waking Neil again, and she could always have a catch-up nap once the kids were sorted in the morning.
‘Mummy?’ Déjà vu. Only this time the voice was Charlie’s sweet, piping tone, still carrying a babyish lisp. And the hard, wooden table beneath her cheek was no substitute for her pillow.
Forcing open her grit-filled eyes, Kiki tried to ignore the sick, groggy pain in her head and sat up. ‘What’s the time, darling?’ A rhetorical question to a three-year-old, but her brain was still too full of cotton wool to think straight.
‘It’s gone eight o’clock and I’m going to be late, thanks to you,’ Neil snapped as he stormed into the room.
She blinked, noting his suit and tie, rather than the casual-jacket-and-jeans look he favoured when lecturing. ‘Oh, your meeting. I’m sorry, I must have dozed off.’ Jumping up, she hurried over to switch the kettle on and stuff a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. ‘Give me a minute, just one minute, and I’ll bring your breakfast to your study.’
Neil glared at her, not an ounce of warmth in his blue eyes. ‘I already told you, I don’t have time. Which part of late don’t you understand?’ He dodged back to avoid their daughter’s attempts to clutch his legs for a hug. ‘No, Charlotte! You’ll crease Daddy’s suit.’ He left the kitchen, muttering to himself.
Kiki leaned back against the board, wondering how she’d managed to screw up the day before it had even started. Charlie, lower lip quivering, her dark hair sleep-tangled and knotted, painted a picture of abject heartbreak. Kiki swooped on her, gathering her little girl into her arms for a tight hug. ‘Daddy doesn’t mean to be cross, Charlie. He’s just got a busy day and Mummy didn’t help by falling asleep.’ Even as the words left her mouth, she wondered why she was making excuses for him. Neil was an adult and perfectly capable of getting himself up and ready for work on time, but the default blame in the Jackson household for any problem fell squarely on her shoulders.
She could just imagine what her big sister would have to say if she could hear her. Mia had never warmed to Neil. Kiki suppressed a bitter laugh. There she went again, painting the situation in a rosier light than it deserved. Mia couldn’t stand him. Had even tried to persuade Kiki to leave and bring the children with her to Mia’s new home in Butterfly Cove. As if she could just pack up and start again! She hefted Charlie onto her other hip, ‘Come on, poppet, let’s go and see how your brother is feeling this morning.’
Matty appeared untroubled by his early morning misadventures, so she dropped him off at school, then a bubbly Charlie at crèche for her morning session. Strictly speaking, the rules required her to keep him off for forty-eight hours, but he usually bounced back after an episode and Kiki preferred not to make a fuss about it. His bouts of sickness had started a few months previously, frequent enough for her to have taken her son to the doctor. After a range of tests, they’d not been able to find anything wrong with him, and Kiki was keeping a food diary to see if there might be an allergic connection. She hadn’t found an organic link to his problem, and she was beginning to suspect the doctor’s other suggestion—stress—might be the real cause.
The resilience the children showed filled her with pride, and not a little guilt. They shouldn’t have to tiptoe around their father the way they had been recently. She would have to try and talk to him, ask him to be a little more patient around them. Her stomach churned at the thought, but if she broached the subject when he was in a good mood, maybe she’d get through the conversation without it turning into a shouting match. Not that she did any shouting of her own. Perhaps if she made his favourite meal for dinner… she turned left at the next set of lights towards the supermarket.
Brushing the flour off her hands onto her apron, Kiki ran to the hall to fish her mobile out of her bag where it hung over the end of the bannister. The damn thing had found its way to the very depths and she almost dropped it in her hurry to answer before the caller rang off. ‘Hello?’
‘Jesus, Kiki. Can’t you even answer your phone without a drama?’
‘Sorry, darling. I was in the kitchen and I’d left my bag in the hall…’
Neil sighed. ‘I don’t need to hear your latest line in stupid excuses. Just go into my study, will you? There’s the name of a hotel and a phone number on my jotter and I need it.’
‘Hotel?’ She crossed the hall and pushed open the study door. The room reminded her so much of her dad’s, and it, too, was off limits unless she was cleaning. The high-backed leather chair behind the desk had cost a fortune, but Neil needed to be comfortable when he was working in the evenings. She nudged the chair to one side and scanned the familiar scribble on the cream-coloured jotter. ‘What’s it called?’
‘If. I. Knew. What. It. Was. Called. I. Wouldn’t. Be. Wasting. My. Time. Talking. To. You.’ She winced at the deliberate pause he put between each word. ‘It’s on the left-hand side somewhere.’
Using her finger, she traced the scribbled notes. ‘Oh, here. Lilly’s Island Hotel? Number starts with a plus-thirty?’
‘That’s the one. Hurry up, I need to get back to the meeting.’
She reeled off the number, then paused. ‘Antiparos? Isn’t that near Despotiko?’ The island was one of the most famous archaeological treasures outside of Delos. Neil’s research focused on the cult of Apollo and he had been trying to get on a dig at the sanctuary for the past few years. ‘Did you get your approval?’
‘I won’t get anything if you don’t stop chattering, but yes, looks like I’ll be there for the summer.’ He hung up without saying another word.
Kiki sank into the deep leather chair. How many times had they talked about a summer trip to the islands when they’d first got married? Curled up in Neil’s bed in his tiny flat, they’d spun dreams of days spent uncovering hidden treasures buried deep in the rocks and nights sipping ouzo and eating local delicacies. Then she’d fallen pregnant with Matty and those dreams were put on hold while they struggled to make ends meet. She’d dropped out, knowing there was no way she could finish her degree with a new baby and Neil needing all the help he could get with his research.
Life had got in the way, as it so often did, but maybe this would be a chance for them to spend some quality time together. A tiny bubble of hope stirred in her heart. Away from the stresses and strains, perhaps they could find a way to make things right between them. The kids could run and play in the sunshine, and she could help Neil catalogue his findings. She bit her lip, unable to stop a smile. If they could just get back to the way things used to be…
She reached for the wireless mouse on Neil’s desk and shook it gently to wake up his computer. A word document filled the screen, so she scanned the lower toolbar looking for the browser icon, but accidentally clicked on the email one. The screen changed, displaying an open message and she gave it half a glance, before looking back at the bottom bar.
Darling…
Her finger froze on the mouse as the word registered. Who would be calling Neil darling? Ignoring the little voice in her head that warned he would be furious at her for snooping, Kiki rolled the mouse to the top of the message and began to read. Incredulity became denial, became horror, as she followed the email exchange back over several weeks. She wanted to shut her eyes, refuse to see the truth laid out in black and white, but her finger kept clicking on the previous arrow. Every click was punctuated by the same word, the admonishment Neil threw in her face on a regular basis—stupid, click, stupid, click, stupid.
He was right.
