Page 45 of Indie

“Ok baby. I’ll get the heating going.”

I stuffed the key into the ignition, my hands trembling as I turned my wrist. The car spluttered. Nothing. I turned the key again, listening to the engine trying its best, but it sounded like an old man, coughing and choking before cutting out again.

“Mam, I think the car is dead,” Luke said after I’d tried another five times, slapped the steering wheel twice and sworn at least once.

And still the rain hammered on the windscreen. I wanted to scream. And to cry.

“Ring Nanna,” Luke said softly. “She’ll come get us.”

“Nanna’s at work, Luke.”

“What about Indie?” Lily asked. “He’ll come help us Mammy.”

I sighed, detaching my mobile from a soggy pocket and wiping the water from the screen.

*****

“I’d say it was fu….”

“Knackered,” Indie interrupted the man poking around under the bonnet of my car.

“Aye that.”

“Look, I’ll get you and the kids to school. Fury will take your car to the garage, and we’ll figure out what’s wrong. Can’t do much here stood out in the pi… in the rain,” Indie corrected himself, glancing over the top of me to Luke and Lily.

“Do you mind?”

“Course I don’t Spuggy.”

Indie slid his arm through the car window, yanking the keys from the ignition and then tossing them at the big man he’d brought with him, with the dark hair piled on the top of his head in some kind of messy man-bun.

There was a swarm of activity at the schools’ gates. Cars fighting for the next available space, parents rushing around under umbrellas, their heads bowed to the rain. Indie bumped up the curb, stopping directly in front of the gates.

“We’re not supposed to park here,” Luke pointed out.

“I know, mate. But just for today, we’re gonna break the rules.”

“I don’t like breaking rules. You get consequences for breaking the rules,” Lily added, folding her little arms across her chest and sticking out her chin in defiance.

“Normally you do. But today it’s ok. Nobody’s gonna tell you off today, Princess. In fact, I bet there’s not a single teacher out on that yard.”

Lily stared out the tinted van windows, and then, as if satisfied with what Indie had told her, she nodded her head and pulled her bag from beneath her feet.

“Be right back,” I muttered, pulling open the van doors and ushering the kids out into the torrents of rain.

There were no neat queues of children this morning. Just an urgent hustle and a bulge of bodies as each parent pushed and prodded their kids through the doors. An umbrella speared me in the side of my face, glancing off the wet hoodie that was pulled over my head, restricting my peripheral vision and making me vulnerable to the attack from the spike of another umbrella on the other side. I pushed through the surge, nudging the kids through the doors out of the weather and then fought my way back out of the scrum.

“Jeez, Emmie, you’re soaking, babes.” Indie’s hand squeezed my thigh. An affectionate touch, but all it did was make my insides simmer.

“I’ll dry,” I croaked, trying not to think of anything else. But under his grip, my nerves fired, acknowledging the touch on my leg, a reminder of how he’d left me last night and the same pressure built.

“Let’s get you home and changed, Spuggy.”

He moved his hand to the gear stick, selecting first and pulling away from the curb.

“But the car.”

“Plenty of time for that. I’m not having you get pneumonia right in front of my eyes.”