by Jo Lovett
‘Sure, honey. Could any of your friends’ parents drop you home?’
‘I don’t want to ask.’ Her smile was dropping. ‘Can’t you pick me up?’
‘Sure. Of course.’ This was an opportunity to avoid letting Liv down for once. Maybe he and Melissa could just have a quick drink this evening, and dinner next weekend. And, yes, Liv was smiling again. Barney wasn’t, though.
‘Are you going out before that?’ Barney’s stutter was highly pronounced, again. Sam looked at his beautiful, anxious son who’d had exactly zero social life in the past few months, since the accident, and whose sister was now a lot more popular despite her own friendship issues, and whose father had been about to consign him, on his own, to a Friday night babysitter, while he went on a date.
‘No, I’m not.’ Snap decision. Would Melissa be sympathetic? Probably not, especially since it would feel disloyal to Barney to explain to her that he had to stay home because he didn’t want his son to be what the British might call a Barney No-Mates. Whatever, he had no choice. ‘Now that Liv’s going to be out, I’m thinking that you and I can grab some tacos and shakes—’ Barney loved Mexican food ‘—and watch some junk TV?’
‘Cool.’ The word came out easily and Barney smiled. Sam realised with a jolt that Barney didn’t actually smile that much any more.
‘You take the last one.’ Sam slid the taco box across the sofa to Barney. His housekeeper would be furious if she could see them but a) she couldn’t and b) he was pretty sure there was no grease on the bottom of the box. ‘You’re a growing boy.’ Barney grinned at him and took it. He had a great smile. ‘You want to watch some more basketball?’
‘Yeah, cool.’ The effects of one-on-one parenting and two evenings running of junk food. Noticeably increased confidence in speaking. ‘Do you think I’m gonna be tall enough to play professionally?’ Still pretty fluent.
‘You never know. Your mother was nearly as tall as me, so you could end up several inches over six feet.’ Over Sam’s dead body would Barney attempt to go down the professional sportsman route. A much better life policy to be a successful amateur and then do something sensible, like law or medicine, but now wasn’t the time or place to mention that. Barney was smiling again.
It was good having father/son bonding time. They should do this more often. Specifically, Sam should do this more often.
His phone rang. He took it out to look at it, in case it was Liv. It was Melissa. He carried on looking at it, unsure whether or not to press the green button. He should answer it, because this was obviously her reply to his message about postponing until next week, but he didn’t want to ruin this moment with Barney.
‘You should get that.’ And the stutter was back and the smile was gone. Sam put his phone down.
Obviously, if Izzy or any other competent therapist of any kind witnessed their home life, they could diagnose a fair number of things. In particular, Sam should carve out more quality time with his children. That was true, clearly, but Barney still needed coping strategies for when he was upset. Not every child whose father worked over-long hours or dated had a stutter. Sam was increasingly sure that Liv wasn’t happy with him either, but the unhappiness didn’t manifest itself physically.
Was Izzy going to reply to his email?
Another call. Still Melissa. Sam pushed the red button on his phone and picked up the remote. ‘So how about you show me how to play one of these video games?’ It was more than worth it to see the look of delight that lit up Barney’s face.
Melissa sent a hostile, and, for such a fastidious woman, surprisingly coarsely worded text a few minutes later. Yeah, it wasn’t likely that she would have been sympathetic about Barney. She was good company, though, which was the best you could hope for from a date.
But not as good company as his son, actually. This was genuinely turning out to be a fun evening.
Saturday morning wasn’t so good.
During breakfast, Sam had to field a call from his mother, who was disappointed that he was going to have to drop the twins with her and his father and then go into the office instead of staying for their family Sunday lunch tomorrow. He adored his parents and his sisters and he didn’t know how he and the twins would have coped since Lana died without all their help, but right now he could do without their nagging in his life.
He then had to take a couple of lengthy work calls; cue stuttering fury from Barney and glacial politeness from Liv.
Straight after a lunch cooked by his housekeeper, which he’d eaten in his home office during a conference call, Sam decided that enough was enough on the weekend. He lied to Jim Buck that he was going to be at a funeral in the afternoon and insisted that Liv and Barney accompany him into Central Park for a walk.
It was ice cream weather. Sam bought huge double cones for the three of them, blackcurrant for Liv, vanilla for Barney and salted caramel for himself, and they strolled along one of the paths into the middle of the park. It was great. Harmonious. Proper family time.
Liv’s walking was dramatically improved compared to even a few weeks ago. Her physio was delighted. She hardly needed her crutches any more, and it was easy to believe now that in due course she’d be back to sport in the way she was before the accident. The first thing Sam had allowed himself to hope for in the immediate aftermath of the crash was that she wouldn’t be permanently disabled or disfigured. And now he was hoping, almost expecting, that she’d soon be fully recovered. A few months ago, he’d have paid any price to get to this stage.
Now, he’d pay any price to get Barney to the same stage of recovery, and to work out how he could ever begin to make up to both of them for what had happened. It was harder to see mental injuries than physical ones, but he suspected the children still blamed him. Rightly so. He still blamed himself.
‘Hey, aren’t they your friends?’ Liv indicated with her ice cream toward a group playing ball.
‘Yeah.’ Barney turned his body away from them slightly. Heartbreaking how different he was now from how he’d been until the accident, always the kid who’d run over and join any group playing ball, whether he knew them or not. Liv had been the quieter one, always a little in awe of her brother’s lack of shyness.
‘Aren’t you going to go speak to them?’ Liv should have been watching Barney instead of the other kids. She’d have realised that she should stop talking.
‘Why don’t we head off this way?’ Sam started to walk in the opposite direction from the group.
‘Hey, Barney,’ one of them shouted. Sam looked round. The kid was waving. Sam looked back at Barney, who hesitated and then raised his arm.
‘Want to go over there?’ Sam was almost holding his breath.
‘Maybe.’ It took Barney a long time to get the word out.
‘Go, dumbo.’
‘Liv.’ Sam did a zip-it signal behind Barney’s back. ‘Why don’t you go?’ He gave Barney his best encouraging-dad smile.
After a long moment, Barney nodded and started walking over to the group. He stood awkwardly at first but then started to speak a little. But not fluently; the breeze was carrying some serious stuttering to Sam. And then one of the boys laughed. And then another. And suddenly it was a group of kids, some of whom Barney had been good friends with for years, laughing at him. And this was Sam’s fault. What an idiot. He shouldn’t have encouraged Barney to go over.
‘Nice one, Dad.’ Liv’s sneer was impressive.
Sam opened his mouth to reply, but Barney’s need was more important at this point. He turned away from her and strode over to the group and said, ‘Barney, sorry, dude, we need to get going.’ His voice came out more loudly than he intended. ‘Boys.’ He nodded at them. ‘Barney’ll catch you later.’ They did at least stop laughing when Sam spoke. But maybe that was even worse. When he was younger, Barney had commanded respect amongst his peers on his own account.
Sam slung his arm round Barney’s shoulder as they walked. He opened his mouth to speak and realised that he needed to wai
t until his voice was steady. After a few seconds, he managed to start a fake cheery monologue about baseball. There wasn’t a lot that could make a grown man cry but, witnessing his son be humiliated, Sam had come seriously close to tears. He still had a lump the size of a watermelon in his throat. He was going to get back on the speech therapy hunt that evening.
A watched inbox never pinged. Sam had continued to wait for an email from Izzy all weekend. And then he’d accepted that, while she might be on vacation, or not answering emails outside working hours, there was also a good chance that she wasn’t going to reply to him and he was going to have to research other options, which shouldn’t have felt as disappointing as it did.
Early Sunday evening, Sam finished yet another call and typed ‘private speech therapy pathology recommendations New York’ into Google. As soon as he finished making changes to the latest Buck contract after the kids were in bed tonight, he was going to make a new list of therapists to contact tomorrow.
As he stood up to join Liv and Barney in the snug, his phone signalled that an email had arrived in his personal account.
From: Izzy Castle
To: Sam McCready
Re: Speech therapy advice
Dear Sam,
Good to hear from you. I do remember our coffee – so kind of you to pick up all my groceries and help me home!
Apologies for the late reply: I’ve been busy with work and my daughter.
Could you give me some more details about Barney’s stutter and about what you’ve tried so far? I don’t know if I can help at all, but I can try!
All best,
Izzy
Sam found himself smiling at his phone, genuinely pleased to hear from her.
Dear Izzy,
Thanks for getting back to me, especially at the weekend.
Not at all—it was nice to see you again!
I understand, from the various speech therapists that I’ve spoken to and from what I’ve read, that there are various types of stutter. Barney gets stuck on the initial letter of words. There’s no question that it’s worse when he’s stressed, upset, embarrassed, etc. I think that’s all fairly classic. It definitely dates back to the trauma of the accident. The therapists that I’ve spoken to agree that he needs strategies to cope when he’s in a situation where he starts to stutter, but so far none of them have come up with any strategy that helps. I’d be very interested to hear whether you had any suggestions. The stutter’s really starting to affect him socially, and I’m concerned that that will only get worse as he gets older.
Best,
Sam
He could have mentioned how guilty he felt, how hard it was to see Barney suffering, how pleased he’d be to speak to Izzy again, but he was a potential client, not a friend. Funny how he thought of her as one though.
And funny how often he continued to press Refresh for the next couple of hours, until he realised that it was well after midnight in London and highly unlikely that she would be replying until the next day at the earliest. Was it his desperation over Barney, or something else keeping him glued to the screen?
Eight
Izzy
Izzy held her arms out as Ruby hurtled towards her.
‘I missed you, Mummy, but I had fun.’
‘I missed you too, gorgeous girl.’ Understatement. Izzy scooped Ruby up into a lovely, close cuddle. Dominic returned to London religiously every other weekend. As time went on, would it become easier to cope with Ruby’s fortnightly Sundays with him?
And would it become easier to talk to Dominic when they did their handovers? It was always so stilted, too polite; there was the sense of unfinished business hanging between them. After more than a year of separation, they should probably have made an attempt to talk about actually divorcing.
‘Ruby will have a lot to tell you about the London Aquarium.’ Dominic smiled at them both. Izzy’s heart clenched a little.
‘You’re so lucky,’ she told Ruby, setting her down. ‘I didn’t realise you were going there. What was your favourite fish?’
Ruby talked with extreme enthusiasm and detail about aquatic creatures while Izzy and Dominic watched her and exchanged a few awkward smiles. Eventually, she finished.
Before she could start talking again, Izzy dived in with, ‘Say goodbye to Daddy, Rubes. We need to get you to bed. Back to school tomorrow.’
‘Can Daddy come in?’
Izzy waited for Dominic to reply. Normally, when Ruby asked, he said he had to go.
He said nothing.
‘Um,’ Izzy said. She wanted to stay on good terms with Dominic. Her parents had, to the best of her knowledge, only been in the same place at the same time once since they’d split up, and that had not gone well. They had also always ignored Izzy in favour of their new families. Izzy knew that she and Dominic would always put Ruby first and hoped that they’d always be polite to each other, and she didn’t want to be rude to him now. But she also did not want him to come in.
Apart from anything else, she had some things out in the hall to go to the charity shop, and she was fairly sure that the baking book he’d bought for her birthday was on top of the pile. So she definitely wasn’t going to invite him in, even though he was now smiling at her and showing no signs of wanting to leave.
‘It’s really late, munchkin,’ she said. ‘But definitely next time, if you get back a little earlier.’
‘That sounds like a plan,’ Dominic said. Izzy had always liked the way his eyes creased when he smiled. ‘I’ll look forward to that. Have fun at school tomorrow, Ruby.’
Ruby put an arm round Izzy’s waist and reached out with the other to Dominic.
‘Hug, Daddy,’ she said.
Dominic hesitated for a moment and then stepped forward. Ruby pulled him in too, by his waist, so that he was standing only inches away from Izzy. This was about a billion times more awkward than smiling at each other while Ruby burbled about the beautiful queen angelfish and sand tiger sharks. They were so close that Izzy could smell Dominic’s aftershave. The scent was so familiar. She focused very hard on the side of his head. He’d actually grown a few grey hairs in the last year. They blended very well into his blond hair and she hadn’t noticed them before. Oh God, she was literally welling up over the sadness that she now knew so little about Ruby’s father’s hair colour.
‘Bath time, gorgeous girl,’ she said, pulling backwards out of the hug.
‘Bye, Ruby. Iz.’ Dominic blew a kiss to his daughter from the gate at the end of the short path from the front door to the pavement. Izzy’s heart clenched some more.
The next morning, like every first day back after a school holiday, was hell.
Izzy and Ruby both overslept, despite the early morning June sunshine, after being up in the night when Ruby wet her bed. The bed wetting was definitely due to Ruby’s day out with Dominic – a distinct correlation between his visits and night-time accidents had emerged.
Izzy started thinking about Dominic as soon as she peeled her eyes open on the third snooze of her alarm. Maybe she should have invited him in yesterday. Maybe then Ruby wouldn’t have wet the bed. Maybe he should have stayed until after Ruby’s bedtime. Maybe they should have moved to Milan with him. So many maybes.
Shit, she’d been lying in bed thinking for far too long. Better check her emails and get into the shower.
There was a reply from Sam.
No time to read it now; they were very late for school.
Izzy had forgotten until just before they were leaving that Ruby needed a packed lunch for a school trip, and Ruby had had a nicely timed meltdown about having lost her favourite hair scrunchie and because Izzy wouldn’t let her take white-bread jam sandwiches and cake for lunch.
Izzy wasn’t proud of the fact that the only reason she hadn’t given in to Ruby for an easy life was that Ruby’s teacher was already extremely patronisingly kind about how they all understood, of course they did, how hard it was to be a single mother. Piss off, Mrs Blake, Izzy had thought
as she slathered hummus onto brown, seeded bread from the freezer and sliced carrots as fast as she could, while Ruby shouted, ‘I hate carrots.’
They’d both won the argument in the end. The carrots had stayed in, but they’d had a four-fingered KitKat each in the car on the way to school. Mrs Blake could deal with Ruby on a sugar high at a museum, ha. And then Izzy had dashed straight from school to work.
She finally read Sam’s email between her first two appointments. She still felt a bit weird about talking to him, especially today when she was thinking a lot about Dominic, and wondering whether she’d been right to separate from him; she just didn’t want the feeling of going back in time. But if she was going to attempt to help his son properly, she was going to have to have a phone conversation with him. Or maybe not. Maybe she could just describe a couple of strategies in writing. Or even not describe them. Just send some bumph. Yep. She banged an email out.
Sam had replied by the time Izzy’s next appointment had finished, which must have been the crack of dawn New York time. Did everyone in New York get up that early or was it just him?
Hi Izzy,
Very kind of you to send that document through, thanks.
Do you do private consultations and would you consider taking Barney on as a client?
Best,
Sam
Bloody hell, the man was tenacious. Although, to be fair, who wouldn’t be when they were worried about their child?
Izzy took a large bite of the almond croissant she’d snaffled from the bakery round the corner on her way in. Maybe next week she’d start getting up early enough to have a healthy breakfast at home.