by Fiona Harper
Jennie was just about to say she’d be happy to wait if he was, but then she realised the ‘us’ he was talking about was him and his daughter. She wasn’t included.
They’d talked quite a few times over the last couple of days about Mollie, and these phone conversations had also been something new. Now, they both frowned as they spoke, their heads full of strategies and backup plans, the total focus on Mollie. No more whispered promises that made her insides heat. No more excited plotting about the next bit of snatched time together. Perhaps, now she’d be installed in his house and they could see each other whenever they wanted, it wouldn’t be exciting like that any more, and she wasn’t sure she liked that. Knowing Alex had charged out of his office early to meet her, or had stayed up all night clearing his desk so he could meet her for lunch had made her feel special. She didn’t want their private time together to be reduced to something routine and functional. Where was the fun in that?
She closed her eyes again and, Alex being Alex, he didn’t press her for a response to his statement. Never had she been more grateful for his dislike of extraneous words.
Her muscles were bunched tight and she sighed and tried to relax them. There was another thing preying on her mind. And the more she tried not to think about it, the bigger and scarier it grew.
She was very aware of the fact that she and Alex hadn’t…that there hadn’t been a chance to be alone and…
This was ridiculous! She was even avoiding thinking the word! This wasn’t like her at all.
Sex.
There. She’d allowed it to the front of her consciousness, said it mentally aloud. They hadn’t had sex since they’d decided to patch their tattered marriage back together, and she was suddenly very nervous about the whole thing and she didn’t know why. It was just sex. No big deal. Only…
What if that was all new and different, too?
Oh, it would be fine if they were all hot and steamy and in the moment, as they had been on their honeymoon. More than fine, actually. But, in the last few days, she’d become painfully aware that ‘moments’ were fleeting things, and she and Alex didn’t always find themselves slap-bang in the middle of one any more.
But she didn’t have too long to work herself into knots about the matter because the car slowed and she opened her lids to find they were crawling down Alex’s drive. Well, her drive now.
Her stomach hollowed out. This was it. Her first day as a mother. Lord help that poor child.
Poor child, my foot.
‘Hang on a second, Lucy. I just need to…’
Jennie pressed her mobile phone to her chest, marched across the room and rescued the TV remote from the floor. She punched the volume button repeatedly. Who could think with cartoons blaring at an ear-splitting level?
‘Mollie?’ Jennie said sweetly. ‘Leave the volume alone, okay?’
Was the child deaf? She certainly didn’t react to Jennie’s plea, just kept staring at the jumble of noise and colour on the screen, and as soon as Jennie walked back to her laptop, balanced on the arm of the sofa, Mollie sidled up to the set and left her finger on the button.
Jennie peeled the phone from her chest and put it to her ear. ‘Listen, Lucy, I can’t talk now. Just go ahead and book The Savoy. I’ll sweet-talk the client into thinking it’s the best decision he ever made.’
She slid her phone closed and looked at Mollie, engrossed in the colourful antics on the television. Did the girl have hearing problems? Jennie sat on the arm of the sofa and folded her arms across her chest.
‘Cookies,’ she whispered.
Mollie glanced in her direction, looking hopeful.
Yup. Just as she’d thought. Hearing fine; disposition awkward.
Jennie slid down the arm of the sofa into the seat and reached over to shut her laptop. Working from home had seemed such a simple solution to their current dilemma. Alex was due in court this week and while they were in the process of hiring a nanny to help with the childcare, Jennie had volunteered to stay at home and look after Mollie. It was only day two and she was ready to run screaming from the house.
How did parents cope with this full-time? How did they not go insane? Back at her flat last week, when she hadn’t been packing up her single girl life, she’d spent huge chunks of time reading a highly recommended parenting book. Crash course, if you like. But she didn’t feel in the least equipped to deal with a three-year-old who thought she was the boss.
How did mothers learn to deal with this kind of thing? Perhaps there was a secret technique they divulged in hallowed whispers at childbirth classes. Minor problem: Jennie hadn’t done any childbirth classes because she’d come to motherhood the same way she came to everything else—feet first and out of order—and it wasn’t making it even the tiniest bit easier.
She thought of some of her cousins who’d brought their little darlings to Alice and Cameron’s wedding, about how the children had run riot and the parents had large dark circles under their eyes and a perpetually harried look, and she started to get even more scared. Perhaps it never got better. Maybe this what her life was going to be like from now on. For ever. She shivered.
Distraction.
That was something she remembered from the book. Okay, Mollie wasn’t having a tantrum, but maybe if she suggested doing something different, something exciting, her stepdaughter might allow her to use the off button on the TV set.
Jennie went and stood in front of the television and earned herself a scowl from Mollie. ‘How about we go out?’ she said brightly.
The intense look of concentration on Mollie’s face as she pondered Jennie’s suggestion was actually quite cute. She scrunched up her forehead and looked at the carpet. Eventually she looked up and said, ‘Can we go and see Mummy? Is she still sleeping?’
This wasn’t the first time she’d heard a question like this in the last forty-eight hours. Evidently some bright spark in Alex’s family had decided to explain death to Mollie as a really long sleep. Jennie hadn’t wanted to upset the little girl by being blunt, so she’d just fudged it when she’d had to answer this question. And she had no idea what else people had said to Mollie about her mother’s death. The poor kid was confused enough as it was; Jennie didn’t want to add to that.
‘I thought we might go to the park. Does that sound like a fun thing to do?’
Mollie nodded, but her shoulders slumped forward. Jennie reasoned she’d feel better once she was on a swing or something. There was something about swings that always left you smiling and breathless.
Fifteen minutes later, they were both bundled up in hats, scarves and gloves and were at the park just down the road from Alex’s house. Jennie stamped her feet and clapped her hands together as she watched Mollie wear the slide to a shine.
They were the only ones in the park. But damp January afternoons weren’t always a favourite time to come and play. It hadn’t actually rained yet today, but the clouds hung low in the sky and Jennie could feel their moisture on her cheeks. It wouldn’t be long.
Mollie seemed happy enough now. Jennie’s ‘distraction’ seemed to have worked. Mollie moved on to the roundabout and sat talking to herself on the edge while she pushed at the ground with both feet to spin herself round slowly.
‘Do you want me to make it go faster?’ Jennie called over.
Mollie glanced up and shook her head, so Jennie decided to keep an eye on her from the swings. She sat down on the nearest one and used the toe of her boot to give her a bit of movement.
The swing had been the place where Jennie had done all her hard thinking when she’d been a child. There was something about the way the air blew past you, backwards and forwards, about the way you seemed to fly above the ground, that made it easy to get things straight in your head.
Mollie was still chattering away, but she had taken her hat off. Jennie thought about asking her to put it back on, but decided the kid deserved a break. She put both feet on the floor and pushed a little harder, used her legs to work up more
of a decent swing.
What was she going to do about Alex? They’d shared a bed for the last two nights and she’d been waiting for him to give her a signal that he’d prefer it if they did more than just snore in it, but he hadn’t. They’d kissed—quite a few times—and everything had seemed great, but he always pulled back before it developed into something more. Why was that? Couldn’t he bring himself to…? Had she hurt him that much when she’d run away from him?
The rhythm of the swing was soothing. The wind pushed her hair round her face then sucked it away again, over and over, and as the ground moved past more quickly, the swing began to do its magic.
She knew Alex wasn’t punishing her—he wasn’t that vindictive, and it went against his noble nature, but she couldn’t fathom why…
His noble nature. That was it!
Alex wasn’t avoiding her. He was waiting for her. She breathed a sigh of relief. How could she not have seen it before? He was being patient with her, waiting for her to show him she was ready. She wished that he’d have talked to her about it, but she was starting to understand that just wasn’t his style.
Maybe tonight…after they’d put Mollie to bed.
She looked out at the horizon and smiled. The sky had turned a lovely shade of blueish-purple, which meant sunset wasn’t far away. She jumped lightly off the swing onto the bouncy surface beneath and stood up straight. It was time to get home.
She put her hands on her hips and looked over to the roundabout. All she could see was a turquoise woolly hat, circuiting slowly. She scanned the rest of the playground, regretting the fact she’d left it so long before she’d decided to return home. The shadows of the bushes and trees, which hadn’t seemed particularly dark a few minutes earlier, were now blending and blurring, making it difficult to make out Mollie’s navy coat.
She took a few steps forward, studied the slide, the climbing frame. And then it hit her.
Mollie was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
A SHAKY panic gripped Jennie, causing her stomach to spasm. She spun around, eyes darting this way and that, desperate to be wrong, but the park was empty.
She had no idea what to do. Absolutely no idea.
Blindly, she reached into her pocket for her mobile phone and was just about to press the button to dial Alex’s number when she paused. This was the last thing Alex wanted to hear—that the daughter he’d only just found was lost. And that you lost her, a little voice whispered harshly in her ear. It’s your fault. He’ll never forgive you for it.
Jennie’s heart sank even further. Despite her instinct for self-preservation, she decided she couldn’t not tell Alex, but she also reasoned that Mollie had only been missing for a matter of minutes. She might have wandered into the bushes or be hiding. Before she rang Alex and passed the fear on, she was going to make sure it was a genuine emergency.
She ran around the whole playground, checking behind every over-sized frog-shaped bin, in the little house in the jungle gym, behind every piece of play equipment.
Nothing.
Mollie wasn’t here. Either that or she was way better at hide-and-seek than Jennie had ever been.
Her phone burned in her pocket. Five minutes, she told herself. She’d check the surrounding area first. Perhaps Mollie had strayed to say hello to a friendly-looking dog, or got talking to someone…
Even fiercer chills ran up and down her body.
She dashed over to the nearest clump of trees and bushes and dived in, only to emerge empty-handed—bar a multitude of twigs in her hair and something unpleasant-smelling on her boot. She wiped it off on the damp grass and carried on searching. It took more than five minutes to do a complete sweep of the area, but she ignored that fact. Twilight had fallen. It would be completely dark in less than half an hour. Jennie wished fervently that she had something as useful as a mini torch on her key ring, but it was adorned only with sparkly little shoes and a chunky silver letter J.
It was cold and dark. She shouldn’t be out here. Mollie shouldn’t be out here. They should be watching deafening cartoons, sitting on the living room floor and eating cookies, waiting for Alex to come home.
Home…
Jennie held her breath.
Would Mollie have gone home? What if she’d merely wandered off and then had returned to the playground, only to find no sight of Jennie because she’d been searching the bushes? She was a bright kid, and Alex’s house was visible from the playground. Would she have taken herself off home?
Jennie started running.
Her cold breath seemed to be ripping shreds out of her lungs by the time she reached Alex’s house. Jennie had her key in the lock as soon as she could unknot her fingers. She slammed it open.
‘Mollie?’ she yelled. ‘Mollie!’
She made herself stay still and wait for a response. As she stood there, panting, her brain caught up with her surroundings. There were no lights on anywhere. Everything was just as they’d left it.
‘Mollie?’ Her voice was quieter now. She knew she wouldn’t get an answer but she started walking around, opening doors, flipping light switches, looking in corners and behind bits of furniture. And when she’d covered the whole of the ground floor, she went upstairs and repeated the process.
Nothing. No sign of Mollie.
She was going to have to phone Alex.
Mollie’s bedroom had been the first place she’d checked up here, and she returned there now, wandering over to the large window and cooling her forehead on the glass as she stared into the back garden. There was no putting it off now. She reached into her pocket and dialled his number, her stomach icing over. Coward that she was, she hoped fervently that it’d go to voicemail. No such luck.
‘Hi, what’s up?’ He sounded distracted, as if he was reading something. Nothing like the low-voiced, sexy greetings he used to give her before they were married.
Jennie closed her eyes. ‘It’s Mollie.’
His voice changed instantly. ‘What’s happened?’ She had no doubt she had his full attention now.
‘I…I can’t find her. We were at the park and she ran off.’
There was an ominous silence on the other end of the line. Alex must be furious with her. Two days and she’d failed at being a mother. It made her pitiful attempt at being a good wife look stellar in comparison.
‘Where have you looked?’
She banged her head against the glass. ‘Everywhere! I don’t know what to do.’
Why? Why had Mollie run away? Why today? Was there something Jennie had missed? Something she’d done wrong?
Suddenly, an image of another girl popped into her mind. A little blonde girl with a blue suitcase clutched in her hand, scurrying away from her house, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was following her.
Wow. Where had that memory come from?
Running away had been a favourite game of Jennie’s when she’d been a child. She’d pack her bunny and her favourite book and a bag of toffees, just in case, in the little blue case she kept her ballet kit in, and she’d hide herself away somewhere in the vast gardens of her father’s house. Usually, the pool house. Maybe the gazebo in summer.
Okay, it hadn’t exactly been a game. She truly had been unhappy in those moments. But the running away had been more about wanting to be found again, knowing that someone cared enough to notice she was missing, cared enough to come and find her. A silly, childish tactic to demand her father prove his love.
She knew now that her father had loved her the best he could, that he’d struggled with his own grief after her mother’s death, just hadn’t known what to do with a wilful little tearaway who wanted everything he had to give and more. He’d tried. But it had been easier for him to spoil her with things rather than attention, something she’d loved and hated at the same time. Maybe it had been easier for him to do that than spend time with the person who reminded him the most of everything he’d lost.
A single tear slid down her face. More often than not, she’d
had a long wait out in the pool house. Many times she’d crept back in the house at nightfall, tired and hungry, and had crawled under her duvet and lay there, shivering.
She pulled her forehead off the window and straightened. A blob in the dark garden suddenly became recognisable—the tree house. Well, not so much a tree house as a play house on stilts, built up against a large horse chestnut tree, with a small veranda at the front with wooden steps leading down to the lawn. There was one place she hadn’t checked. Somewhere Mollie might have gone if all the doors were locked.
‘Hold on, Alex. I’ve had an idea.’
Jennie was at the top of the stairs by the time she finished talking. She didn’t know where the key to the French windows in the lounge was, so she ran out of the back door and round the side of the house. The lawn was soft and muddy, but she didn’t slow until she was standing at the bottom of the steps that led up to the little wooden house.
‘Jennie?’ Alex’s voice was harsh in her ear.
Was she kidding herself? Was this just wishful thinking? She stood still, listening for any creak, trying to decipher any movement in the shadows inside the tree house.
‘Jennie!’
She couldn’t seem to answer him, her voice stolen by sheer panic. The wind rustled the bare branches up above her head and cooled her cheeks. In the distance, a car rumbled along the road to the village centre. Her heart thumped.
And then…
The shades of grey inside the tree house shifted. Or had she just been standing here, staring at that little Perspex window for too long? She ran up the five low steps to the veranda. She stooped to open the half-sized door and stuck her head inside. There was a scrabbling noise—please, don’t let it be a rat!—and then silence.
She was too nervous to do much more than croak. ‘Mollie?’
More scrabbling. ‘Go away!’
A flood of endorphins hit Jennie so hard she almost fell over. She compromised by crumpling onto the floor and edging a little closer to where she thought the shuffling had come from.