Page 4 of Infinity

Walking away to the office I can feel his eyes on me. Once I’ve set up the card machine I ask him to pay and send him on his way.

“So, do I get your number then or what? My name’s Adam by the way.”

I raise my eyebrows at him.

“Thanks for using us… Adam. Like I said, if you have any problems at all bring it back. You get a six-month warranty on any work we do.”

I try to explain everything but he still has that stupid grin on his face like the cat who’s got the cream or something, other women might fall for it but not me. He takes the card from my fingers as I hold it out, then he smiles – not a grin or a smirk; it was a smile. And it’s a gorgeous one… bastard.

“Thank you… Darcy.” He turns to walk away, on his way out of the garage he shouts back, “Nice name by the way!”

Shaking my head at his nerve I put away the card reader and decide I’ve had enough for one day. I head out to the lads and tell them to lock up, jump into my white Ford Focus and head home.

Walking into the house, Dad is sitting in his chair, looking empty, vacant.

“Hey, Dad.”

Sitting on the arm of the chair next to him, I lean down to him and kiss him on his cheek. He turns his face towards me and smiles, I know he’s hiding his pain though. Today’s a not so good day. I start to tell him about my day, how busy we’ve been but I don’t think it really registers to him. He never takes his eyes off the telly so I get up and go to the kitchen. Mum’s in there preparing dinner for us.

“Hi Mum.”

“Hello angel, you okay? How was work?”

“Busy.”

I pop the kettle on to make a brew and get three cups prepared. Standing with my back against the counter, I face my Mum.

“Dad doesn’t look too good today,” I say to her gently.

Mum gave up work to look after my Dad when his depression got worse, but he says he doesn’t need looking after, he does.

Dad suffers with depression. He had an accident at the garage a couple of years back and slipped the discs in his back, he had an operation to replace them but it’s not really worked. He still has a lot of pain and hasn’t regained his full mobility, yeah, he can get about, but he can’t work in the garage - well he could, he could take over the admin; but he doesn’t. Ever since the accident, he’s been on medication. Some days he barely speaks or gets out of out of bed, others, he’s not too bad. Just lately though - there’s been more bad days than good but we just take every day as it comes now.

He also feels guilty that Mum had to give up full time work to look after him and now she works part time instead, mainly weekends, just in the local supermarket. She hates it but she said one of them needs to work and no matter how many times she tells him that she prefers being at home with him more – he doesn’t believe her. It’s so hard to be happy when he’s stuck at home; he should be at the garage with me, running it like the old days.

I kiss my Mum’s cheek and hug her. Slipping a packet of biscuits under my arm, I grab mine and Dad’s cup and head towards the door. Before walking through the door, I turn back to face her…

“Love you, Mum.” She turns from the counter and smiles.

“Love you too, angel.”

Smiling back at her, I turn away and go to the lounge and take Dad his cuppa. I put it down on the table at the side of him as he says thank you, but doesn’t look at me.

Leaving him to his car program, I head upstairs and sit on my bed. I look through my notifications on my phone while I drink my tea and eat my biscuits. It’s not long before I’m laying down though and dropping off to sleep, maybe I’ll just have an hour. It’s been one of those ‘same shit, different day’ days.

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