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Not that Malachi knew that he knew any of it, of course, and he wasn’t about to mention it to his big brother. Not here, anyway. Not now. Not when it included Saskia. If the pair of them had wanted him to know they’d ever got together then they wouldn’t have pretended they didn’t know each other back when Malachi had brought Izzy’s mum up to the ward and Saskia had explained to her what was going on with the little girl.
He’d tackle Malachi about it some other time, when he could wind him up a little more about it. The way the two of them usually did.
Sol glowered into his coffee rather than meet Malachi’s characteristically sharp gaze.
‘I haven’t forgotten anything.’ He spoke quietly. ‘I remember everything you went through to raise us, Mal. I know you sold your soul to the devil just to get enough money to buy food for our bellies.’
For a moment, he could feel his brother’s eyes boring into him, but still Sol couldn’t bring himself to look up.
‘Bit melodramatic, aren’t you, bratik?’ Malachi gritted out. ‘Is this about Izzy?’
‘I guess.’
His second lie of the night to his brother.
‘Yeah. Well,’ Malachi bit out at length. ‘No need to get soppy about it.’
‘Right.’
Downing the last of the cold coffee and grimacing, Sol crushed the plastic cup and lobbed it into the bin across the hallway. The perfect drop shot. Malachi grunted his approval.
‘You ever wondered what might have happened if we’d had a different life?’ The question was out before he could stop himself. ‘Not had a drug addict for a mother, or had to take care of her and keep her away from her dealer every spare minute?’
‘No,’ Malachi shut him down instantly. ‘I don’t. I don’t ever think about it. It’s in our past. Done. Gone.’
‘What the hell kind of childhood was that for us?’ Sol continued regardless. ‘Our biggest concern should have been whether we wanted an Action Man or Starship Lego for Christmas, not keeping her junkie dealer away from her.’
‘Well, it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have asked if I’d known you were going to get maudlin on me.’
‘You were eight, Mal. I was five.’
‘I know how old we were,’ Malachi growled. ‘What’s got into you, Sol? It’s history. Just leave it alone.’
‘Right.’
Sol pressed his lips into a grim line as the brothers lapsed back into silence. Malachi could claim their odious childhood was in the rear-view mirror as much as he liked, but they both knew that if they’d really locked the door on their past then they wouldn’t have founded Care to Play, their centre where young carers from the age of merely five up to sixteen could just unwind and be kids instead of responsible for a parent or a sibling.
If there had been anything like that around when he and Malachi had been kids, he liked to think it could have made a difference. Then again, he and Mal had somehow defied the odds, h
adn’t they?
Would the strait-laced Anouk think him less of an arrogant playboy if she knew that about him?
Geez, why did he even care?
Shooting to his feet abruptly, Sol shoved his hands in his pockets.
‘I’m going to check on some of my patients upstairs, then I’ll be back to see Izzy.’
He didn’t wait for his brother to respond, but he could picture Malachi’s head dip even as he strode down the corridor and through the fire door onto the stairwell.
He wasn’t ready for Anouk to come bounding up the steps and, by the way she stopped dead when she saw him, she was equally startled.
‘You’re still here?’ she faltered.
‘Indeed.’
‘I’d have thought you’d have gone home by now. I heard Izzy’s mum arrived.’
