wasn’t supposed to bring work home. She wasn’t supposed to talk about patients outside work, but Adrianna spent her days minding the kids so Em could work. Adrianna had to feel like she was a part of it, and in a way she was. If it wasn’t for her mum, she’d never be able to do this.
This. Chaos. Animal noodles. Mess on the kitchen floor. Fuzzy, a dopey half-poodle, half something no one could guess at, was currently lurking under Toby’s highchair on the off-chance the odd giraffe or elephant would drop from on high.
‘Hey, it’s all done.’ There was a triumphant bang from the laundry and Mike appeared in the doorway, waving his spanner. ‘That’s that mother fixed. I’d defy any drop to leak anywhere now. Anything else I can do for you ladies?’
‘Oh, Mike, that’s fabulous. But I wish you’d let us pay—’
‘You’ve got free plumbing for life,’ Mike said fiercely. Mike was their big, burly, almost scary-looking next-door neighbour. His ginger hair was cropped to almost nothing. He wore his jeans a bit too low, he routinely ripped the sleeves out of his T-shirts because sleeves annoyed him, and in his spare time he built his body. If you met Mike on a dark night you might turn the other way. Fast.
Em had met Mike on a dark night. He’d crashed into their kitchen, banging the back door so hard it had broken.
‘Em, the wife … My Katy … The baby … There’s blood, oh, my God, there’s blood … You’re a midwife. Please …’
Katy had had a fast, fierce delivery of their third child, and she’d haemorrhaged. Mike had got home to find her in the laundry, her baby safely delivered, but she’d been bleeding out.
She’d stopped breathing twice before the ambulance had arrived. Em had got her back.
Mike and Katy were now the parents of three boys who promised to grow up looking just like their dad, and Mike was Em’s slave for ever. He’d taken Em and her household under his wing, and a powerful wing it was. There were usually motorbikes parked outside Mike and Katy’s place—multiple bikes—but no matter what the pressure of his family, his job or his biker mates, Mike dropped in every night—just to check.
Now, as Toby finished the last mouthful of his noodles, Mike hefted him out of his highchair and whirled him round and hugged him in a manner that made Em worry the noodles might come back up again. But Toby crowed in glee.
‘Can I take him next door for a few minutes?’ he asked. ‘We’ve got a new swing, a double-seater. My boys’ll be outside and Henry and Tobes’ll look a treat on it. Give you a bit of peace with Gretta, like.’
He glanced at Gretta but he didn’t say any more. What was happening was obvious. Gretta was more and more dependent on oxygen, but more and more it wasn’t enough.
If Mike took Toby, Em could sit by the fire and cuddle Gretta while Adrianna put her feet up and watched the telly. Toby was already lighting up with excitement.
‘That’d be great, Mike, thank you,’ Em told him. ‘I’ll pop over and pick him up in an hour.’
‘Bring Gretta with you,’ Mike said. ‘Give her a go on the swing. If she’s up for it.’
But she wasn’t up for it. They all knew it, and that knowledge hung over the house, a shadow edging closer.
Today Oliver’s presence had pushed that shadow back a little, made Em’s thoughts fly sideways, but, Oliver or not, the shadows were there to stay.
THE LAST TIME Oliver had visited his ex-mother-in-law, her house had looked immaculate. Adrianna was devoted to her garden. At this time of year her roses had always looked glorious, her herbaceous borders had been clipped to perfect symmetry and her lawns had always been lush and green, courtesy of the tanks she’d installed specifically so she could be proud of her garden the year round.
Not now.
The grass on the lawn was a bit long and there were bare patches, spots where things had been left for a while. Where once an elegant table setting had stood under the shade of a Manchurian pear, there was now a sandpit and a paddling pool.
A beach ball lay on the front path. He had to push it aside to reach the front door.
It took him less than a minute to reach the door but by the time he had, the last conversation he’d had with Em had played itself out more than a dozen times in his head.
‘Em, I can’t adopt. I’m sorry, but I can’t guarantee I can love kids who aren’t my own.’
‘They would be your own,’ she’d said. She’d been emotional, distraught, but underneath she’d been sure. ‘I want kids, Oliver. I want a family. There are children out there who need us. If we can’t have our own … to not take them is selfish.’
‘To take them when we can’t love them is selfish.’
‘I can love them. I will.’
‘But I can’t.’ He’d said it gently but inexorably, a truth he’d learned by fire.
‘You’re saying I need to do it alone?’
‘Em, think about it,’ he’d said fiercely. ‘We love each other. We’ve gone through so much …’
‘I want a family.’
‘Then I can’t give it to you. If this is the route you’re determined to take, then you’ll need to find someone who can.’
He’d walked away, sure that when she’d settled she’d agree with him. After all, their love was absolute. But she’d never contacted him. She hadn’t answered his calls.
Adrianna had spoken to him. ‘Oliver, she’s gutted. She knows your position. Please, leave her be to work things out for herself.’
It had gutted him, too, that she’d walked away from their marriage without a backward glance. And here was evidence that she’d moved on. She’d found herself the life she wanted—without him.
He reached the door, lifted his hand to the bell but as he did the door swung inwards.
The guy opening the door was about the same age as Oliver. Oliver was tall, but this guy was taller and he was big in every sense of the word. He was wearing jeans, a ripped T-shirt and big working boots. His hands were clean but there was grease on his forearms. And on his tatts.
He was holding a child, a little boy of about two. The child was African, Oliver guessed, Somalian maybe, as dark as night, with huge eyes. One side of his face was badly scarred. He was cradled in the guy’s arms, but he was looking outwards, brightly interested in this new arrival into his world.
Another kid came flying through the gate behind Oliver, hurtling up the path towards them. Another little boy. Four? Ginger-haired. He looked like the guy in front of him.
‘Daddy, Daddy, it’s my turn on the swing,’ he yelled. ‘Come
