Chapter Thirty Tom #2
red thing that was screaming nonstop, and you know what? The second they put you in my arms, you stopped crying. Because I
think I’m probably your favorite person too, but we won’t tell your mum and dad.” Her eyes had fluttered closed by then, her
hand slack in his as her chest moved rhythmically up and down.
As though she’d heard it, the doors opened again and Laura came bursting into the back of the ambulance, eyes wild and hair
stuck up in a way Tom had never seen before. Immediately he stood up and moved so that Laura could sit beside Martha.
“Is she okay?”
“It’s under control,” Tom said, nodding.
“She’s asleep now,” one of the paramedics said. “It’s good for her.”
“Oh thank God.” Laura burst into tears and Tom looked around, seeing if anyone was going to help comfort her, but the two
paramedics were busy looking at one of the machines and surveying a chart.
Tom closed his eyes for a second and sidestepped toward Laura, moving to put an arm around her. He went to pat her shoulder
but she reached up with her hand and took his in it, squeezing it tight and not letting go.
“Thank you,” she said, “so much for being here for her. I missed the call. I was—”
“Of course,” Tom said. “I’ll always be here. Whenever she needs me.”
Laura bit down on her lip. “I know,” she said. They both looked at Martha, who was breathing normally now, in and out, her
eyes closed. “And I know you think I’m too over the top with her sometimes, but I’m just so scared, Tom. If anything ever
happened to her . . .”
Tom shook his head. “I get it,” he said softly. “I get it now.”
Laura released her hand and patted his, before dropping hers into her lap.
“She should sleep for a while now, if you need to go. If you’ve got plans with Sophie or whatever.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tom said. “Even if I had plans, I’d stay, but I don’t. Sophie and I . . .” He coughed. “We broke
up. Again.”
Laura looked across at Tom, who was standing close to Martha’s head. “I’m really sorry,” she said. “And I’m sorry if I interfered
and if you’d have preferred that she didn’t tell you, but it didn’t feel like an honest path forward. And you deserved honesty.
Everyone deserves honesty.”
Tom frowned, none of the words making sense to him. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Preferred she didn’t tell me what?”
Tom had never, until now, watched all the blood drain from someone’s face. Within a couple of seconds Laura’s complexion was
as pale as Martha’s, her eyes wide.
“Wait,” she said. “You said you broke up? Why?”
“It just wasn’t right. It’s like we got back together and we just . . . we didn’t fit anymore.” He glanced at Martha. “I couldn’t
see where all the pieces used to go. She didn’t make me laugh. I’m not sure we liked or cared about the same things. I knew
almost immediately that things felt different, but sometimes it takes wise little Martha to quote Barbie at you for you to
truly . . .” He shook his head. “What should she have told me?”
“Look . . .” Laura glanced down at her hands, her shoulders rolling back as she breathed in. “Sophie did something she shouldn’t
have done . . . Before you broke up the last time. She got really drunk and slept with a girl in that awful play she was in. She called me straight after. She was in bits.” Laura met Tom’s eyes, begging him for forgiveness as though
it were her who had done it. Tom swallowed, his teeth clenched together as he pulled at his top lip remembering that photo
of Sophie that he’d found on his phone and zoomed in on. The one he’d taken the day before she ended things, where she was
crying in their bed. It finally made sense as to why.
“I went to your place straight away. She was upset but trying to convince herself that it wasn’t really cheating. That you
probably wouldn’t even mind, because it was with a woman, and so she didn’t need to tell you. I disagreed. I told her that
of course it would matter to you . . .”
“Of course it matters to me,” Tom said at the same time, biting down on his thumb.
“How could she think that?” So many thoughts raced through his head.
This changed everything, but then it was over anyway, so did it really?
They weren’t right, whether she’d cheated on him or not, but knowing that she had made him extra glad he’d broken up with her when he did.
“So that’s why you were at our house?” he asked.
“I saw you. I saw you leaving, on The Worst Day . . .” He glanced toward Martha and back.
“I thought you were the reason she broke up with me.”
Laura’s eyebrows knitted in the middle. “What? Why?”
“I thought you thought she was too good for me. That she could do better. That maybe you’d encouraged her to end things.”
“My God no, Tom. Of course I didn’t think that, why would I? Quite the opposite, in fact, especially once she told me what
she did. When she was such a coward about telling you. But I figured she’d at least ended things, so perhaps that was her
way of being brave. She didn’t know how to admit it to you, but at least she did something, you know? Then at the exhibition she told me how much she missed you, how she wanted you back, and I said in that case she
had to tell you the truth. I mentioned it again at Christmas. I just presumed she’d finally said something.”
“Nope,” Tom said. “Who was it?”
“She didn’t say. I didn’t ask.”
Tom nodded. “I bet it was that—”
“Don’t do this to yourself,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now. Not when you’ve already left her. I don’t think I ever thought
you’d do that.”
“Me neither,” Tom said.
“I thought you loved how different you and Sophie were. Opposites attract and all that.”
Martha let out a big sigh, and they both turned to look at her.
The color was returning to her face. To both of their faces.
“Everyone looks for different things in people, I guess,” Laura continued.
“But not making you laugh and not having the same interests? They’re big things to live without, if they’re important to you.
” She kept her eyes on Martha. “You know what I found in your dad? Why I fell so completely and utterly in love with him? And don’t pull that face,” she added, smiling.
“I felt safe. He made me feel safe from the moment I met him, and he still does.”
Tom stared at Laura, finally understanding, maybe properly for the first time, how she felt about his dad.
“I never believed you,” he said. “I didn’t think you really loved him. Didn’t think you could really. He’s so much older. I just . . . I didn’t get it.”
Laura smiled. “I don’t blame you. If it were my dad, I’d have felt exactly the same. Especially having lost your mum the way
you did. I always knew I had a hard role, and I never wanted you to think I was trying to take her place, especially given
my age. But I can promise you I do love your dad. I love him so much. I love all of you,” she added, stroking Martha’s hair.
Tom looked from Martha to Laura and back again, realization washing over him as the weight of the day fell heavily upon him.
Whether he liked it or not, this was his family. He had a stepmum who wasn’t much older than him, and he could continue resenting
that for the rest of his life or he could just accept it, because she loved his dad, and she wasn’t going anywhere. She had,
in fact, protected him the way his own mother might have done, without him even knowing it. There was something about the
act that was thawing him further; that she hadn’t wanted anything in return.
“Fine,” Tom said. “Well played. But I will never ever call you Mum.”
She looked at him, smiling. “If you even so much as attempt it, I will smack you in the face,” she said, resting her other
hand on top of Martha’s, who stirred, reaching up to pull the mask off her face.
“Oh no, sweetheart,” Laura said, leaning forward.
“You lied,” Martha said, looking at Tom.
Tom placed his hand on his heart, pushing away thoughts of Sophie. “I would never lie to you,” he said, meaning it.
“Does she need to put her mask back on?” Laura asked, turning to one of the staff.
“She’s okay,” the paramedic said back.
“You said I was your favorite person, but I’m not.”
“Of course you are. Who else could possibly be my favorite person, but you?” Tom asked.
“Sounds like I missed a very sentimental chat,” Laura added.
“Daisy. Daisy is your favorite person,” Martha said, her voice raspy.
A jolt of pain hit Tom in his chest as he heard that, realized the truth in it at last. It was true, and he still wasn’t sure
if he’d damaged their friendship by trying to help her live the life she wanted. He swallowed. “I do like Daisy, it’s true.”
“If you only like Daisy,” Martha said, “why do your cheeks go red when you talk to her and why do you get that smile on your face whenever
I say the word Daisy? See. You did it then.”
Laura turned to Tom, raising an eyebrow. “You do have quite a creepy smile on your face.”
Tom’s dad appeared at the back of the ambulance, doubled over and breathing heavily, causing all of them to startle, including
the staff.
“Is she. . . . Is she . . .”
“She’s fine,” Laura said, standing up to greet him, kissing him on the lips. For the first time since they’d been married,
Tom didn’t mind the sight of it. “She’s already talking.”
Tom’s dad moved to sit by Martha, reaching for her hand.
“What are we talking about?” he asked. “Hi, Tom,” he said, turning to Tom, who nodded, his thoughts on his bus companion who he’d been thinking about pretty much nonstop since he last saw her.
But that was normal. He’d got used to seeing her every day, that was all. Wasn’t it?
“We’re talking about Daisy,” Laura explained.
“How Tom’s in love with her, I’m guessing?” his dad replied.
Tom swung his head around. “What? I’m not in—” He stopped, staring at Martha and then his dad and Laura, who were all watching
him, heads tilted to one side. “Oh my God,” he said, a calmness slowly moving through his body. “I’m in love with Daisy,”
he said. “I am absolutely in love with her.” He started to laugh, the feeling now so completely all-consuming that he couldn’t
believe he hadn’t realized it before.
Of course he was in love with her. He was fairly sure he had been for quite some time, in fact. How long? The exhibition?
The shopping trip? The ceilidh? That very first night, when she’d grabbed his hand and pulled him into the early morning fog?
He couldn’t pin it on one moment. Instead it was as though the second their two worlds had collided, a seed had been planted
within him, and it hadn’t stopped growing since. Every shared experience, every conversation, every interaction he’d had with
her had nourished it, until it was just there, a part of him.
“Oh my God, I love Daisy Douglas.”
A smile broke across Martha’s face as Laura and Tom’s dad locked eyes and shook their heads.
“Finally,” Martha said, and at that she pulled the mask toward her and put it back onto her face.