by M K Farrar
She smiled and leaned in and kissed him. “Yeah, I’m great. That was kind of... unexpected.”
“It certainly was.” He paused then said, “Hey, Kristen, don’t go saying this was a mistake in the morning, okay?”
“I won’t,” she assured him.
They crept off to their separate beds, hands held, exchanging kisses and goodnights. Kristen forced herself to let go of his fingers and walk away, even though they were only across the hall. She couldn’t have Ollie waking up to find them in bed together. Not that there were many hours of the night left.
But as she fell asleep, she remembered the reason they’d both been down in the kitchen in the middle of the night, and the smile fell away from her lips.
Chapter Twenty-two
“But I’m tired!” Ollie’s wail filled the house. “I don’t wanna go to school!”
“You have to,” Kristen said with a sigh, but she was already relenting. She was tired, too, and she really didn’t want to have to walk up to school and face everyone. But she also knew how it would look to everyone if she called in and said Ollie was sick. They’d think she was sulking because of her suspension.
Kristen was torn.
Ollie let out a massive yawn and rubbed his hand over his bloodshot eyes. The poor kid did look exhausted. The thought of him being at school, emotional and over-tired, while Felix was still lording it up among all the boys was too much for her. Ollie’s nose was still swollen across the bridge from where he’d been hit.
“Okay,” she relented. “Let’s have a sofa day.”
A smile broke across his face, and her heart lifted.
“Really?” he said.
“Yeah, really. I have some things I need to take care of first, though, okay?”
“Can I watch the television?”
She didn’t normally let him have TV during the week, but right now she needed him to be distracted so he didn’t overhear the call she was putting in to the police about what had happened last night. Thinking of last night, her mind went to Haiden. He’d left first thing that morning, so they hadn’t got a chance to talk, only exchanging a few stolen, knowing glances. A part of her was mortified that she slept with a man almost ten years her junior, and that he was a student she was supposed to be taking care of, but the other part of her fizzed with happiness.
With Ollie distracted, she called the school and told Anna that Ollie wouldn’t be in today. Then she made the call to the police, using the local non-emergency number. She waited in a long queue and paced the house until she was eventually put through. To her disappointment, she was only given a crime reference number instead of the promises to send someone around that she was hoping for. It seemed the police had more important things to deal with than a broken window.
Shortly after she put the phone down, it rang again.
“Hello, Ms Scott, this is Duncan from the garage. Just calling to let you know that your car is ready.”
“Oh, right. I’ll try to come and pick it up at some point today. Thank you.”
Now she needed to call her insurance company, and arrange a glazier, and pick up the car. It was a good thing she didn’t have to go into work as well, or she’d have never got it all done. But deep down, she didn’t want to do any of it.
Leaving the phone where it was, she went into the living room where Ollie was watching cartoons, his legs covered by a blanket. She climbed onto the opposite end of the sofa and wriggled her toes in underneath the throw to join him.
“What are we watching?” she asked him.
He named a show she’d never heard of before. Not that she even really cared what they were watching. Her head was filled with a jangle of thoughts, from Haiden to wondering who might be the person responsible for breaking her window and slashing her tyres.
A knock came at the front door, so she unravelled her legs from the blanket she was sharing with Ollie and went to answer it.
“Violet!” she exclaimed, opening the door to find her sister standing on the front step. “What are you doing here?”
Violet didn’t wait to be invited in, but instead barged past her and into the living room.
“Hi, Ollie,” she said, not sounding in the slightest bit surprised to see him lying on the couch, watching television.
“Hi, Aunty Vi,” he replied, barely tearing his gaze from the screen.
Violet backed out, caught Kristen by the arm, and dragged her into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Kristen hissed, yanking back her arm.
“What am I doing?” she sounded incredulous. “What are you doing? I phoned the school trying to track you down since you haven’t been answering any of my phone calls, and your friend, Anna, picked up. She told me what happened with that other mother, and that you’d called and said Ollie was sick this morning. He doesn’t look very sick to me!” She caught sight of the boarded-up window. “And what happened to your kitchen window?”
“Don’t you already know?” Her tone was hard. If Violet was the one responsible for all the things happening around her, then she’d already be well aware of her broken window.
Violet blinked in bafflement. “Why would I know?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Never mind. I’m not sure what happened. It broke during the night.”
“Jesus.” Violet looked back to Kristen. “So, what’s going on with the school?”
She folded her arms, not even bothering to offer to make Violet a cup of tea. “Ollie is being bullied by another boy at school. An older boy. No one at the school is doing anything about it, which was why I had the fight with the boy’s mother, and now I’ve been suspended. They’re all corrupt up there, Violet. They’re all in on it together. This mother, Rachelle, she heads up all the PTA stuff, and she’d practically snuggled right into the head teacher’s pocket. No one has done anything to help Ollie, and I was at my wits’ end. Yes, I might have gone too far, but what could I do?”
“And why is Ollie home now?”
She exhaled a long, deep sigh. “I didn’t have the heart to send him in. He was crying this morning, saying he didn’t want to go. He’s finding it even harder now that I’m not there. I’m thinking of pulling him out, maybe even home schooling him while I try to find him a place at a different school.”
Violet stared at her. “So, you’re going to take him out of school and hole him up in this house with just you for company. Who does that remind you of?”
Kristen jerked back as though she’d been slapped. “This is nothing like she was!”
“Yeah, right. What’s next? You already monitor his access to television like a hawk, you won’t let him have any kind of games console or tablet—”
“He’s five years old,” she interrupted in disbelief. “Since when has it become normal for every five-year-old to have access to those kinds of things, and what makes you think it even should be that way?”
“Remember what Mum used to be like with us.”
She snorted. “I could hardly forget!”
“She did everything she could to keep us away from the outside world, from all these things that could damage us, and look how that worked out. She wanted to keep us as little girls, trying to protect us from growing up, thinking that once we got older, we’d be exposed to more and more danger. Do you really think that did us any good?”
“This is nothing like Mum was. I’m nothing like Mum was!”
She thought back to her years growing up. They didn’t do the stuff normal kids did. They didn’t go out to fast food restaurants or even go to a normal secondary school, their mother insisting on home schooling them both. The only toys they were allowed were dolls, and stuffed teddies, and books. Even when she’d turned thirteen, her mother’s gift to her had been a doll, and Kristen had been well over dolls by then. She’d craved makeup and CDs and concert tickets. She couldn’t imagine what her mother would have been like if she’d been raising her and her sister in these days of the internet. She’d h
ave lost her mind even quicker than she did. Things got worse when Kristen had started her periods. Her mother wouldn’t even acknowledge that she needed sanitary products, laughing off her requests and saying things like ‘you’re too young to worry about that kind of thing.’ Kristen, and then later Violet, had been reduced to using balled up wads of tissue paper or stealing their mother’s supply, when they dared. On occasions, Kristen had even managed to sneak down to the corner shop, buying some with money she’d taken from her mother’s purse, or even stealing the tampons—something she’d never been proud of.
The idea that she was putting her son through the same kind of childhood was ludicrous.
“You can just leave if you’ve only come here to accuse me of...of...I don’t know... overprotecting my son!”
“What we went through wasn’t overprotection, Kristen. You know that.”
“Yes, and I also know that this situation isn’t even remotely similar.”
“I’m just worried about you, sis. And I’m worried about Ollie, too. You’re shutting yourself off from more and more people. It’s not even like you have any real friends.”
Her mouth dropped open. How many times was Violet going to throw something unbelievable at her today? “What are you talking about? I have friends.”
She shoved her hands on her hips, her eyebrow raised. “Who? Name a single one you could call in a crisis.”
“Anna!” she declared. “I could call on Anna. She’s always said for me to call her if I needed anything.”
“Anna is a work colleague. How often do you see her outside of school hours, or anyone else, for that matter?”
“There are other mums who invite Ollie and me around for playdates,” she protested. “They’ve invited me out for drinks and stuff as well.”
“But you never go.”
She slapped her hand down on the kitchen counter, suddenly frustrated. “Because I can never afford to! It’s all right for you, Violet, lecturing me, but you have no idea what it’s like to have the responsibility of looking after someone else. I’ve done it my whole life. I took care of you when we were younger and Mum was incapable, and then I had Ollie, and now I take care of him. I don’t go out and see people because that all costs money, and unlike you, I don’t want to drink my money away in expensive bars and pubs. I need to buy food, and clothes, and shoes—do you have any idea how expensive a decent pair of kids’ school shoes are these days? His shoes cost twice the amount I spend on mine, and he seems to go through a pair every six months.”
Her face burned and she was breathing hard, her heart galloping in her chest. All of this was so unfair. All she ever tried to do was the right thing for Ollie, and yet she was being attacked from every level. What the hell more did people expect from her? She felt as though if she opened a vein and bled for them, it still wouldn’t be enough.
Since when had the tables turned so wildly? She was the one who had her life mostly sorted, and she was the one who was always picking Violet up, not the other way around.
“I think you need to go,” she said, so angry she couldn’t even look her sister in the eye.
Violet gave a hiss of exasperation. “Fine, but I’m only trying to look out for you both, remember that. Don’t keep shutting everyone out, Kristen.”
Violet spun away, shaking her head, and stormed from the room. Without even saying goodbye to her nephew, she slammed out of the front door.
Kristen put her face in her hands and tried not to cry. She was nothing like their mother—nothing! Their mum was paranoid someone was going to abduct the girls, that they’d be groomed by paedophiles and end up in a cellar owned by some perverted old man. Their mother’s desperate attempt to both protect them from the outside world and try to pretend neither of them was really growing up into young women must have stemmed from somewhere, but neither she nor her sister had ever found out the cause of their mother’s madness before she’d died. In later years, Kristen couldn’t help but think their mum had been abused herself at some point during her childhood, and all she’d done was try to protect her two young daughters from going through the same, but she’d never spoken of it, and of course, things had gone way too far. Now, her mother had been dead for almost fourteen years, from a sudden brain haemorrhage, and they’d never get any answers. Kristen wasn’t sure she even wanted to know. What good would it do to find out what their mother went through? It wasn’t as though they could change anything now.
Movement came at the kitchen door, and Kristen swiped away her tears with the back of her hand, hoping Ollie hadn’t seen them.
“What were you and Aunty Vi fighting about?” he asked, his bottom lip jutting out, his eyes round with worry.
“Oh, it was nothing, kiddo. Just grownup stuff.”
“I heard you mention my name.”
She put her arms out to him. “Come here.” He stepped into her embrace and folded her son against her and squeezed him tight, leaning down to bury her nose in his soft, silky hair. “I was just explaining to your Aunty Vi that people who have children see things differently to people who don’t.” She released him slightly so she could look into his face. “You see, you are the most important person in my life, and it doesn’t matter what else is going on, I will always think of you and what’s best for you first. Your Aunty Vi doesn’t get that. She thinks life should just be about having fun.”
He risked a smile. “It’s good to have fun.”
“Yes, it is,” she considered her words, “but not if that fun hurts someone else.”
Chapter Twenty-three
It took her a while to calm herself down from her confrontation with Violet. Now she had a new thing to worry about. Was she starting to become her mother? It had never really been one of her fears, even after she’d had Ollie. The horror she’d been through as a teenager had been enough to convince her that she’d never turn out that way, but now Violet was putting ideas in her head. Could it be that she was going that way without even being conscious of it?
Another knock came at her door. It was still mid-morning, so she assumed it was the postman with something that wouldn’t fit through her letter box. She put down the book she was reading and got up from the sofa to answer the door.
“Stephen!” The last person she’d been expecting to see was her ex-husband. He struggled to show up on the days they’d arranged, never mind the ones they didn’t. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard you’d been suspended from work.”
Immediately, she bristled. “How do you know that?”
“I spoke to Violet.”
Fucking Violet.
“Well, you shouldn’t have.”
“I wouldn’t have needed to if you’d been honest with me about what was going on with Ollie at school,” he said, barging past her shoulder to enter the house. “She says you’re talking about home schooling.”
“It was just something that came up in conversation.”
“What’s wrong with you, Kristen? It’s like you’re not even stable anymore.”
She wanted to retaliate with, it’s hardly surprising when someone is breaking my belongings and slashing my tyres. But she kept her mouth shut. He’d have loved to have heard all of that. For all she knew, he was the one responsible for everything that was happening.
“I’m fine. I’ve just been standing up for our son, that’s all.”
“Daddy!” Ollie’s voice came from the other room, and a second later he flew out of the door to hug Stephen.
“Hey, big guy,” Stephen said, hugging him in return.
“Are you here to take me to your house?” Ollie asked.
It was an understandable train of thought, considering that was the only time Stephen was ever here.
“Nah, buddy,” Stephen said. “Not today. I’m just here to talk to your mum.”
“Everyone wants to talk to mum today,” Ollie observed.
She forced a smile. “Guess I’m popular. Now give your dad and me a moment to chat, oka
y?”
Ollie let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. “Grownup stuff again.” But he shuffled back into the lounge.
“Where’s the other one?” Stephen asked, his gaze flicking up the stairs.
“By other one, I assume you mean Haiden?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
“He’s in classes right now—not that it’s any of your business.”
Stephen gave a sigh, just like his son only moments earlier, and pushed his hand through his hair. “Look, Kristen, I was going to let this drop, but considering Ollie isn’t even happy at school and you’re not working there anymore...”
She lifted her hand to cut him off. “I’ve only been suspended, not fired. I have every intention of going back soon.”
“When they let you, you mean.”
Kristen scowled and folded her arms. “I know where you’re going with this, and no, Ollie is not coming to live with you during the week so he can go to Lyla’s school.”
“Why not? It seems like the sensible choice. If he’s not happy where he is, what’s the point in making him stay there?”
“Because I’m his mother, and he needs me.”
“Yeah, you’re doing a really great job of that so far.”
Rage surged up inside her. “How fucking dare you! You’ve been a part time father, at best. There’s one little hiccup, and you think you can come charging in here and scoop him up. You’re not taking my son away from me, do you hear me? I’ll die before I let you.”
He stared at her, shaking his head. “Jesus, Kristen. I always knew you were a little unstable when we were together, but this really takes the biscuit.”
“Stop saying that! I am not fucking unstable!”
But right now, she felt unhinged. She clenched her hands by her sides and ground her teeth, doing everything in her power to stop herself from lunging at Stephen beating his chest with her fists.
“I’m just trying to be practical, Kristen. You’re obviously a bit over-emotional right now, but give it some thought. Perhaps, when you’ve calmed down, you’ll see that what I’m suggesting makes sense.”