’re not even really friends anymore. We’re just working the same job.”
She didn’t say anything, just smiled and got a faraway look. Usually, that look broke my heart, but this time, her expression had a different quality. This time, it was in the moment and happy.
Take a sneak peek at our new show,
MAKEOVER YOUR MONEYMAKER.
Four design teams compete to turn a home into a business.
Team: Tim and Tabitha.
50 Comments:
ShakeYourMoneymaker: OMG Tabs and Tim—FI-YAH! I can feel the steam coming off them. I predict a rumbling-good sex scene in their future.
TimTheBuilder: Duck, duck. DOWN, Tim. (And I’m coming with you.)
RugbyThighs69: That man. Gets. Shit. Done. Agree with Insta comments: Major BDE.
IWantTimToNailMe2: Preach. Her, though? Shrill! A total shrew.
DarkAleOrDie: She’s a bore, terribly dull, a total stickler.
CotwoldsOwn: Tabitha, calm down! Listen to Tim. And a smile goes a long way, love.
LaIslaBonita: She’s not your love, you patronizing berk.