Page 81 of Every Silent Lie

Sorry I didn’t call you last night. Things ran over. Late lunch?

I chomp on my lip and tap out a reply.

I’ve got a mad few days ahead. I’ll call you Monday.

I’m cringing so hard, I shrink down the chair, and I stay there for a whole fifteen minutes until Dec replies.

Okay.

It’s one word. But it took fifteen minutes to send that one word, and that one word says so much more than okay. It says: Weird. It says: No, that’s not okay. It says: What’s going on? It says: I’m suspicious but I’m just going to say okay because I don’t know what else to say. And it says: You’re too much work after all and I’m bowing out.

God, my head!

I slam my phone down and call Debbie. “Get me the holding account statements.” I hang up before she can tell me I’m two weeks early and get back to my inbox.

* * *

Three hours later, my brain is fried. Jeff wasn’t wrong. The holding accounts have been hit hard, but it’s Barbara who’s been the most active. I email Thomas all the details of his wife’s drawings, my mind racing, considering various scenarios, but always coming back to the same conclusion.

She’s taking him to the cleaners.

I obviously don’t say that, it would be a step too far, but I can plant the seed. He can’t possibly look at this and brush it aside. I feel like they’re trying to sabotage Thomas’s plans. Actually, more than that, they’re trying to sabotage Thomas’s business, and that doesn’t make sense at all. Why rob your own source of wealth that you love to flaunt? I’ve suspected—been certain—that Barbara and Anthony aren’t all too keen on Thomas’s plans to float TF Shipping. And I suspect it’s because they don’t like the idea of answering to a wider board. No more frivolous spending on company cards for personal luxuries.

I hit send and look up at my door when I hear something odd seeping through the wood. “Surely not?” I murmur, standing, torn between going to the door and checking I’m not going mad, or staying here, not risking it, and hiding under my desk. The latter is more appealing, and yet my legs carry me to the door and swing it open.

“Ho-ho-ho!”

I step back, trying to take everything in before me. I can’t. There’s too much. And then there are suddenly squeals too. Dozens of them.

Kids.

Everywhere.

Running wild, nipping at Father’s Christmas’s ankles as he stands, large as life, in the middle, surrounded by his believers.

A boulder hits me so hard in the stomach, I’m knocked back a few steps into my office. The noise. It’s unbearable. I see Debbie look up at me, her smile fading. Her palms are on the shoulders of a small boy as he looks at Santa in wonder. “What’s going on?” I ask, not nearly loud enough for her to hear me. “What’s going on?” I yell.

She comes at me with the child, and I back away. “It’s Bring Your Kid to Work Day,” she says, almost in apology.

“Since when?”

“Since the memo that went out yesterday.”

“I didn’t see any memo.” Fuck, I did see a memo. I just didn’t read the memo properly. “I can’t work in this,” I say, on the cusp of outrage. “For fuck’s sake.”

Debbie’s palms rest on the boy’s ears as his eyes bug up at me. I have to get out of here.

I grab my bags and hurry through the chaos, smacking my finger on the elevator call button urgently. The doors open, and a swarm of more kids come at me, yelling at the sight of Santa Claus. My whole body tightens, pulling in my limbs, making myself as small as possible, as they dart past me on both sides.

Stepping in, I tuck myself in the corner and only breathe easy when the doors close and the elevator carries me away from the never-ending triggers. I fucking hate Christmas. The noise. The screaming children. The happiness everyone else experiences when it’s the time of year that my life fell apart. And yet, he, of course, can simply move on. Because he thinks I am unreasonable. He left. He simply fucking left. I look down at my watch. Specifically, the date. The nineteenth is only four days away. How the fuck has three years passed?

The elevator is suddenly suffocating, and I will it to move faster. The moment the doors are open wide enough, I slip through the gap and hurry across the lobby, taking in precious air. I step outside and look down at my heels in the slushy snow. “Shit.” Dropping my bag onto a nearby post, I pull out my boots and socks and get them on, before following my feet mindlessly.

I end up at Mum’s care home. It’s all standard—a tight smile to the receptionist, a slow trudge up the corridor, my stomach turning with dread, a cautious peek around the door, my heart falling when I see her.

Her lunch is untouched by the bedside, the room basked in a hazy light, and she’s asleep. I push my way in and start my obligatory chores, changing the water in her jug, getting rid of the wilting flowers, cleaning the vase and trimming the stems of the new carnations, arranging them just so. Then I sit down. “You’ve not eaten,” I say, reaching for the fork in her pasta and poking it around the bowl. “Not hungry?”

Her eyes open, and she looks at me, vacant. Nothing behind her eyes. “I could manage a few mouthfuls, Nurse,” she says, straight-faced, nothing in her voice either. Just emotionless words.