‘No! I want to play!’ Reu whined. ‘I’ve been waiting two weeks to play!’ In that moment, he sounded like the child they kept forgetting he was.
‘All right,’ said Will. ‘We’ll play for half an hour, then go to mine. We need to get you cleaned up ready for school in the morning.’
Refusing the hospitality of the Irish is difficult, but refusing Mary Bailey’s hospitality was impossible. She fed Reu to bursting, and he was relaxing in a hot bath while Will explained why there was a strange teenager in her bathroom.
‘God love him,’ said Mary when she heard what Reu had been through. ‘We need to ring his mother, though. Get her number off him.’
‘He won’t let you do that.’
‘Go on!’ she shooed.
Will listened as she made the call. Mary made it sound like Reu’s mum was doinghera favour by letting him stay, not the other way around.
‘You’ve got my number now. Call whenever you want. He can stay here as long as he needs to. Thank you… Of course… Thanks again.’
But Reu’s mum never called. Mary rang her once a week to tell her how he was doing. She could tell when his stepdad was around because the conversations were always much shorter.
Chapter 17
March 2016
Emily
My brain is swollen, it doesn’t fit in my head. I turn over in my bed and it thumps against the inside of my skull. My mouth is arid, my eyes raw. I feel like shit. What’s wrong with me?
Oh yes, I had some wine. An entire bottle. And some gin.
Then I remember.
Liv is gone.
A stab of anxiety twists in my stomach. I’ve pushed her away. I have failed at the one thing that was most important to me: being a mother.
Who am I kidding? I’ve failed at everything else too. Sticking at the same crap job, year after year. No friends (except Kay, but she’s more of a colleague). No relationships, no lovers. But I didn’t try at any of that. It didn’t matter. Motherhood mattered. I tried at that.
Obviously not hard enough.
What was that look on her face when she left?
Pity.
Even my fifteen-year-old daughter feels sorry for me. She shouldn’t be looking at me like that. The same way everyone has been looking at me since… Will died.
My throat aches, and fresh tears flow.
Scott’s words from yesterday ring in my ears. ‘She wants me to come and get her,’ he’d said on the phone.
‘She’s not moving in with you, Scott. That’s ridiculous.’
‘Why is it ridiculous?’
‘She can’t move house every time she disagrees with one of us.’
‘Look, why doesn’t she stay with me for a few days until we all calm down, then we can have a rational discussion about it?’
I sighed.
‘Emily, this is just the start. Accept it – she’s growing up. She loves you, but she needs independence. Cut her some slack.’