Page 81 of Samuel

I looked at Amy who was gazing at Frankie lovingly.

“Of course you can.”

“Aces,” Frankie cried. “That’s what Uncle Elijah said.” He flung his arms around me and kissed my cheek. “I’m so glad we’re in this family, Mum.”

“You are?” I asked, a huge lump in my throat making it almost impossible to speak.

“Yeah. It’s cool.”

I had no words that would be enough to express how happy I was for my baby boy. He had what he’d always wanted and even though it was probably stupid to do so, I couldn’t help but hope for more.

Sam

the present

“Right,” I said crouching down in front of Frankie. “You know the plan?”

“Yes, Dad,” he sighed and rolled his eyes. “I tell Mum that I want you both to take me on a picnic, but when it’s time to go, Uncle Elijah will ring you and ask if I can go and play with Bella. I say I want to go and you’ll say you’ll drop me off on the way to the picnic as it will be a shame to waste the food that you bought. Food you bought because you didn’t want Mum to have to spend time doing it.”

I straightened up and ruffled his hair. “Okay, you cheeky little devil.”

I glanced over his shoulder to see Maisie’s car pull up on the driveway, back from having to show someone around a house that was for sale. “Right, she’s here. Let’s do this.”

I held my hand up to high five Frankie, but once more got the eye roll and no high five. Obviously I was not the cool dad I seemed to think I was.

“Hi Mummy,” Frankie cried as Maisie walked through the door. He ran to her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Can we go on a picnic this afternoon? Me and Daddy went to the supermarket and bought some food so you don’t have to do anything.”

God – this kid was good, rolling out the ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ card, sounding all sweet when he wanted something.

“Is that okay?” I asked. “He didn’t stop going on about it for an hour, so I kind of said we would and then thought you wouldn’t mind if you didn’t have to do anything, hence the trip to the supermarket.”

“And hello to both of you too,” Maisie said with a grin.

“Sorry.” It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Hi, Maisie.”

She laughed and turned to Frankie. “Okay, so tell me about this picnic.”

“We’re going to go to a lake and Daddy has made sandwiches and bought strawberries and cheese cake and he got you some of that pink wine you like.”

“You have?” Maisie asked, tilting her head to one side.

I nodded. “Yep. I saw the bottle that’s almost finished in the fridge. I got picnic eggs too.”

I was pretty proud of myself having rifled through the fridge and some wrappers in the kitchen waste bin. Frankie had given me some tips too on what she did and didn’t like, hence the absence of sausage rolls; apparently she hated them.

“And what about you?” Maisie asked him, holding his chin up with a thumb and forefinger. “What did your dad get for you? Let me guess, chocolate rolls, chocolate biscuits, and cheese triangles.”

I looked at Frankie, wondering whether he’d give the game away, but like a true Cooper he kept his cool.

“Only cheese triangles, oh and strawberry milk, because I had a piece of chocolate cake in the supermarket café and he said I’d had enough chocolate for one day.”

Maisie’s amused gaze turned to me. “Really?”

“Yeah,” I replied, trying to seem nonchalant about it. “It was a huge piece.”

I almost pumped the fucking air when she looked at me with pride. I just hoped she never found out I’d let him have two pieces and a hot chocolate.

“You’re getting quite good at this daddy thing,” she whispered as she moved past me to the sofa where she flopped down and kicked off her shoes.