Page 81 of Cross To Bear

“Then I’ll go to the fish and chip shop,” Dad snapped back. “You can have your bloody salad, and Madeline and I can have takeaway for dinner.” He smiled at me. “You’d like some chippies, wouldn’t you, love?”

What I wanted was for the two of them to work this shit out between themselves without dragging me into it. I needed for them to model healthy attitudes towards relationships, conflict resolution, touching base with each other and coming up with compromises they could both accept. I wanted to feel secure in both their relationship with each other as well as with me. I wanted boundaries to be something we could all express safely, without recrimination. But if wishes were horses, we’d all ride, as my grandmother liked to say, so instead I just looked at the two of them.

“I’d like us to sit down as a family and have a dinner we’d all enjoy.”

A neutral enough statement, right? Dad grinned in jubilation and Mum’s face fell, making clear there was a winner and a loser, as always. He swung out the back door and jumped in the car as Mum went over to the salad. She poked it viciously with the knife, no doubt imagining something other than lettuce and carrot in the bowl, before covering it in way too much cling wrap then putting it in the fridge.

“I’ve lost my appetite,” she said with a tight smile before pulling out a bottle of white wine from the fridge. She poured herself a generous glass before offering me one. “What about you, Madeline? Would you like a nice glass of white?”

I wanted to take her hands off the bottle and tell her that it’d be OK. That she could have salad and Dad could have fish and chips and none of it would matter. That I was here to see them, to be with my family, not any of this other shit. I wanted her to feel like she could eat whatever the hell she liked, including salad. I wanted to see her take a long breath and just let it out, let it all out, but that’s not what happened.

“No thanks, Mum,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m good.”

Chapter 48

Hawk

I hated Bjorn’s mum, Nelly, so when she came strolling into the shop late in the afternoon, I stiffened. That was one of the weird side benefits of growing up with a woman that gave birth to you, and that was pretty much the sum total of her maternal duties. I could hate my mother, other people’s mothers with impunity. Everyone else got hung up on the idea of family, but me? I knew a fucking snake when I saw one.

“Hello, boys.” She smiled at the rest of my brothers, though when she got to me, her expression faltered, probably because she saw exactly what I was thinking as I stared flatly at her. But the smile was quickly reinstated, which made my suspicion rise.

“How’s it going, Nelly?” Crash pulled out of the engine bay of the car he was working on then looked over at her. “Looking for Bjorn? He’s probably over at the shop.”

“I was looking for you guys actually. And Razor.” That was tacked on as she looked conspicuously about the garage. “Is he around?”

“What’s up?”

Raze was like a fucking cat, just appearing out of ether when it suited him and right now he emerged from between two of the trucks that had been brought in. He was always smiling, but not now.

“Oh, there you are!” She was being so very fake, every expression amplified, her sentences short and stilted. Something was up, and I glanced at my brothers to see if they noticed it. Crash had his arms folded across his chest, an unconscious barrier between him and her. And Razor? He just gave me a little nod that made clear he was well aware of what was going down. “I just wanted to invite the lot of you for dinner at our place. I’ve put on a lamb roast with all the trimmings, just how you like it.”

“So did Bjorn say we were free when you spoke to him?”

Razor was handing her rope, ready for her to wrap it around her neck.

“I haven’t spoken to Bjorn yet.” That was the first honest thing she’d said since this conversation started. “I thought maybe if you could get him on side for me…”

“Because he doesn’t want to come to dinner?” Razor stepped a little closer, and I saw the tension ratchet up in Nelly’s body. “Because if you asked him first, he’d have said no for all of us.”

Her smile faltered and a sulky expression replaced it.

“He’s still mad about what went down the other day, about… Maddie.” She shook her head, tossing her hair over her shoulders. “I wanted some time to try and clear the air, work out a way forward. As a family.” Her lips twitched again, forced to curve into a non threatening expression.

“We’ll talk to Bjorn,” I said, not willing to let anyone make any other promises. Nelly was his mother, and going behind his back like this? I didn’t like it.

“Could you?” She seemed so sweet right then, but my Spidey sense said otherwise. Part of me wanted to go to this dinner to see what the fuck was going on, and the other half just wanted Maddie. She said she might call, might come by after seeing her parents, and I wanted that so fucking much. “Just let me know one way or the other so I know how much veg to put on.”

“Will do,” Crash said, the three of us watching her as she walked away.

“She’s up to something,” I growled.

“No fucking shit. Nelly was squirrelly as fuck,” Razor said. “And I aim to find out why. Is Bjorn with a client?”

I grinned slowly, a real expression not a fake one.

“Let’s go and find out.”

“She what?”

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