“Well, one of my kids needs to give me grandchildren one day,” she muttered, and I sighed, loudly enough to make sure she heard it for the admonishment it was.
“Now, now,” Dad said, always reluctant to get involved, “let’s leave it. Jackie here is doing plenty for this family.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, raising a skewered piece of sausage to him in salute.
“He’ll barely have time for babies of his own once he takes over the family business,” he continued.
I lowered my fork. I’d been training up for the last few months to do some of Dad’s jobs; when I’d come home, the deal had been that he’d get me trained as a joiner if I took over for him one day. I’d always thought he was just trying to make sure I wouldn’t move away as quickly as I’d moved home, but when he’d announced last year that he’d set a target retirement date, I’d realised he’d been serious.
Mum and Dad had done so much for me, Dad especially. I’d built a house on their land, eaten their food, used Dad’s business as a backup plan when full-time travel hadn’t worked out. It would have been ungrateful not to go through with it.
But every time he mentioned me taking over, I felt it in my chest. Like I couldn’t breathe; like it was being cracked open. And the best I could do was try to make sure he couldn’t tell.
Chapter4
Morgan
I’d thought when I started working at an animal charity after uni that there would be a lot more … well, animals. But instead of cuddling kittens and playing with puppies, it was mostly spreadsheets and being hung up on. Sure, I’d read the job description – “the Fundraising Manager’s role is to help create and maintain a pipeline of regular contributions to the organisation” – but I’d assumed the animal part came with the territory, even just in tiny doses.
Not that it mattered; I would have done pretty much any job if it meant Cara and I got to work together after uni. But now, four years later, Cara was gone, and I’d yet to be given an opportunity within my working hours to do anything with the animals themselves. Instead I ate lunch at my desk twice a week so I could use my break to go walk dogs at the actual rescue a few streets over.
Today I had Chloe with me for the first time – Cara had always been my Friday dog walking buddy – and we were walking four sausage dog mixes between us named Eeny, Meeny, Miny, and Moe. We were walking along the path that followed the River Wye through town, and even though it was only late May, the sun was beating down on us as if it were the height of summer. I was also being blinded by Chloe’s glossy red hair as the light bounced off of it.
“Last session was great,” Chloe said as we paused for Moe to do his business against a tree trunk. I tightened my grip on Eeny and Miny’s leads as they angled towards the river.
“Yeah, it really was,” I said. “Honestly, it’s pretty addictive. I wish I could play every day.”
Chloe laughed. “I’m sure you’d get sick of us,” she said, “and poor Fatima would have a full-time job preparing for our sessions. She spends enough of her time wrangling children; she doesn’t need five full-grown ones to deal with.”
“Very true.” But still, spending as much time as possible in that fantasy world, where I was strong and brave and badass, sure beat chasing down tiny pledges from people who didn’t even remember signing up to sponsor the charity, especially now that Cara was gone. At least I had Chloe, who had joined about a year ago.
Chloe turned around and started walking backwards in front of me, her bright red lips turned down in a frown, clearly picking up the angst I was putting down.
“Are you doing okay?” she asked. “I’m sure Cara leaving has been really hard.”
I scoffed, ready to brush it off. Chloe and I had never been close in that way; I’d never talked about my feelings with anyone but Cara, and even then it had always been half-veiled in jokes. But Chloe seemed to genuinely care about my answer, so I paused mid-shrug and nodded instead.
“Yeah, it’s been hard,” I admitted, “but she’s only in London. It’s not like she’s moved around the world.” I didn’t mention that, in the five days she’d been gone now, she’d only texted me back once, and missed two different FaceTime dates.
“Yeah, but you lived together and everything. Must feel like quite the change, even if she’s only a couple of hours away.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
We rounded the corner back towards the rescue, and I reached out to grab the door, Eeny and Miny’s leads tangling in front of me as I did.
“Well, if you’re ever in the mood for company,” Chloe said as she strolled through the door I struggled to hold open, “the rest of us in the game hang out on the weekends sometimes, too. We’re actually going away this weekend – you should come if you’re free!”
I remembered hearing about that – hell, they’d planned it in front of me. Grey had a voucher for some holiday rental company that was expiring soon, so they’d picked a place less than an hour away on the river to spend the bank holiday weekend. They’d asked me then if I wanted to go, but like the pub invites, it had felt like a formality.
Luckily Lauren, whose shift at the front desk had apparently started whilst we were out, interrupted before I had to turn down the second invitation from Chloe this week.
“I’m glad you came back fast,” she said, flinging her head to the side to get her short, floppy blonde hair out of the way, presumably so she could better see the clipboard in her hands, where we’d signed in earlier. “We’ve got a couple of new dog arrivals that could use some love.”
“These guys only have little legs,” I said. “We figured they probably didn’t need as much as the bigger dogs.”
She looked up at the dogs we’d brought back, then at me, then at Chloe, where her eyes lingered for a fraction of a second longer than they had on me.
“Well, I’ve got some more little ones for you,” she said, leading us down the corridor of pens, back to business. We passed some of the rescues who had been there for months, most of whom were mongrels and senior dogs, and then a few pedigrees and puppies, who I knew would get snapped up straight away. She stopped at the last pen, inside which two small, long-haired dogs cowered in the corner. Their biscuit-coloured fur was tangled and matted, and they curled into one another as they looked up at us. A printed sign on the half-door said “Pablo & Percy”.
