Page 68 of Samuel

“Elijah?”

“Yeah, Elijah,” I sighed. “His ex-wife is back and he still fucking loves her, but is too stubborn and too proud to tell her and is insisting on being in a relationship that doesn’t fulfil him, with a woman he thinks he loves just ‘cause she’s nice.”

“I’d say that makes him loyal.”

“No Maisie, it makes him stupid.”

“So, I’m stupid now, well thanks for that.”

She reached for the door handle but before she could open it, I put a hand on her shoulder.

“Please Maisie, just take the fucking money.”

She stopped and turned in her seat. “I have a picture of Frankie in my purse, do you want to see it?”

I didn’t hesitate. “No.”

To her credit, Maisie didn’t falter. My words didn’t seem to shock or hurt her.

“Didn’t think so, well we don’t want your money.”

This time I didn’t stop her, wincing the only movement I made when she slammed the card door.

“Fuck.”

I dropped my head back against the headrest and let out another curse at the way I’d handled it. Maybe if I apologised, she’d see sense and take the fucking money. I wanted him to have it. I needed him to have it because the guilt I’d feel if he didn’t would be in danger of choking me. I’d left the kid without a dad, the least I could do was help financially, plus my own damn ego didn’t want that label stuck to me for the rest of my life.

When I looked back through the windscreen, Maisie was nowhere to be seen, all that I could see was the back end of the bus disappearing up the road.

With regret and anger, I pulled out my phone and stabbed at a couple of buttons, bringing up my gallery of photographs. Finding the one I wanted, I opened it up and sighed. It was a picture of my friend Hannah’s kid, Rosie. It was her birthday party and she was wearing a pink tutu and tights and was holding a fairy wand. She looked cute, but it wasn’t her I’d asked Hannah to send me the picture for, it was for the boy in the background wearing a Super Man costume with earbuds in and an iPod in his hand – that boy was my son.

Maisie

the present

My eyes shifted sideways to catch a sneaky glimpse of Sam, wondering what the hell was going on in his head. He’d done exactly as he’d said he was going to do – got changed and then came back to take Frankie to school. Frankie was delighted, but when he looked at Sam through one squinted eye, I knew he was trying to figure out why it was happening and why Sam had been with me when we’d picked him up from Josh’s friend’s house. The night before he’d been too upset, or maybe too tired to ask, but when we’d got into Sam’s Range Rover to go to school I could see the cogs working in my son’s brain. The time was definitely getting closer to when we would have to tell him who his dad was.

“Something you want to say, Maisie?” Sam asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music he was playing.

“Nope.”

I had plenty to say, plenty that I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t. Instead I sighed and looked through the side window watching the clouds that were gathering and darkening the sky.

“Play that one again, Sam,” Frankie chirped up from the back seat. “It’s really good.”

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard that one before,” Sam replied.

“I don’t think I have. What’s it called?”

As the song started to play again, Frankie began to sing along to it, tunelessly.

“Soul Time by Sarah Ellis.”

Sam joined Frankie’s sing-a-long and it suddenly became obvious why Frankie was tone deaf – so was his dad.

I looked between Sam and Frankie and shook my head. “You two are awful.”

“I think we sound good,” Sam quipped, a huge grin on his face. “Don’t you, Frankie.”