Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Guilt twisted my stomach.
Why the fuck was I feeling guilty? I wasn’t the one who’d essentially abandoned my family.
“No,” I said after a moment. “I’m sorry, Beth. I only told her to come home, and we didn’t speak after that.”
“That’s fine. I might just have to tell her on the phone.” She pressed her lips together in a sad smile. “If it brings her home for Danny, it brings her home.”
There were so many things I wanted to say to her, but I wasn’t sure any of them were particularly appropriate.
“I need to get to work.” She put down her mug and stood up, then walked towards the door. “Thanks, Tom.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out except for a soft, “Drive safe.”
After all these years, she’d never called me Tom. Only Thomas.
To be honest, Zara was the only one who used that nickname. Danny chose Uncle Tommy because it sounded like his name in his little mind, and I was more than fine with that. That was something for us and, I hoped, my future niece or nephew.
I leant back in the armchair and closed my eyes. I had to get a move on since I had a meeting with our accountant to go over this month’s payroll, but I was exhausted. Between trying to hash out my feelings around Sylvie and my family drama, there wasn’t much left in me to give.
That was without considering Christmas.
Sylvie.
Shit.
The bloody woman had taken up residence in my head. She’d set up camp, complete with tent and sleeping bag and portable charge bricks. No matter what I did, I hadn’t been able to get her off my mind.
I couldn’t believe she’d karate chopped my fucking arm, and she’d smiled while she’d done it.
I rubbed my hand down my face. Fuck. I hadn’t laughed last night, but I couldn’t help it now. Of all the things she could have done, that was not what I was expecting. Yet somehow it seemed so in character for her—I was shocked, but not surprised.
Sylvie had always been somewhat of a force of nature, and from what I could see, she really hadn’t changed a bit.
I couldn’t believe she hadn’t forgiven me.
I really hadn’t meant to cut her face open with that cricket ball. My ten-year-old arse had not realised just how hard the cricket ball was as I had no interest in the game as a kid, so I really hadn’t known exactly what I was throwing at her. I’d thought it was soft, and it wasn’t like I’d aimed for her face.
Alas, I could see how me throwing it at her forehead might have meant she harboured a little resentment against me.
And she really did have a scar there.
Still, it was twenty years ago.
I’d already forgiven her for karate chopping my elbow.
Surely, she was over it.
Then again, my sister hadn’t forgiven me for a fake spider I put in her bed when she was six, so maybe it wasn’t all that weird after all.
“Oh, good, you’re here.” Mum sashayed into the living room and held out a catalogue that was folded back on itself. “Hear me out,” she said, touching the catalogue to her chest. “A drum kit.”
I didn’t like where this was going.
“A what?” I asked, peering at her from my slouched position.
“Sit up.” She whacked me on the head with a catalogue. “Or you’ll end up like Quasimodo, and that’s unbefitting for a young man, much less one of your station in life.”
I sat up straight.
“Thank you,” she said, then handed me the catalogue.
Ah. It was the toy book that was decorated with at least one hundred circles from Danny’s requests.
“A drum kit,” Mum repeated, tapping one of the pictures. “For Danny.”
“I didn’t think it was a gift for the housekeeping staff,” I replied, eyeing the one she’d pointed to.
“I don’t know. Laurelin was in a band once, and she was quite the drummer, if my memory serves me correctly.”
“Mum. Have you thought this purchase through?”
“I think he’d love a drum kit!”
That was the point.
“And in eight months’ time, there’s going to be a newborn baby in the house. Don’t you think that’ll be enough noise?” I raised my eyebrows. “The last thing we need is a six-year-old boy with access to a drum kit.”
She looked at me, and I could almost see my words rattling around her brain.
Sadly, I could also see them going in one ear and zooming right out of the other. Just like when you let the air out of a balloon, and it whizzed around the room before it fell sadly to the ground.
That was my words.
Falling sadly to the rug.
“This is a very big house,” Mum continued. “We could put it somewhere we couldn’t hear it.”
“Mother, you could put a drum kit in Nigeria, and I suspect we’d still hear it.”