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“Uncie Roman!” Maddy called and I barely had the energy to nod at her.
“Come on, love,” Mum said gently, and we trooped back to the car and headed home.
“Did you see the flashing lights, Uncie Roman?” Maddy asked from the back seat.
“You had to bring her?” I hissed at Mum.
“You had to end up at the police station again?” she hissed right back.
Look, that was fair, and she deserved thanks rather than hostility. But I was me, and I wasn’t going to take it quietly.
“It wasn’t my fault this time,” I told her sullenly.
She sighed. “Officer Daniels said. Are you okay?” She reached over to the cut on my eyebrow as she was driving, and I pulled my face out of her reach.
“Just concentrate on the road, woman,” I told her.
“But…a broken bottle, Roman?” she whispered.
I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
“Do you need stitches?”
“Paramedics didn’t think so.”
“Rio says snitches get stitches,” Maddy said from the backseat, and I cringed but tried not to laugh at the same time.
“I’m sorry, he what?” Mum asked.
“He told me the other week.”
Mum threw me a look and I tried to smile.
“We’ll talk about this later,” she told me.
Except we didn’t talk about this later, because Rocco called Mum before we even got home.
“What in the ever-loving hell are you teaching that boy?” his voice snapped over the Bluetooth.
“Grandad?” Maddy asked.
“Not alone, Rocco,” Mum said sardonically. “In the car with Roman and Maddy.”
“Hi, Grandad!” Maddy called.
But of course, he ignored her. “Call me when you get home.” Then he was gone again.
Mum audibly breathed in deeply, then out again. Then in. Then out.
“That was Grandad,” Maddy said.
“Sure was,” Mum replied.
Maddy seemed to sense the mood of the car and she said nothing else. She was asleep by the time we got home, and I took her back to bed for Mum. No doubt she’d been in it before they’d come to pick me up, and I’ll bet she’d thought it a great adventure.
By the time I was pulling her door to, Mum was already on the phone to Rocco. She’d closed every door between Maddy’s room and her ensuite, and I still heard her voice through all three of them. She was swearing, uncharacteristic for her, and clearly Rocco was giving her the third degree.
I crept up on her door and heard her yelling. “Well, maybe he was right, Rocco! Being completely absent from his life would have been better than just popping into remind him how much he sucks!”
