Page 2 of A Very Happy Halloween

“Well, I hope you put in a complaint.”

“Between finishing up at work and bringing him to the hospital, I’ve been a little busy. Can you look after Harry this evening? He went home with a boy in his class, but I barely know Shawn’s mum, and I’m worried.”

Mainly because she wasn’t answering the phone either.

“I’m on my way to a work dinner. Can’t your mum pick him up?”

“I told you my parents are on a cruise this month.”

“Who goes on a cruise for a month?”

“It was a treat from Marissa.”

Tokyo to Seattle via Alaska, Mum’s dream trip. She and Dad had been looking forward to it for months. Their absence meant I’d needed to cut down on appointments at the salon for a few weeks, but how could I complain about them taking a much-deserved break?

“Can’t Marissa take care of Harry?”

“She lives a hundred miles away, and you know she hates driving on the motorway.” And besides, Marissa wasn’t Harry’s father; Steven was. Just for once, couldn’t he lift a finger to help? “Can’t you back out of the dinner?”

“I need to make a living, Janie.”

“So you can carry on not paying child support?”

“The judge hasn’t set an amount yet.”

“So? Why should that stop you from contributing?”

“I do contribute. I buy them stuff and look after them at the weekends.”

“You look after them every other weekend, and you buy them phones and computer games when what they need is food and PE kit. Do you even know how much school uniforms cost?”

“I don’t have time for this right now,” he said in that whiny “you’re being unreasonable” voice of his.

Neither did I. The doctor was holding open a cubicle curtain, waiting for me, and there was no point in arguing with Steven. He wouldn’t change his mind. Once, I’d found his tenacity attractive, but now I realised he was just a stubborn git.

“Fine. Keep shirking your responsibilities, but don’t come crying to me when your bad decisions bite you in the arse.”

“Janie, that’s not fair?—”

I ended the call and hurried to catch up with Alfie and the doctor. The corridor smelled strongly of cleaning products, but even the floral scent couldn’t cover up the faint underlying aroma of vomit. I hated this. Hated it. Not just that Alfie was injured, but that my life wasn’t my own anymore. Ever since I’d found the empty condom wrapper in Steven’s pocket, things had fallen apart. He’d moved in with Luisa, who was not only his bit on the side but my boss—ex-boss, now—while I’d lost my job, my home, and my sanity. If it weren’t for my sister, I’d probably be living in a shop doorway.

Alfie needed an X-ray, which meant more waiting. And more worrying. What was the point in having mobile phones if people never answered them? I desperately wanted to call Marissa, to hear a friendly voice and for her to offer to drop everything and drive to Somerset to help. She would, I knew she would. Which was ridiculous because I was the older sister. I was supposed to be the capable, responsible one. And until the condom incident, I’d lived up to those expectations. Yes, I’d had a couple of wild years in my teens, but after being ghosted by one tattooed bad boy, cheated on by another hot jackass, and then fished out of the gutter by a virtual stranger when I tried to erase the memories of my poor decisions with alcohol poisoning, I’d settled down. I’d met a nice, respectable man with a nice, respectable job. Steven worked in the finance department at a software company, no ink or piercings in sight. Okay, so my first pregnancy hadn’t exactly been planned, but we’d made it work. Steven had proposed, and we’d married in a beautiful ceremony at a country hotel. Everyone said we made a lovely couple. We shared a dream honeymoon in Antigua, I quit my office job and retrained as a hairdresser so I could flex my hours around childcare, and we moved into a dull but sturdy semi-detached home on the outskirts of Bristol.

Life was perfect.

Slightly boring, perhaps, but my only worries had been what to cook for dinner and whether Alfie had stashed any more creepy-crawlies in his bedroom. Steven said it was a phase and I should let him grow out of it, but Steven wasn’t the one left picking snails off the curtains.

No, Marissa had been the daughter our parents worried about. They’d never discussed it with me, of course, but once or twice, I’d overheard them whispering about whether her latest loser boyfriend was taking advantage of her the way his predecessors had. Whether it had been wise of her to leave Engleby on a whim with no real plan for where she wanted to go in life. Whether she was just too nice. Then she’d hooked up with a dishy doctor and won the bloody lottery, in that order, and now I was the one they whispered about.

I was thrilled for my sister, really I was, but sometimes, seeing her happiness made me want to weep.

Maybe that was why I hadn’t called her right away? Because I didn’t want to be reminded, yet again, of my own inadequacies?

I dialled Harry’s number, beyond relieved when he finally picked up.

“Harry, why didn’t you answer when I called before? I’ve been worried.”

“Harry?” The voice was deep and raspy, and it definitely didn’t belong to my son. My stomach knotted in an instant. “So that’s his name.”

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