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‘Yes, I want to take Ellie straight home.’
‘Okay.’ Cass turned towards the fire engine. ‘See you later.’
He caught her arm. ‘Cass. Thank you.’ There was nothing more he could say. When he’d seen Ellie in Cass’s arms his heart had almost burst with relief.
‘Yeah. Any time.’ She grinned up at him and he knew that she understood.
By the time Jack got Ellie home she was starting to ask questions, and to realise that her experience hadn’t been just another game. Was her teacher hurt? Why did her school fall down—was their house going to fall down too? He tried to answer everything as honestly as he could without feeding his daughter’s fears.
She wanted to hold on to him, and he settled down in front of the TV to watch her favourite film with her. Even that didn’t seem to get her singing and dancing around the room, as it usually did.
Cass was a little later than usual and, when he heard the front door close, Ellie didn’t get up and run to greet her. When she walked into the sitting room, she was smiling.
‘Hey, Ellie.’ She squatted down in front of her. ‘How are you doing?’
‘All right.’ Ellie turned her solemn eyes on to Cass without letting go of Jack’s shirt.
‘I’ve got something for you.’ Cass was holding one hand behind her back.
Ellie craned around, trying to see what it was. ‘Sometimes we meet kids who are really, really brave. And we give them a special certificate.’
&n
bsp; ‘Really?’ Ellie’s eyes widened, and Jack grinned. So that was what she’d been up to.
‘Yes.’ Cass produced a roll of paper from behind her back, tied with a red ribbon. ‘So this is for you.’
Ellie took the paper and Jack pulled open the bow with his free hand and unrolled it on Ellie’s lap. Her name was on it in large letters framed with curlicues. He ran his finger under the words.
‘Junior Firefighter...’ he read out loud. ‘That’s you, Ellie. And, look, everyone from the fire station has signed it.’ He pointed to the group of signatures, strewn with kisses and hearts. Cass’s name was there too, the writing careful and rounded.
He stopped to wonder for a moment how handwriting could possibly be sexy, and then turned his mind to the image at the bottom.
‘And there’s the fire engine.’ The artwork was clearly downloaded from the Internet, but that wasn’t the point. Cass had taken the time to print it off on thick paper, and to get it signed by everyone. And Ellie was proud of herself now, not fretful and worrying.
‘Say thank you to Cass.’ He turned his face up to her, mouthing the words for himself, wondering if she knew just how heartfelt they were. She smiled at him.
‘What’s for supper?’
Everything was clearly okay in Cass’s world if she was hungry. Jack had come to recognise the signs. ‘Pasta. Fifteen minutes. Why don’t you take Ellie upstairs and you can find a place on her bedroom wall for the certificate. I’ll get a frame for it, eh, Ellie?’
The bumps and bangs from upstairs, along with the sound of Ellie’s chatter, indicated that there was rather more going on than just the choosing of a place on the wall. Jack laid the table in the kitchen and took the pasta bake from the oven, leaving it to cool. Curious to see what they were doing, he walked upstairs to fetch them instead of calling them down.
The curtains were drawn in Ellie’s bedroom, and Jack’s hand hovered over the light switch as he popped his head around the door. Then he saw the makeshift arrangement of sheets, held up with a couple of chairs and some twine, forming a tent at the end of Ellie’s bed. The glow of torchlight and the mutter of voices came from inside.
For a moment he was transfixed. So this was what it was like. A family. He remembered playing in a tent in the garden with his dad before everything had been shattered and their home had become just a house where grief had pushed the laughter away.
Suddenly it hurt. That swell of pain, all the regret for things he’d never done with his father. For the first time, Jack wondered whether his father had really wanted to leave them like that. Whether, in those last moments, when death must have seemed inevitable, he had thought of his wife and children.
For a moment the feelings choked him. It had been so much easier to blame his father, to be angry at the choices he’d made. But perhaps he’d just been a dad, after all.
Quietly, he walked into the room. The sudden clatter of wind chimes startled him and Ellie came cannoning out of the makeshift tent, almost knocking it down. Jack hadn’t noticed the trip wire at his feet.
‘We got you, Daddy...’ Ellie wrapped her arms around his leg, clinging on tight.
‘Yeah, you got me.’ He bent down to tickle her and she wriggled with laughter. Then he put one finger over his lips, assuming a stage whisper. ‘Where’s Cass?’
‘In the tent,’ Ellie whispered back, her hand shielding her mouth.
