I’m sorry but I really need to get on …’ Chrissie glanced at her watch.
‘Err … OK,’ Sam said, baffled by her distraction now. ‘But we really need to spend some proper time together – tomorrow, the day after, any time,’ he urged, keen to have a plan, however tentative …
‘Yes … we’ll sort something out,’ Chrissie said, quickly glancing at her watch again. Why does she keep doing that? And why does she look so edgy now? Sam followed her line of sight and saw her staring at the door.
And then a weird feeling shrouded him. He inhaled sharply. And then the proverbial penny dropped. He got it.
‘Are you expecting someone?’ he asked, turning to go. Chrissie nodded quickly, as if keen all of a sudden to get rid of him as swiftly as possible. She even darted around him to pull open the front door, standing by it to make it absolutely clear that his time was up. Sam went to leave and then something inside him – a feeling, a hunch in the pit of his stomach, he wasn’t sure, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but whatever it was made him stop, abruptly.
Of course! The perfume, the lipstick, the new hairdo.
‘Is it a bloke?’
Sam’s heart lurched as he stared at her, willing the pulse in the side of his neck to stop flicking like an overcharged piston. But it was all too much to take in.
His wife?
Another man?
‘Is that really any of your business?’ Chrissie’s face was hard to read, but Sam could feel a jumpy anger rising inside him, making his own face smart.
‘Are you seeing someone else?’ As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he hated how pathetic and whiny he sounded. He had to pull it back. Chrissie was never going to give him a second chance if he carried on like some kind of possessive teenage boy. But Sam often felt as if he was muddling through when it came to women and properly understanding them. His mother had always been the boss in their house when he’d been growing up, and sometimes unreasonably so. Yes, his dad had always been the peacemaker, but he had also pandered to her too, almost as if he was overly grateful to be her husband and would do whatever it took to keep her. As if he was punching above his weight. But Chrissie wasn’t like his mum at all.
‘I can’t believe you have the nerve to ask me that question,’ Chrissie said, clearly annoyed now too … but she hadn’t denied it.
Sam suddenly felt a strong urge to run, a feeling he always had when things were going badly. ‘Look, I’ve gotta go. But we really need to talk.’ He backed away before turning on his heel and setting off down the path towards his car.
Chrissie called something after him. But Sam couldn’t really hear any more. He had to get away. Suddenly, he felt like a teenage boy again, out of his depth, making it up as he went along, trying to get it right.
Sam reached his car and, after quickly diving in and pulling the door closed, he sat for a second before letting his emotions spill over. His heart was pounding with panic and anger and fear and sadness … Chrissie with another man. It didn’t bloody bear thinking about. He loved her. And he was almost certain that she still loved him.
Or maybe not.
Maybe she had moved on already.
After willing himself to get a grip, he managed to shove from his mind the thunderous thoughts of hunting the other man down and ripping his arms off. It could happen, the mood he was in now. But Sam wasn’t a violent man, never had been. So he clenched his jaw and drove away, heading back to the five-bar gate that led to the fields behind the station. He knew where he was there. It was his spot, ever since he’d been old enough to cycle to it as a kid.
As he sat there, he tried to figure out how things had gone so catastrophically wrong between him and Chrissie, but the answers wouldn’t come. He had thought things were bad before he came home, but he now realised … they were much, much worse than he could ever have imagined.
Holly Morgan swept the bedroom curtain aside and looked out down to the path. She pressed her hand to the window, wishing she could bang on the glass or, better still, push the window wide open and shout out after Dad. Beg him to come back. But the window was double-glazed and locked, plus he was gone and inside his car before she had a chance to do anything. She thought about going after him, but it was pitch black outside in the lane and across the fields. And Mum would only go mental if she caught her sneaking out instead of doing her homework. She felt her eyes fill with tears as she whispered, ‘I still love you, Dad. And I know Mum does, deep down in her heart. She does, I’m sure of it – why else has she been really moody since you went away? Please come back and fix it. Tell Mum you love her, that you really do … and then we can all be happy.’
After lifting her headphones from her head and scrubbing her face dry with the paw of a big white teddy bear, Holly lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, counting the numerous luminous rainbow and unicorn stickers, as she came up with a plan. If her parents were going to behave like children, then it was going to be down to her to be the mature one, the sensible grown-up around here. She wasn’t a kid any more. She was a teenager. Thirteen years old, and that was practically an adult. She’d be able to drive a car in a few years’ time. So she was pretty sure she could navigate her parents’ marriage onto steadier ground.
Yes, her mind was made up. Holly leapt up off her bed and rummaged around in her desk drawer for a new pad. She had loads of half-used pads, mainly with stories in, she liked making up stories … usually about animals – she loved animals, or girls going on adventures to exotic, faraway places like the moon, or Hawaii, or even Antarctica. And sometimes she wrote magical, mythical stories about a magic unicorn called Lily. But this called for a brand-new pad. She retrieved a pen from her fluffy pencil case – a Finding Dory one with a big blue feather on the end – hmm, it was a bit babyish, but it would have to do under the circumstances, as there really was no time to waste.
It would be her birthday soon, and there was no way she was going to let it be ruined because they couldn’t all be together at Granny Dolly’s house like they always were every year. It was tradition. And it would be no fun at all if she was stuck at home with just Mum on her own, moaning about everything and bossing her around all the time like she had been ever since Dad first went away. And Mum had been in a bad mood ever since Dad had missed her forty-first birthday. And it wasn’t like Dad did it on purpose … not coming home like he had promised. He couldn’t help there being a last-minute emergency at work. Dad had explained it all, and he was so sorry, Holly could see for herself how upset he’d felt when she’d FaceTimed him. And also he had sent Mum the biggest bunch of flowers to make up for it. But Mum hadn’t been the same since. Holly had overheard her on the phone to Auntie Jude, saying, ‘he knew things were bad and he still didn’t come back, not even for my birthday. I feel so let down, yet again.’
Ever since it had all gone wrong with Dad, Mum had been a nightmare to live with, and she didn’t even try to remember Holly’s feelings before saying mean stuff to Dad and upsetting him. I bet that’s what she did just now. Ruined it all … And Mum should also remember who pays for everything. If it wasn’t for Dad, they’d have nothing, Holly surmised, glancing at the new iPhone in her hand, which Dad had sent her, and she absolutely loved. She had customised it with pink crystals. Then there was the computer on her desk, the TV/DVD player, iPad, laptop, and all her lovely shoes lined up by the wall near her wardrobe that Mum had bought for her … using Dad’s money. Exactly.
Holly opened the pad.
Get Mum and Dad Back Together in Time for My Birthday.
On the fifth of June.
She wrote the words at the top of the second page (she never used the first page, not ever, because it just ruined the whole pad) underlined the date and flipped the feather against the side of her nose as she thought