Page 26 of When We Were Young

Emily

I drag Liv’s keys towards me across the table. ‘My daughter. She’s here.’

‘Here?’ asks FHD, his eyes reflecting my panic.

I run to my handbag in the hall and rummage for my phone, which I’ve kept politely zipped up for our entire date. I haven’t checked it once.

There are three messages and a missed call from Scott.

The latest reads: Please call or text me when you get this. I’m getting worried.

The previous one: She wants to stay over. I hope that’s okay.

And the first one says: Liv needs a book from yours for revision. You should take this opportunity to talk. I’ll drop her over shortly.

I kick off my heels and run back to the kitchen.

‘I’m sorry, but you have to leave,’ I hiss. ‘She’s upstairs.’

He gapes at me before following me obediently out to the hall.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper. ‘Can you get an Uber from up the road?’

‘Sure.’

‘Thanks for tonight.’ I practically shove him out the door. ‘Sorry,’ I add, before shutting it on him.

I run upstairs to Liv’s room in the loft.

Hopefully, she didn’t hear anything from two floors up.

The door to her room is ajar – unusual for her – she likes her privacy.

The lights are off. I wait for my eyes to adjust and make out the shape of her body under the duvet.

Is she asleep or do I want to believe she is to avoid explaining why a strange man was in the house?

She hasn’t slept through me coming into her room for years.

I back out and go downstairs. I text Scott to let him know I’m okay and text FHD to apologise.

After I take off my make-up and peel off my best underwear, I lie in bed alone. I’m glad we didn’t end up doing anything. It would have been a mistake.

I remember the last time I had sex. Scott and I had taken Liv on a ‘family’ holiday. We did that when she was younger. Where was it? Majorca? Liv must have been about ten. We always got separate rooms, me in with Liv, and Scott in an adjoining room or on a sofa bed in the lounge area.

It was a hurried, hushed fumble in the dark with Liv fast asleep in the next room. We didn’t speak about it afterwards, and just as we had the handful of times it had happened before, we pretended it hadn’t. He always obliged, never questioned, and never asked for anything more.

The next day I was embarrassed and guilty and lonelier than ever. I caught him looking at me from the next sun lounger where he and Liv were playing travel chess in the shade. I remember the pity in his eyes. And after that, I insisted we went on separate holidays.

I lie awake for more than an hour thinking about this when floorboards creak overhead.

Liv doesn’t come down to use the loo as I expect and I can still hear her moving around quietly so I decide to go up and see her, give her a hug, apologise for not being here when she arrived. I could do with a hug.

I pad up the stairs. A sliver of light surrounds her now-closed door.

As I open it, there’s a streak of movement I can’t work out, and Liv sits on the bed looking shifty. I should have knocked.

‘Sorry…’ I begin.

Then I notice a piece of paper on the bed, and beside it, a pile of envelopes. A box props open the hatch-like door to the eaves. A box with ‘personal’ scrawled on the side in my handwriting.

A box I never open.

I rush to the bed and gather up the letters. ‘What are you doing? These are private!’ My voice is high-pitched.

‘I’m sorry, I––’

‘No, no, you can’t look at these!’ I can’t stand the sight of them, but I can’t have them out in the open like this.

She’s been here all night, alone. How much has she read?

‘How dare you read my private letters!’

She looks defiant. ‘I didn’t mean to. I was looking for something else and I saw them. I wondered what they were.’

‘I thought you came here because you wanted to talk to me. To spend time with me. For the first time in months!’

She drops her eyes and picks at her nails.

‘You only came here to snoop around.’

‘I didn’t plan it. I didn’t know you wouldn’t be here,’ she mutters.

‘You knew, even if I was here, you could wait until I was asleep.’

She doesn’t deny it and it makes me want to scream.

‘They’re from Will Bailey, aren’t they?’ she asks.

‘That’s none of your business!’

‘It is my business.’ Her voice sounds odd, strangled. ‘It’s my business because he’s my father, isn’t he?’