‘What happened this time?’ Dylan ventured.
Cleo scrubbed at another mark. ‘She had waffles for breakfast and left a trail of syrup on the countertop and more dripping all over the floor. I stood in it barefoot. For all I know she did too and has walked it all over the house, which will make even more work for me later.’
Dylan called Ruby downstairs and repeated much the same lecture as Cleo had just given her. And from the glare Ruby was directing Cleo’s way, she didn’t appreciate it.
So much for their day of bonding bringing them closer together. Whatever good that day had done had soon been forgotten and Cleo could only put it down to her and Dylan talking at length about the wedding last night. That, or the fact Ruby had come home from her mum’s with even more negative thoughts on board.
‘You need to apologise to Cleo, please.’ Dylan told Ruby.
‘I wiped up the mess.’
‘Clearly not.’ He indicated Cleo still with a cloth in her hand, still cleaning up syrup. Ruby had made a token effort with a dry cloth that had done nothing more than smear the mess even farther.
‘Sorry,’ she said reluctantly, barely looking at Cleo now.
When Ruby went back upstairs Dylan wrapped Cleo in a hug. ‘I thought she was settling down a bit.’
‘So did I.’ At least she felt a hundred times better in his arms right now. ‘I thought I’d made some headway at last.’ Defeated, she said, ‘We can’t ignore her behaviour and assume it will go away.’
When they heard Emily crying on the monitor Dylan stopped Cleo before she could leap into action. ‘I’ll go, you have a shower.’ Tabitha came toddling through from the playroom but he whisked her up before Cleo could. ‘Go, or you might never get the chance again.’
She kissed Tabitha’s chubby cheek and felt herself melt at the sweet smell of her daughter, at an age you thought was challenging until you were faced with a ten-year-old who had a whole new agenda. She headed upstairs for a shower and tried to wash away the rising stress.
The shower worked, or at least it did until after drying her hair she walked past Ruby’s room and saw what she’d been doing. Over the time Cleo had been living with Dylan, she and Ruby had put together photo collections of the entire family. It had been their thing, their bonding project. It was easy to neglect photographs nowadays and keep them all on devices, but they’d printed some of their leaf-peeping outing in the fall, others of the summer months when they’d gone hiking in Stratton Brook State Park and holidaying on the island of Nantucket. Those were times Cleo had never thought her family would feel strain like this, at least not until they hit the tumultuous teenage years.
And now, here were all the photographs, ripped into shreds, scattered over Ruby’s bedroom floor. And by the sounds of it Ruby was downstairs ready to go to school. Had she left all this on purpose, for Cleo to see, to upset her?
Cleo called Dylan upstairs and when he saw what she’d done he yelled at Ruby to come up here now. ‘What the hell have you done?’ Ruby’s bottom lip quivered, she wouldn’t make eye contact with Cleo. ‘I asked you a question.’
Cleo had never seen Dylan so angry, furious with his eldest daughter but helpless to know what to do. Still fuming, he told his daughter, ‘We’ll talk after school. Go get your bag, I’m taking you today.’
When she did what she was told Dylan crouched down next to Cleo. She was on her hands and knees sifting through the pictures, tears streaming down her cheeks. Ruby had cut her out of each and every photograph. He pulled her to him and she leaned in to his muscly chest; she felt safe, loved, but still distraught that Ruby could do this.
Dylan held her tight. ‘We’ll sort this out, I promise you.’ But the sobs didn’t stop and they only pulled apart when a voice behind them said sorry.
Cleo, tear-stained face, looked to Ruby but rushed past her to the bathroom. She couldn’t face a ten-year-old kid right now. There was something about hacking her out of the pictures, all those special memories, that was brutal. Did Ruby hate her this much?
When Dylan called through the door that they were leaving for the school run and he was taking Tabitha and Emily with him too, she managed to get out an ‘OK’ but she didn’t come out of the bathroom until she heard the car doors shutting outside on the driveway and she knew it was safe to do so.
Cleo stood at the bedroom window at the front of the house watching the car head into the distance, the end of the street where predictably it turned right, and she was left completely alone.
And then she found herself doing something she never thought she would. She picked up the phone to call Prue.
*
‘I don’t know why this couldn’t wait,’ Prue huffed as she stepped through the front door into Cleo’s home, ‘this is my only day off work and I was on my way to get my nails done.’
Jeez. Nails? Really! ‘I apologise but, no, this can’t wait.’ She hoped this would be easier with just the two of them. Cleo had fully intended to have Dylan sort this out but maybe it would be better coming from her. And besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of stewing all day without taking some kind of action, and with the market stalls and the store manned for now, this was her chance. ‘Coffee?’ she offered.
‘No thanks.’ Prue looked at her watch as if to make a point.
Cleo sat at the table and emptied out the box in the centre, the photograph pieces scattering all over the surface.
‘What are these?’ Prue asked.
‘Take a look.’
She sifted through. ‘They all seem to be photographs of you.’
