and fear and sadness … Chrissie with another man. It didn’t bloody bear thinking about. He loved her. And he was almost certain that she still loved him.
Or maybe not.
Maybe she had moved on already.
After willing himself to get a grip, he managed to shove from his mind the thunderous thoughts of hunting the other man down and ripping his arms off. It could happen, the mood he was in now. But Sam wasn’t a violent man, never had been. So he clenched his jaw and drove away, heading back to the five-bar gate that led to the fields behind the station. He knew where he was there. It was his spot, ever since he’d been old enough to cycle to it as a kid.
As he sat there, he tried to figure out how things had gone so catastrophically wrong between him and Chrissie, but the answers wouldn’t come. He had thought things were bad before he came home, but he now realised … they were much, much worse than he could ever have imagined.
Holly Morgan swept the bedroom curtain aside and looked out down to the path. She pressed her hand to the window, wishing she could bang on the glass or, better still, push the window wide open and shout out after Dad. Beg him to come back. But the window was double-glazed and locked, plus he was gone and inside his car before she had a chance to do anything. She thought about going after him, but it was pitch black outside in the lane and across the fields. And Mum would only go mental if she caught her sneaking out instead of doing her homework. She felt her eyes fill with tears as she whispered, ‘I still love you, Dad. And I know Mum does, deep down in her heart. She does, I’m sure of it – why else has she been really moody since you went away? Please come back and fix it. Tell Mum you love her, that you really do … and then we can all be happy.’
After lifting her headphones from her head and scrubbing her face dry with the paw of a big white teddy bear, Holly lay down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, counting the numerous luminous rainbow and unicorn stickers, as she came up with a plan. If her parents were going to behave like children, then it was going to be down to her to be the mature one, the sensible grown-up around here. She wasn’t a kid any more. She was a teenager. Thirteen years old, and that was practically an adult. She’d be able to drive a car in a few years’ time. So she was pretty sure she could navigate her parents’ marriage onto steadier ground.
Yes, her mind was made up. Holly leapt up off her bed and rummaged around in her desk drawer for a new pad. She had loads of half-used pads, mainly with stories in, she liked making up stories … usually about animals – she loved animals, or girls going on adventures to exotic, faraway places like the moon, or Hawaii, or even Antarctica. And sometimes she wrote magical, mythical stories about a magic unicorn called Lily. But this called for a brand-new pad. She retrieved a pen from her fluffy pencil case – a Finding Dory one with a big blue feather on the end – hmm, it was a bit babyish, but it would have to do under the circumstances, as there really was no time to waste.
It would be her birthday soon, and there was no way she was going to let it be ruined because they couldn’t all be together at Granny Dolly’s house like they always were every year. It was tradition. And it would be no fun at all if she was stuck at home with just Mum on her own, moaning about everything and bossing her around all the time like she had been ever since Dad first went away. And Mum had been in a bad mood ever since Dad had missed her forty-first birthday. And it wasn’t like Dad did it on purpose … not coming home like he had promised. He couldn’t help there being a last-minute emergency at work. Dad had explained it all, and he was so sorry, Holly could see for herself how upset he’d felt when she’d FaceTimed him. And also he had sent Mum the biggest bunch of flowers to make up for it. But Mum hadn’t been the same since. Holly had overheard her on the phone to Auntie Jude, saying, ‘he knew things were bad and he still didn’t come back, not even for my birthday. I feel so let down, yet again.’
Ever since it had all gone wrong with Dad, Mum had been a nightmare to live with, and she didn’t even try to remember Holly’s feelings before saying mean stuff to Dad and upsetting him. I bet that’s what she did just now. Ruined it all … And Mum should also remember who pays for everything. If it wasn’t for Dad, they’d have nothing, Holly surmised, glancing at the new iPhone in her hand, which Dad had sent her, and she absolutely loved. She had customised it with pink crystals. Then there was the computer on her desk, the TV/DVD player, iPad, laptop, and all her lovely shoes lined up by the wall near her wardrobe that Mum had bought for her … using Dad’s money. Exactly.
Holly opened the pad.
Get Mum and Dad Back Together in Time for My Birthday.
On the fifth of June.
She wrote the words at the top of the second page (she never used the first page, not ever, because it just ruined the whole pad) underlined the date and flipped the feather against the side of her nose as she thought about what to write next. Yes! Good idea.
Granny Dolly and Aunty Jude. Holly wrote down their names and underlined them. They’re bound to help me. Dad is her grandson, after all. And Aunty Jude, not that she’s my real aunty, but she’s Mum’s best friend and was a bridesmaid at their wedding, so the last thing she will want is for them to split up properly. I know that for a fact as I heard Mum telling her on the phone about Dad coming home, but staying at Granny Dolly’s house instead of coming here, and Aunty Jude had said it was such a shame. Mum had the phone on hands-free in the kitchen cos she was making some jam and it had just reached the ‘crucial bit’, she had said, where she daren’t leave the saucepan unattended or it would boil over.
Holly numbered the lines one to ten down the left-hand side of the page, figuring if she could come up with ten things that she could do to get her parents back together in time for her birthday, then that would be a brilliant start.
Send Mum a bunch of flowers. BUT write on the card that they are from Dad!
Send Dad some flowers. BUT write on the card that they are from Mum!
Holly wasn’t sure about number two. Dad wasn’t really the ‘getting flowers delivered’ to him type of man. No, she had better come up with something else. Beer. Or brandy – Dad likes ‘three fingers full’, as Granny Dolly always says on special occasions when she pours from the decanter on the sideboard into a tumbler. But Holly knew that would be hard to get. Even if she tried the supermarket on the industrial estate, they were bound to see she was too young to buy alcohol. She tried really hard to think of more ideas. A bag of wine gums … hmm, not much of a present. Socks … boring. Phone case. A good leather one would cost a lot. And it had to look like it had come from Mum. But she wouldn’t buy Dad a new phone case after the way she just was with him.
A few seconds later, Holly had it. Chocolates! Yes, Dad seemed to love those sea-salt truffles from the sweet shop in town, the one in the square in the centre of Market Briar. She remembered how he had eaten nearly all of them in the box he bought for Mum on Valentine’s Day about two years ago, the last time he had been properly home. Mum had teased him about it and they had laughed together, saying that he really wanted the chocolates for himself and that’s why he had bought them for her. But that was when Mum was still being nice to him. Yes, it was the perfect present. And Dad might even think that Mum was thinking about that Valentine’s Day and wanted to get back with him, so it would be a romantic thing too. Brilliant. Holly would buy some on Saturday when she went there on the bus with her best friend, Katie Ferguson. She could wrap them up and take them to Granny Dolly’s house to give to Dad and pretend that Mum had sent them. To say sorry for being so horrible earlier on and sending him away. How evil is that?
And
