Page 145 of Every Silent Lie

I pull my phone out when it beeps, wondering what the hell I’m going to do now. The message is from Thomas.

Sounds nasty. Half the office has gone down with some bug! Feel better. Hope you’re back soon.

I’m so fucking confused. He told me he wanted to fire me a few days ago, and now he hopes I’m back soon? Spinning the phone in my hand, I look up at Dec’s impressive house. Does this mean Thomas has abandoned his plan to sell up? I’d ask Dec, but he’s preoccupied with his reluctant prawn. So I quickly text him, wishing him luck and apologising for not being able to help, actually feeling quite defeated. Have I lost my touch? I could persuade Noah to do anything. A little bit of harmless reverse psychology. Make him believe he was the root of all happiness, which was easy because he was. But most of all, I didn’t want him to be afraid of anything. I swallow down the rising lump and get moving, but I make it only two steps when Dec’s door flies open and Albi appears at the top of the steps.

And he’s a prawn again. “I want to be the prawn, I want to be a prawn!” he yells, jumping up and down, the antennae dancing like a pair of over-excitable worms breakdancing on his little head. “I want to be a prawn!”

Dec appears behind him. “He wants to be a prawn,” he murmurs, almost hesitant.

My heart soars and sinks at the same time, and Dec’s apologetic face tells me he sees that. I blow my cheeks out and make my way back to them, feeling my legs getting heavier as I climb the steps.

“I’m a prawn again!” Albi looks so damn chuffed about that.

“I’m so happy you’re a prawn again.” I reach for an antenna and smack it, making it spring back.

Albi dashes back off into the house, and we watch him go. “It’s a lot,” Dec says, keeping me on the doorstep as if he’s half expecting me to decline his invitation to go back in. “I don’t expect you to come.”

I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I must if we’re moving forward. “I know you don’t, but Albi expects me to come because I said I would, and that’s the end of that.” I take a breath and step back into the house, hearing him, the little whirlwind, dashing around like a prawn that’s had too much Red Bull.

“Well, now you two have everything under control,” April says, pulling her coat and fancy handbag off the chaise in the hallway, “I’ll be off.” She stops before us, half in her coat, and smiles. “I’m not going to get all mushy, but I really love this.”

I catch Dec shaking his head mildly, silently telling her to rein it in. It’s something else I hate. That he’s suppressing his happiness, curbing his enthusiasm because he feels it’s insensitive or I might crumple. That’s not how this should be.

I hook my arm through Dec’s and lean into him, now Albi’s out of sight, smiling my appreciation, even if it’s slightly strained.

“Take lots of pictures!” April sings, leaving and slamming the door behind her, a breeze swirling around the hallway as she does.

Dec immediately turns into me, holding my shoulders. “When I asked you to come this morning, I didn’t anticipate this. I wasn’t thinking at all, to be honest. It was stupid and insensitive.”

“Shut up,” I order gently, and he withdraws, surprised. “It’s okay. I’ll be okay.” I’m not sure how yet, but I’ll make sure of it. You got through yesterday, the hardest day of the year, so you can do this.

Albi comes racing out the kitchen with his lunchbox and a pack of mini Christmas Fairy cakes, and I quickly move away from Dec. “Come on, Daddy,” he shouts, tucking the cakes under his arm to open the door, surely squishing them.

“Like I’ve been the holdup,” Dec murmurs as Albi dashes down the steps to the car. “Ready?” he asks.

I nod.

It’s a lie.

* * *

The car ride goes by in a haze of questions from Albi, not all of which I can answer. Or should. “How old are you?” he asks. “My daddy is forty! It was his birthday and Aunty April had a party at her house and we had cake and balloons and Daddy blew out a whole forty candles!”

“Well, that sounds like lots of fun,” I say, looking back at the little prawn all bundled up in his car seat. “I’m thirty-seven. And you’re four.”

“Four and a half. When I’m five, Daddy said I can have an iPad. Just for a little time. Fred at school has an iPad. It’s blue with dinosaurs on it. I don’t want dinosaurs on my iPad. I want prawns on my iPad because they’re brainy and Daddy says I’m a brainbox. Are you clever?”

“I don’t think I’m as clever as you.” I feel Dec looking at me out the corner of his eye, almost in apology.

“Will you clap after the play?”

“Of course I’ll clap.”

“Will you sing the songs with us?”

“You bet I will.”

“Can you look after my cakes so Herbert Smith doesn’t eat them all? He’s greedy. One day, he took Ben Cuthbert’s Dunkers out of his lunchbox and ate them all and his Jam Roly-poly cake. He said he didn’t but he had jam all round his mouth.”